The New Management Paradigm

[UPDATE 4/23/18] Dell is now shipping systems with Windows AutoPilot for customers in the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, with other countries to follow soon. Customers who are interested in AutoPilot should contact their Dell sales representative for more details.

Today’s workplace is changing fast – in all industries, organizations need to embrace new technology to be successful in their business. The workforce transformation is happening everywhere. But in most cases, their business isn’t IT – it’s finance, retail, manufacturing, hospitality or healthcare. For them, IT is the cost of doing business.

IT departments today are faced with more complexity and constrained resources than ever before. Within their environment there are multiple devices, multiple operating systems, and they need to find a way to manage that complexity with constrained resources. They need to simplify the deployment and management of PCs so that they can devote their time, energy and budget to higher-priority activities. And on top of that, their end users have high expectations. They want to be in newer tech faster and their deployment experience is purchasing a mobile phone, taking it home and downloading their apps – why can’t getting a new office PC be that easy?

With that, organizations are looking at new ways to simplify PC management to save them time and money, and make their end users happy. Dell is responding to this industry shift by offering new ways to deploy and manage Windows 10 PCs – and more importantly offer our customers a choice in how they do so because we believe that one size doesn’t fit all.

Today, we introduced with VMware new ways to deploy and manage Dell Windows 10 PCs.  Windows 10 Provisioning by AirWatch simplifies the deployment of new Dell PCs for IT and improves the experience for end users by simply by-passing the highly manual imaging and configuration processes of the past. The AirWatch agent is pre-loaded on Dell PCs shipped from the factory. Once a user powers on the device and enters in their credentials, AirWatch configures the device from the cloud with all of the relevant company policies, security settings and applications a user needs. Once up and running, AirWatch continues to manage the device and provides a number of self-service options, including the ability to download approved apps and reset passwords, greatly reducing the need to contact the help desk.

We also introduced integrations between Dell and VMware AirWatch with Dell Client Command Suite to manage devices from one console and manage them at the firmware level in addition to the OS.

I’m proud to say that Dell is the only PC manufacturer with this depth of visibility into PC health and status both above and below the OS – this is something that’s very important for our customers, and is very important to us in delivering PCs that are the easiest to manage in the industry. Check out the AirWatch blog to learn more about how both of these solutions work.

You may have heard last month that Microsoft announced its AutoPilot feature as part of Microsoft 365 to provide streamlined deployment and management for Windows 10 PCs powered by Microsoft 365. We are happy to announce that we will also be participating in this program with Dell Windows 10 commercial devices starting in early to mid-2018. With Windows AutoPilot, IT can customize the Windows out-of-box set-up through the cloud and provide self-service deployment experience for the end user. Many of our customers have told us that they want this solution and we firmly believe in offering customers the choice in how they want to deploy and manage their PCs.

With all of the solutions here, there is one thing in common that we’re hearing from IT loud and clear. They want a new model for managing PCs with a lighter touch, and Dell can offer them a solution that works for their IT environment.

About the Author: Brett Hansen

Brett Hansen is Vice President, Dell Unified Workspace. In this role, he is responsible for developing solutions that enable customers to simplify and streamline their client lifecycle, secure their endpoints, and ultimately provide users with a more productive and modernized workspace environment. With Dell Technologies uniquely positioned to deliver these solutions, Mr. Hansen harnesses capabilities from Dell Client, Dell Services, VMware and Secureworks to deliver integrated solutions spanning hardware, software and services. These technologies are optimized on Dell Client portfolio, but also embrace the multi-OS and device heterogenous environments of our customers, ultimately providing them with the choice, simplification, and productivity improvements they desire. Brett engages with customers, channel partners and product developers on a daily basis, leveraging his more than 15 years of experience leading business development and channel functions in the software industry. Brett joined Dell after 12 years with IBM Software Group. In his last position at IBM, he served as Director, IBM Tivoli Demand Systems Marketing where he held global responsibility for generating and managing the Tivoli pipeline.