IIn a recent blog post, I talked about Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella speaking at Inspire, the company’s annual partner conference. Nadella advocates that customers and partners “utilize the best product” they can find. For software publishers such as Laplink, Nadella is calling for us to develop the best products possible with the highest ROI for our customers in mind.
With Nadella’s words in mind, it’s with great pride I announce the availability of our best PCmover Enterprise software ever. Inspired by our customers’ wish lists, Laplink has made a big leap in providing new and important functionality, while also integrating essential Intel vPro technology.
Let’s step back for a second. Our mission with PCmover Enterprise software is to make it easy and efficient to refresh (or to set up) a new PC by transferring applications, settings, and data from an old PC. Today, over 140 million PCs are more than four years old and need to be replaced. However, a PC refresh is never easy. In fact, hundreds of gigabytes of data, hundreds of applications, and hundreds of thousands of settings need to be moved (or re-installed) to enable full functionality on the new machine. For small, medium, and large organizations, this means hours of work, which can stretch already busy IT personnel to the breaking point. Unsuccessful migrations can also overload staff with support tickets regarding missing data, absent applications, and unknown behavior.
Yet organizations have no choice. PC refresh cycles, which had been extending to four or even five years, are now less than three years long as technology change accelerates. And for mobile devices, with delicate hardware combined with ‘robust’ treatment, the refresh cycle can be even shorter.
An Intel-commissioned study by J. Gold and Associates in 2018 found that employees working on devices more than three years old were 12 percent less productive, resulting in an average revenue loss of nearly $7,800 per employee per year. There are great benefits when upgrading to a new PC. So how do you mitigate the migration process and make the refresh easy and efficient?
At Laplink, we have worked with thousands of large organizations to streamline the migration process and create an effective way to make the new PC as powerful and personal as possible (within the guidelines of the IT organization). With PCmover Enterprise software, organizations can automate the process, adapt to different scenarios according to their IT policies, and integrate with existing environments. We are grateful to learn from our customers and improve our products with the feedback we receive.
With this new release, we take a big step forward. For many years, customers have invested in buying PCs with Intel’s vPro technology to give them better security and greater manageability. Now customers can take advantage of Intel vPro technology while using PCmover Enterprise and Laplink Transfer Manager, the tool within PCmover Enterprise that gives IT staff the best way to deal with remote PCs. PCmover Enterprise integrates with Intel’s Endpoint Management Assistant, which connects vPro-enabled PCs with remote administrators. This integration allows customers to integrate vPro functionality into the migration process, and enables IT administrators to discover, wake-up, and reboot remote machines.
The Laplink development team also took it a step further. For all customers deploying vPro PCs and EMA servers, Laplink has created an add-on that easily allows customers to integrate PCmover Enterprise into their already existing process.
With hybrid workspaces here to stay, it becomes mission-critical to use the best tools to remotely support employees wherever they are — which includes finding the best product to refresh PCs at work, at home, or in a remote location.
Don’t take a hit in productivity and support costs. Take a moment to learn more about PCmover Enterprise software and its many benefits. We are here for you.
For smaller organizations (5-100 endpoints) that might not want to invest in vPro Enterprise and setting up an Intel EMA server, please take a look at our joint announcement with Intel about Laplink Everywhere and vPro Essentials.