Month: May 2024

Buyer’s guide: How to buy PCs for your enterprise

May 30, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

When it’s time to replace your users’ aging PCs — or maybe to rationalize your PC fleet after a series of acquisitions — the decision on what PCs to buy doesn’t start with the machines themselves. Instead, several other factors should lead to your eventual decision on which computers to provide your organization’s users.

This article explores the nine key considerations IT should assess when choosing its PC fleet suppliers:

(For information about laptop styles, specifications, and components suited to different types of users, see “Buyer’s guide: How to choose the right business laptops.”)

Three PC makers dominate the market globally: Although the top PC vendors’ sales numbers tend to vary from quarter to quarter, Lenovo has maintained the No. 1 spot for years, with roughly 23% of sales, while HP and Dell Technologies essentially tie for second place with roughly 16% to 20% of sales each, according to IDC’s market data. Apple comes in fourth, but its percentage can vary strongly, usually between 8% and 14%. Acer and Asus typically tie for fifth place, with around 6% to 7% market share each. These figures include PCs sold to individuals and households.

For business use, the numbers are similar but skew more to the top brands, per IDC data: Lenovo has roughly 26% to 27% of sales, Dell and HP 22% to 25% each, Apple 4% to 5%, and Acer and Asus 3% to 5% each.

Lenovo, HP, and Dell PCs are available in practically every country and territory worldwide, whether directly or through resellers.

It’s no surprise, then, that for the vast majority of enterprises, the bulk of their PC fleet comes from one of these three vendors. But a fraction of their fleet may come from other vendors, something IT needs to strategize as well.

Considerations in sourcing PCs: direct vs. reseller

The most important decision for IT is where to source the PCs from. The standard choices are directly from a PC maker or through a reseller. PC makers typically will sell directly only when several thousand PCs are involved. By contrast, there are resellers who work with large deployments, those who work with medium deployments, and those who work with small deployments.

But there’s usually more to the relationship than who supplies the actual PCs. IT often seeks to offload other parts of the PC portfolio, such as direct user support, repair and replacement services, setup and delivery (especially with the work-from-home trend complicating those logistics), replenishment as PCs age, and data sanitization and takeback or recycling at end of life. Many resellers offer these services in addition to purchasing, but they come in all sizes and specialties, and many still handle only the sales, takeback, and warranty functions.

Another option for very large organizations is to use a managed service provider (MSP) like Accenture or IBM. MSPs are basically outsourcers who take on a piece of your IT operations, in this case managing your PCs. In this approach, the MSP acts as a type of reseller — they’ll get the PCs from the PC maker or a reseller — but managing is their key focus. MSPs handle PC purchasing and management only for organizations with fleets of thousands of PCs.

The mix of services you want and how much you are willing to pay for them will narrow down which PC maker, reseller, or MSP you end up sourcing through. So will the ability of a PC maker, reseller, or MSP to work with other providers, such as if you have a separate security service provider or provide your own help desk support, or if you use specialist providers for nonstandard platforms like Apple macOS and Google Chrome or for business units with special needs like construction or aircraft repair.

PC makers typically sell and support only their own computers (including Windows, ChromeOS, and Linux PCs), whereas resellers and MSPs might support multiple brands of Windows PCs. Resellers and MSPs often support Macs and sometimes Chromebooks and Linux PCs too, says Forrester Research analyst Andrew Hewitt. If your computer portfolio is multiplatform, a reseller or MSP may be a better sourcing fit, if you can find one that meets all your other requirements.

The type of relationship you want also matters, says Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans. For those who work directly with a PC maker, he notes, “Dell is a bit inflexible and rigid, which is needed for them to scale their business.” By contrast, Lenovo and HP tend to work through resellers or other third parties, which “can have their own approach and level of flexibility.” That can be particularly good if a reseller is experienced with your specific needs or industry, he says. But it does add a layer between you and the PC maker.

Your choice of provider — including the decision of whether and when to use multiple providers — is also shaped by the other considerations covered in this article. But the first step is to define what you want your PC provider to do beyond supplying the computers themselves, says Kleynhans. With those candidates identified, you can narrow the list down based on your other needs and preferences.

(For help locating resellers in your region, see “Finding a reseller” at the end of the story.)

Technology factors in choosing a PC supplier

When choosing which PCs to standardize on, IT shouldn’t start with the PCs themselves. There are very few component differences across PC manufacturers today, and within any particular class of device, the PC makers’ offerings are equal. Those hardware details are no reason to favor one PC maker over another, analysts say. After all, “99% of PC components come from common stock,” says IDC analyst Linn Huang.

“The PC vendors are very similar in what they offer,” agrees Gartner’s Kleynhans. “Switching PC vendors is not going to change your life.”

Regardless of the selected PC maker, IT should focus on buying business-class computers, those that include Intel’s vPro technology. These provide anti-hacking capabilities like pre-boot authentication and hardware hooks for various security tools to detect anomalous behavior at the PC’s chip and firmware levels. vPro has been around for 15 years and is a standard feature in today’s business PCs.

Each PC maker offers monitoring tools for some vPro features, such as for pre-boot authentication and BIOS security, notes Forrester’s Hewitt. Configuration drift detection is another service a PC supplier may offer in such monitoring, adds Gartner’s Kleynhans. But don’t overweight such tools in your vendor selection, he says: “You don’t set your security strategy on a PC vendor. Go to a security provider for that,” and consider PC-maker monitoring tools as supplements.

User considerations in choosing a PC supplier

What IT wants most is simplicity in its PC sourcing, analysts say. That means as few providers as possible to meet enterprise needs, as few model variations as possible, as few engagement models (such as different service packages from resellers or other providers) as possible, and as few platforms as possible.

But what users want is, increasingly, more choice. “Twenty years ago, users had no say in tech. That’s not true anymore,” says IDC’s Huang. He notes that pressure from millennials to go beyond IT’s limited PC inventory caused the number of different device types in business to increase beginning in the mid-2010s.

A 2020 Forrester Research survey shows that 66% of Gen Z users (those born after 1996) want autonomy in device selection at work, as do 65% of millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996). That’s a significant jump from the 53% of Gen Xers (those born between 1965 and 1980) and 45% of Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) who want such choice. As millennials and Gen Zers rise in organizations, that pressure for user choice will only increase, says Forrester analyst Hewitt.

In industries where talent is hard to get and retain — such as high technology, engineering, consulting, and finance — that user pressure can outweigh IT preferences. “If you want the best employees and the labor market is tight, IT is not going to stand in the way” through limited computer offerings, says Gartner’s Kleynhans.

So IT has to navigate how to balance its need for simplicity in sourcing and management with users’ desire for greater individuality in the tools they use for work.

That might mean supporting a wider variety of devices such as Macs and 2-in-1 Windows tablet laptops. (For help deciding which types of laptops are best suited to your users, see “Buyer’s guide: How to choose the right business laptops.”) But it can also mean changing the requirements for what constitute the standard set of devices.

For example, performance considerations outweigh pricing within any given model lines, says IDC’s Huang — and that favoring of performance over price has been increasing since the mid-2010s, when they were equally valued. Before 2015, vendors and IT had been moving to lower-cost, “good enough” devices, but as employees began leaving for companies that dangled better equipment, IT started buying up, he says — and continues to do so.

Still, most organizations use a mid-level business-class Windows laptop as its standard PC, which typically costs about $1,200 to $1,500. These are available from the top three PC makers as well as from other established PC makers like Asus, Acer, and Fujitsu.

Executives, as well as sales and marketing staff, typically get premium laptops, which cost around $2,000 to $2,500. These users get the fancy laptops — often Apple MacBook Pros or Microsoft Surface Pros, notes IDC analyst Bryan Ma, because “they look really nice and stand out” — not just as perks but as part of corporate branding. These employees represent the company publicly in client meetings, conferences, and other events, and having a nicely designed computer that stands out from the crowd helps burnish their corporate image, says Gartner’s Kleynhans. The other PC makers also have MacBook-inspired models, but the MacBook and Surface brands have stronger market resonance, so IT typically makes a sourcing exception for such computers.

There may be other specific PC needs, such as ruggedized computers for field workers, workstations for engineering and modeling, or desktop PCs for in-office call centers. All three major PC makers have all such common types of PCs. Panasonic and Fujitsu are known for their ruggedized computers as well.

Considerations in choosing devices beyond standard Windows PCs

Choosing the standard Windows PC models for your computer portfolio is fairly straightforward, as whichever major PC maker you end up with will have the models needed for the standard business use cases you define, as described in the previous section. Your focus will be on what level of storage and RAM to provide for the standard models you choose for business users, executives, and, if applicable, other user types — and of course the price.

But the exceptions to these standard models require more thought, not only as to which to support but also how to source and serve them. Some resellers support multiple computing platforms, not just Windows PCs, but depending on your various criteria and needs, you can easily end up with specialty resellers dedicated to specific specialty platforms, just as many IT organizations have separated out internal IT support along the same divisions to gain deeper expertise, notes Gartner’s Kleynhans.

How to assess the use of thin clients, desktop as a service, and Windows 365

For years, various vendors have proposed providing terminals, instead of PCs, where all the computing and data remained with IT in the data center or, these days, in the cloud. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and thin clients were the two major approaches offered. But they rarely worked well, largely because first in-office networks and then the internet couldn’t handle the data loads, resulting in latency issues that disrupted performance. Driver issues also made peripheral access, such as to monitors and mice, uncertain. “For all the promises, we never got it,” says IDC’s Huang.

But analysts say it’s time to look at thin-client computing again (called desktop as a service, or DaaS, when delivered via the cloud), even if more maturation is needed in the offerings. “The models are getting better,” says Gartner’s Kleynhans. “For a very long time there were technical problems in remoting in — graphics, audio, latency. The vendors have worked very hard to resolve those issues and mostly resolved them.”

The COVID-19 pandemic reactivated interest in 2020, but IT quickly reversed course because the DaaS products could not handle videoconferencing, he notes. Vendors quickly adapted their technology to support Zoom, Webex, Teams, and so on. “So now it is good enough,” Kleynhans says. Still, “when people start looking at it, it’s expensive — especially when getting it cloud-delivered,” he says, “so the economics will have to change.”

The biggest reason, though, to reconsider DaaS today is Windows 365, says IDC’s Huang. “It’s a whole different ballgame now [even though the] nascent implementation was a kludgy experience.” Windows 365 now runs well and is priced well, he says, and because it runs in an HTML5 browser, the user client device can be almost anything with a decent screen size, keyboard, and mouse or trackpad — a Windows PC, a Mac, an iPad, a Linux PC, or a Chromebook — which broadens the user base and reduces what IT has to deploy. “It’s significantly easier to manage and deploy today,” says Forrester’s Hewitt.

DaaS still has the connectivity hurdle — employees need to have sufficient broadband, which is not yet available in many parts of the world, even in parts of major cities across the developed world. But even if not used as a replacement for a corporate-issued PC, DaaS can be an effective tool during lockdowns when employees can’t some into an office where their equipment is, when company-issued equipment fails and users have only their personal equipment available, for use by temporary contractors, or in other situations when IT can’t or won’t provide physical hardware, Hewitt says.

How to assess IT support for Macs

Apple’s Macintosh is the most common non-Windows computer in business. Although none of the analyst firms break out Mac business adoption separately from total adoption, global estimates range from 3% to 5%. But averages can be misleading: That Mac business adoption is largely concentrated in a few countries like the United States, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom, analysts say — all countries with significant consumer adoption of Macs and large concentrations of high tech and creative services firms. For example, IDC reports that in the US, 23% of large companies have adopted Macs in their PC portfolio.

A few companies have standardized on the Mac, mainly tech companies like IBM, Salesforce, and Shopify, as well as creative services firms. More companies — again, typically tech, creative services, and media firms — let users choose between Macs and Windows PCs as their primary computers. Many, like Cisco Systems, SAP, and Wipro, have found that users flocked to the Mac once it became an option, muscling out Windows PC usage, notes IDC’s Huang. Those companies offering Macs as an equal choice alongside Windows PCs tend to be in competitive job markets where offering a Mac helps recruit and retain staff who seek perks and a feeling of being leading-edge.

On the other side of the equation are a small percentage of companies that ban Macs altogether, not wanting to support a different platform and seeing no operational reason to do so.

But most companies allow Macs under specific circumstances to specific user subsets, analysts say:

As an executive perk and to help the company look modern as a subtle corporate marketing effort by its customer-facing sales and marketing staff. (“If you don’t want to give them a Mac, you give them a Surface,” notes IDC’s Ma.)
As a software and web development platform, because Macs can be used to develop and test software for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. (Two x86 virtualization applications — Parallels Desktop and Broadcom’s VMware Fusion — let Windows and Linux run on Macs, including the newer Mac models that use Apple’s M-series chips.)
As a creative platform, because the Mac was the first mainstream computer to support a graphical interface and so was where the mainstay image editing, illustration, and video applications first became available. Although creative services app powerhouse Adobe Systems long ago ported its apps to Windows, creative staffs stuck to using the Mac because they prefer its user interface and overall design. And some mainstay creative apps, like Apple iMovie, have no equivalent Windows counterparts.

Macs are known for being pricey — there are no $600 models to compete against Windows PCs in the broad consumer PC market. But the price differences are narrower in business cases. For business, the MacBook Pro is the premium model, and the MacBook Air is the broad-base model. They might cost a little more than the equivalent-quality Windows business laptops, but not dramatically so.

Apple’s support of business users has run hot and cold over the years, leaving many IT pros uncertain if they can get the needed support for the Macs they allow. Today, Apple has fairly strong business support, with enterprise AppleCare plans that include on-site and next-day repairs in many markets for businesses with as few as 200 Macs, support from well-known resellers like CDW, support for enterprise Apple IDs (so employees aren’t using personal ones for work), Apple-financed leasing options, and the Apple Business Manager tool for Mac enrollment and management by small businesses.

Apple has strong security in its Mac platform, especially in the M-series Macs. And for a decade, unified endpoint management (UEM) tools — even Microsoft’s Intune — have let IT manage Windows PCs, Macs, iPhones and iPads, and Android devices from a common system.

Of course, even if users prefer Macs and IT is happy to support them, there remains the reality that the application portfolio for macOS is smaller than for Windows, so your business may have apps that require the use of Windows. For example, Microsoft Access, Microsoft PowerBI, Microsoft Visio, Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise, SAS Visual Analytics, and a slew of industry-specific apps have no macOS versions.

And Mac apps may be less capable than their Windows counterpart; Microsoft Excel for Mac, for example, supports fewer advanced formulas than the Windows version, only partially supports data connections to other apps and Office’s Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and doesn’t support at all Power Pivot or Power Chart — so data analysts, accountants, financial analysts, and CFOs often can’t use the Mac version of Excel.

The move to the cloud and thus browser-based apps has narrowed the app gap with Windows, but a gap still remains.

How to assess IT support for Linux PCs

Linux has a very small base of users, concentrated in development and engineering. But if those users must run Linux apps, you need to provide and support Linux PCs.

Of the top PC makers, Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo all sell Linux PCs, so IT can typically rely on the PC maker, MSP, or reseller to provide and support Linux in addition to Windows.

How to assess IT support for Chromebooks

Another niche is Google’s ChromeOS platform. Popular in some countries in elementary school use due to cheap cost (about $200), strong security, and easy management, ChromeOS’s user base largely fades away by high school and college, says Gartner’s Kleynhans. “We’re not seeing significant traction in business,” he says, especially because the $200 “cheap plastic” models used in elementary schools aren’t suited for business users. The business-class Chromebook laptops and Chromebox desktop PCs cost as much as a Windows PC, “so why get a pared-down device?” he asks.

Still, Chrome can have a place as a computing appliance. “Chrome does make sense in some frontline jobs,” Kleynhans says. IDC’s Huang cites Domino’s, where the pizza chain installed Chromeboxes in its stores so staff could easily order more supplies as needed. Chromebooks are also used on forklifts for some logistical operations, he notes. “Chromebooks can replace a thin client to make a connection between a light device and a specific use case,” he says.

The major Windows PC makers — Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo — all offer Chromebooks and Chromeboxes. So you can source your ChromeOS devices from the same PC makers, MSPs, or resellers as your Windows PCs — or you can choose a specialty reseller that is experienced in your specific niche use case for ChromeOS machines.

How to assess IT support for iPads

Another niche computing device is Apple’s iPad. Whether it is a computer has long been a debate, even though it can run some standard business apps like Microsoft Office and most cloud-based tools via the Safari browser. Apple has also adopted computer-like functions such as split screen for side-by-side application use and support for physical keyboards, pens, and trackpads.

When the Pad first debuted in January 2010, it was significantly lighter and smaller than the laptops of the era, so the iPad was attractive for field use as well as for knowledge-worker computing while on the road. But since then, the 2-in-1s and thin laptops have edged out the iPad for many such uses, says Forrester’s Hewitt.

Some firms do issue iPads as specialty computers for specific applications, especially around field work. United Airlines, for example, issues iPads to its aircraft maintenance workers because of their light weight and because workers can quickly and easily authenticate themselves at the job site via Touch ID, rather than signing into a bulkier laptop via a password while working in an airplane. They also eliminate the extra steps of taking paper notes and re-entering them on a computer back at the office. iPads are also commonly used as single-purpose registration devices at conferences and hotels in what Apple calls kiosk mode.

For most users, though, “the iPad is a companion device” used for light work such as email, presentations, and web access at conferences, in sales demos, or in business meetings, Hewitt says. Often, they are not corporate-issued but instead corporate-managed in a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model.

Support and service considerations in choosing a PC supplier

When IT buys PCs, it usually wants the vendor — whether a PC maker, reseller, or MSP — to do much more, often including the logistics of PC setup, enrollment, and deployment; of monitoring and handling upgrade cycles; of decommissioning, data sanitization (removing all corporate information), and takeback or recycling at end of life; and of managing urgent replacement of damaged, lost, or stolen laptops. These “basic life-cycle services are fairly vendor-agnostic,” notes Gartner’s Kleynhans.

A purchase contract plus a separate management contract is the typical arrangement. But IT may also want the PC supplier or other entity to manage user support, repairs, and laptop health (such as monitoring security software, antivirus findings, password aging, application and operating system updates, and use of unauthorized applications). That can involve a separate contract with the same PC provider or with a separate provider, or be combined with the basic life-cycle services contract as an essentially full outsourcing arrangement.

IT will see more differences among PC makers, resellers, and MSPs in the offerings for these additional service areas, so be prepared to dig into what each candidate supplier can offer and at what price and service level.

Forrester’s Hewitt notes that the odds are 50-50 that a given reseller for medium and large enterprises can also provide support, repair, and maintenance services. Very few small business-oriented resellers can do more than supply the PC, he says, so you’ll likely need to handle the rest of the services yourself or, for repairs, through a warranty program.

IT also needs to decide if it wants to split these services based on platform and/or geography, in areas where Kleynhans says there are “natural divisions” in the organization. Those divisions are more likely in large, geographically disperse enterprises.

For example, IT may want to separate its Mac fleet from its PC fleet across all service operations so deeper, more specific expertise is assigned to each. Or IT may want to have separate providers for various regions if no single vendor has the appropriate reach, or if it makes more business sense to keep local reseller arrangements in place in some markets. (“Why force Australia to change vendors?” he asks, if there’s no compelling case to force the business entity there to use the same provider as in the US or Europe.)

Still, “for most organizations it is best to focus on a single large supplier as primary and have a qualified secondary vendor for special use cases,” Kleynhans says. “It’s typical to have a reseller and direct mix,” adds IDC’s Ma.

Financial considerations in choosing a PC supplier

Although IT doesn’t drive the financial approach, it has to work with that approach. Some companies prefer to treat equipment purchases as capital expenses (capex), while others prefer to treat them as operational expenses (opex). The first approach means an actual purchase of the equipment, where the organization owns the PCs and incurs the expense all at once. The second approach essentially means a lease or subscription, where ownership remains with the supplier and the costs are spread out over the lease or subscription term.

That term-based approach for opex also means IT has to determine how long to have PCs in service before they are replaced in the lease or subscription. Three years is a typical term, and four years is usually an option.

But some PCs perform well — and show little wear and tear — for five or six years, while others get terribly banged up in a couple years (such as those used by traveling salespeople) or are workstation-class PCs used for very high-performance applications like video rendering and visual analysis where faster hardware is typically needed sooner than for standard business and web applications. IT needs to make sure that the lifespan in the contract satisfies its typical reality — replacing PCs every three years when they routinely last for four years is just a waste of money — and that the contract addresses what to do about outlier periods. Forrester’s Hewitt notes that some PC providers offer opt-out clauses that let you keep PCs longer than contracted — for a price, of course.

Under the capex approach, IT can be more flexible about replacing PCs, doing so on a case-by-case basis, such as replacing PCs only when significant compatibility issues arise, where they are in poor physical shape, or where performance has degraded meaningfully, or by using an exception-based approach in which PCs are replaced on a regular schedule unless there are extenuating circumstances. The capex approach also lets IT stretch out the purchase cycle when money is tight or replace PCs sooner if significant new useful capabilities come to market and funds are available.

PC makers, larger resellers, and MSPs typically support both the capex and opex approaches, though smaller resellers may only support capex’s outright purchase.

For enterprises that prefer the opex approach, there’s rising interest in the subscription model, typically called “device as a service” or “DaaS” (and “PC as a service” or “PCaaS” by Dell). Be careful with the term, though: The DaaS acronym also means the wholly different desktop-as-a-service type of thin client, described in a previous section, and the word “device” often means other office equipment, not just PCs. In fact, the device-as-a-service model for PCs originated in 2014 with HP, which had previously shifted its enterprise printer business to a subscription approach and then saw an opportunity to do so for PCs, says IDC’s Huang.

A device-as-a-service subscription differs from a lease in that a subscription is to ensure employees have a PC over the long term, with the individual PCs getting replaced as they reach end of life — you’re paying to ensure your employees have an appropriate PC to use at any time, not a specific PC as of a certain date. By contrast, in a lease you’re renting a specific PC for a specific period, after which you return it to the PC provider or buy it for its residual value — just like how car leases work. Also, with a subscription, you’re buying operational services for the PCs and their users, not just the PCs themselves, whereas a lease separates the PC purchase from any other services that might be contracted.

Although the subscription model has gained a lot of IT interest in recent years, actual enterprise adoption is quite low, in single-digit percentages, agree all four analysts interviewed for this article. “The use cases and customer stories are slim pickings,” says Forrester’s Hewitt. The major reasons are that most enterprises prefer the capex model because they can scale purchases up or down to better handle cash flow, they can have an inventory of replacement units they directly own in hand for emergencies, and they believe they have more control because the PCs are contractually separate from other services purchased.

Environmental considerations in choosing a PC supplier

Climate change and sustainability have made environmental considerations a factor in many business decisions, including equipment used. This falls under the banner of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), and most large enterprises have ESG requirements that IT must follow. IDC’s Huang says that environmental considerations will only gain more importance in the coming years because Gen Zers care very much about the environment. “Gen Z is starting to trickle into management, and they are influencing environmental factors. That’s where the puck is going,” he says.

For IT in organizations of all sizes, the good news is that ESG compliance has largely become a checkbox item when purchasing PCs, says IDC’s Ma, because PC makers have already changed their supply-chain, manufacturing, and packaging processes to reduce waste, reduce energy usage, increase recycling, and reduce or eliminate the use of toxic materials. “It’s table stakes,” he says. “All the vendors are doing good work,” echoes IDC’s Huang.

Still, some PC makers are more environmentally forward than others. For example, Apple years ago switched to aluminum chassis, which are highly recyclable and aren’t derived from fossil fuels like plastic ones are. And Asus offers PC models that have high percentages of postconsumer recycled plastic to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

There’s less attention to what happens after a PC is manufactured and deployed, Huang says. Apple’s recycling program for consumers is widely known because it has the visibility of its Apple Stores and online store taking back old devices and sometimes providing a purchase credit, but Apple is by no means alone in recycling old devices or refurbishing them for resale: Recycling of old PCs is available from all the major PC makers. However, to what extent that IT takes advantage of those recycling programs is unclear, Huang says.

Another often overlooked environmental issue is what to do with batteries that lose charge capacity, making otherwise serviceable laptops unusable. All major PC makers have programs to replace worn-out batteries in their laptops, even those like Apple whose batteries cannot be replaced directly by IT or users.

Finally, the best way to conserve resources is to not use them. Keeping PCs longer means fewer new ones need to be built and fewer old ones need to recycled, refurbished, or trashed. Given that business-class PCs typically are well constructed, lengthening the standard three-year replacement cycle is one of the easiest environmental steps IT can take — and it saves on hardware costs, too.

Geographic considerations in choosing a PC supplier

Finally, where your workers are can be a huge factor in your PC supplier decisions. If you operate in multiple countries, you need to make sure your PC suppliers and the related support organizations can service those locations well. That means having local inventories for fast deployment and local repair operations, and being able to provide support in the employees’ native languages. A multinational PC provider might be able to support such geodiversity, but chances are that you’ll need to supplement a primary provider with local ones, says Forrester’s Hewitt. At the end of the day, “you need the right sales channels and support channels,” adds IDC’s Ma.

Geography is less a factor in the specific brand of PC used, says Gartner’s Kleynhans. “The big three are similarly matched across the globe,” he says. But there are some regional differences: Dell, HP, and Lenovo all sell less well in Africa than elsewhere, a gap that Acer has partially filled. China-based Lenovo tends to sell better in China and other Asian countries, whereas US-based Dell and HP tend to sell better in North America.

In addition to Africa, Acer sells well in Taiwan (its home country) and in India, where it long has been the choice of the public sector, which opened doors in commercial firms as well, says IDC’s Ma. Microsoft’s Surface line has a solid presence in North America, Europe, and Australia, says Gartner’s Kleynhans.

And, as previously noted, Apple does well in several developed countries — mainly in North America and Europe, but it has outposts in South America and Asia — where it has outsized market share in the consumer space. (Countries where Apple Business Manager is offered provide solid insight into where IT can expect good sourcing and support options.)

Finding a reseller

There are several ways to find a reseller in your region.

Chances are that a midsize or large organization already has an incumbent reseller. If you seek a reseller for a new division with specialized computer needs or for a new geographic location, Kleynhans suggests you first ask that existing reseller to recommend partners.

Whether to get a new reseller, replace one, or add one where your current reseller can’t provide what you need, midsize and large enterprises likely have potential reseller candidates on file from ongoing sales inquiries by resellers hoping to get your business. “Most of the resellers are pretty aggressive with outbound sales,” Kleynhans says.

PC makers can provide reseller recommendations, says IDC analyst Bryan Ma. Contact the PC maker’s sales rep for your region to get suggestions. PC makers also have online directories of resellers that help you find resellers in your local area; these are typically small resellers that serve smaller businesses with basic services such as purchasing, warranty management, and takeback. Reseller directories are provided by:

Acer: The acer.com website automatically defaults to your region’s local site, but you can switch regions by clicking the globe icon in the far right of the header. In the footer, go to the Resources section and click the Where to Buy link (or its equivalent in the chosen language.
Apple provides listings of business-oriented resellers globally — with pages for the Asia-Pacific region; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and Canada, Latin America, and the United States — as well as a directory of Apple Stores for small businesses.
Asus: The asus.com website automatically defaults to your region’s local site, but you can switch regions by clicking the globe icon at the far right of the footer. There’s no standard design for the various regional sites, so it can be hard to find resellers. Look for the Where to Buy link in the footer or, when there is no Where to Buy link, for links on the home page to laptop or other relevant shopping pages.
Dell: The dell.com website requires that you first pick the desired region using the globe menu at the far right of the header on many pages, then at the page footer choose Find a Reseller or Find a Partner (or equivalent text in the chosen language), depending on Dell’s business setup. You may get redirected to delltechnologies.com in some cases.
HP provides a global directory page whose location you can specify.
Lenovo provides a global directory page whose location you can specify.

In some parts of the world, media organizations publish guides to local resellers. For example, Germany’s ChannelPartner (published by IDG’s Foundry, which also publishes Computerworld) has a reseller directory for the German market as well as a directory of German online PC sellers.

However you find your reseller candidates, Gartner’s Kleynhans says, “What can be difficult is understanding who might match your needs. The typical approach is to run an RFI [request for information] with several candidates seeing what they offer against a set of needs you might have.” An RFI isn’t as complex or burdensome to either IT or the reseller as an RFP (request for proposal), he notes, but “is a first step in creating a short list if you don’t already have one.” The RFI responses will then help narrow which resellers you would ask to engage in a more detailed RFP process.

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Is OpenAI’s Sam Altman becoming a liability for Microsoft?

May 30, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

Big tech companies are often not built on technology alone. Frequently, they also gain prominence and success thanks to the outsized exploits or personalities of their founders or leaders. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the earliest and best-known examples.

In some cases, founders or CEOs have the opposite effect — their personas do serious damage to their companies. The most prominent current example is Elon Musk, whose embrace of right-wing conspiracy theories is doing Tesla great harm because so many of the EV car company’s potential customers are liberals or progressives and have vowed not to buy Teslas.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is nobody’s idea of an outsized tech personality. The no-drama technocrat tends to stay out of the public eye, and when he’s in it, he’s not exactly mesmerizing. His rescue of Microsoft from irrelevancy had to do with smarts, vision, and excellent managerial skills, not a compelling persona.

A very different person connected with Microsoft, one who helped turn it into the world’s most influential, powerful, and wealthy AI company, is Sam Altman, a founder and CEO of OpenAI. Microsoft has invested $13 billion in and is a close partner of OpenAI, which created the technology underlying Microsoft’s generative AI tool Copilot.

Altman has become Mr. AI, ubiquitous in the news media, in the halls of Congress, and beyond. As the public face of genAI and the technology’s most well-known booster, he’s one of the reasons AI has taken off like it has.

So far that’s been great for Microsoft; the more he pushes AI, the more Microsoft gains. But there are signs that may end. Recently Altman’s reputation has been tarnished by claims he used the actress Scarlett Johansson’s voice to be the audio interface for a personal AI assistant without her permission. Beyond that, he appears to have abandoned his promise to make sure AI doesn’t turn destructive, and he’s taking hits for it.

If Altman becomes toxic, what will Microsoft do? Will the company double down on support for him, or drop him as fast as it can? To understand that, we’ll look at his recent controversies, then at Microsoft’s likely response.

The mighty fall fast

Until recently, Altman was the friendly face of AI, the go-to-expert for Congressmen who wanted to understand how it worked and what they should do about it, an I-feel-your-pain-and-worry-about-AI kind of guy who admitted that yes, perhaps AI might destroy humankind as we know it, but there’s plenty we can do about it, so let’s start now.

A blip of controversy last November, in which OpenAI’s board of directors fired Altman because “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board,” quickly blew over. Microsoft staunchly defended its golden boy, offering to hire him to head its advanced AI research team, and Altman was reinstated as CEO of OpenAI after an outcry from investors and employees.

But lately things have begun unraveling for him. It began with Johansson claiming that OpenAI illegally copied her voice to be the voice for Sky, the company’s personal AI assistant, after she refused to license it to Altman. He used her voice, she says, because she voiced the AI assistant main character in the movie Her.

She says she turned him down once, and he tried again. That second time, she says, before he even heard back from her, he used a copy of her voice in a public demo of the technology. To back up her claim, she notes that right before the demo was released, Altman tweeted a single word: “Her.”

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered, and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” she said.

Altman denies Johansson’s claims. But OpenAI removed the voice from Sky, without any explanation.

Some people were shocked by Altman’s actions. But that’s only because they haven’t been paying attention. ChatGPT and Copilot are built on the theft of intellectual property. Like all large language models (LLMs), they need vast amounts of text to train them. Under Altman’s regime, ChatGPT hoovers up everything it can find, whether it’s copyrighted or not, and whether ChatGPT has licensed the rights to it or not. That’s led to a tsunami of lawsuits charging OpenAI with intellectual property theft, including from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, comedian Sarah Silverman, novelists Jodi Picault and George R.R. Martin, and many others.

Altman’s response to the suits: Lawyer up and keep on hoovering.

That was just the start. Altman has pitched himself as the ethical face of AI. He’s frequently warned that AI could represent an existential threat to humankind if allowed to be developed unchecked, and urged governments and big tech to put up serious guardrails around it to make sure that won’t happen. That’s one reason Congresspeople and others flock to him; they believe he’s focused on the good AI can do for humankind rather than being a mere money grubber.

Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit company. He and other founders say their primary goal in founding the nonprofit was to make sure AI would be “used in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

In public, Altman has been warning AI could become an existential threat to humanity if allowed to be developed unchecked. That’s just for public consumption, though. Behind the scenes, he’s full speed ahead on AI, no matter the consequences. He recently disbanded the team in charge of addressing the long-term risks AI poses.

After that, top researchers at the company resigned, some openly criticizing him for going back on his promise to develop AI ethically and safely. Jan Leike, a top researcher and co-leader of the team, quit and warned on X, “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at OpenAI. OpenAI’s co-founder, board member and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever recently resigned as well. He didn’t go public with his reasons, but tellingly, he was one of the board members who months ago voted to oust Altman.

What will Microsoft do?

Given Microsoft’s close ties with OpenAI, all this could harm the company. Microsoft may be on top of the AI heap for now, but things change fast in tech. Many enterprises and individuals worry about AI’s consequences. They want to use AI from a company they trust to make sure AI products are safe and ethical.

In the wake of the recent high-profile departures, OpenAI did establish a new committee to oversee the safety and security of its AI models, which may go some way toward assuaging customers’ doubts. But if Altman is seen as untrustworthy, they may want to take their business to a Microsoft competitor.

If Altman’s public persona sours even more, expect Microsoft to take action. As I’ve written before, Microsoft is distancing itself from OpenAI and preparing to go it alone. It’s building its own internal AI team, headed by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of AI startup DeepMind, which Google bought in 2014. Nadella has made it clear that in the long run Microsoft ultimately has no need for OpenAI, saying if “OpenAI disappeared tomorrow… we have all the IP rights and all the capability. We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything. We are below them, above them, around them.”

If necessary, Nadella will throw Altman under the bus. Altman is arrogant enough to believe he can take on Microsoft. But he’s wrong. Microsoft is the world’s most powerful and wealthy AI company. In any showdown between Microsoft and OpenAI, Microsoft comes out on top.

In two years, 100% of enterprise PC purchases will be AI computers

May 29, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

Global revenue from AI semiconductors is expected to grow to $71 billion this year, an increase of 33% over 2023, according to the latest forecast from Gartner.

By the end of 2025, AI chip industry revenue is projected to top $91.5 billion, and that revenue will continue to see double-digit growth through at least 2028, according to the report released today.

By the end of 2026, 100% of enterprise PC purchases will be AI PCs, which are computers that include a neural processing unit (NPU) enabling on-computer AI operations. Those PCs run longer, quieter, and cooler and have AI tasks running continually in the background, creating new opportunities for leveraging AI in everyday activities, according to Gartner’s report. The firm predicts that AI PC shipments will reach 22% of total PC shipments in 2024.

This year, nearly half of all AI chips revenue is expected to come from the sale of AI-enabled personal computers. By the end of this year, AI chips revenue from computer electronics is projected to total $33.4 billion, which will account for 47% of total AI semiconductors revenue, according to Gartner.

“Today, generative AI (genAI) is fueling demand for high-performance AI chips in data centers. In 2024, the value of AI accelerators used in servers, which offload data processing from microprocessors, will total $21 billion, and increase to $33 billion by 2028,” said Alan Priestley, a vice president analyst at Gartner.

This year, AI chips revenue from automotive electronics is also expected to reach $7.1 billion, and $1.8 billion from consumer electronics.

Sixty-six percent of enterprises worldwide said they would be investing in genAI over the next 18 months, according to IDC research. Among organizations indicating they will increase IT spending for genAI in 2024, infrastructure will account for 46% of the total spend.

The problem: a key piece of hardware needed to build out that AI infrastructure is in short supply. While GPUs are in high demand to run the most massive large language models (LLMs) behind genAI, the market still needs high-performance memory chips for AI apps. The market is tight for both — for now.

GPUs used for training and inference tasks on LLMs can consume vast amounts of processor cycles and be costly to use. Smaller, more industry- or business-focused models can often provide better results tailored to business needs, and they can use common x86 processors with NPUs.

“While much of the focus is on the use of high-performance GPUs for new AI workloads, the major hyperscalers (AWS, Google, Meta and Microsoft) are all investing in developing their own chips optimized for AI,” Priestley said.

While chip development is expensive, using custom-designed chips can improve operational efficiencies, reduce the costs of delivering AI-based services to users, and lower costs for users to access new AI-based applications, according to Priestley.

“As the market shifts from development to deployment we expect to see this trend continue,” Priestley said.

Last month, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said he sees the company’s future embedded in an AI-everywhere concept, with NPUs bolstering its new family of Intel Core Ultra processors. The chipmaker expects to ship 40 million AI PC processors in 2024 and 100 million next year.

Partly driving the uptick in AI on edge devices is the fact that the average lifespan for mobile phones is shortening, with consumers and enterprises replacing mobile phones earlier.

“This change allows device spending to achieve $688 billion during 2024, up from 2023 spending lows of $664 billion, which will represent a 3.6% growth rate,” the report stated. “The integration of genAI capabilities in premium and basic phones sustains, more than drives, this change.”

Apple promises ‘best ever’ WWDC, but will it deliver?

May 29, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

“WWDC is always one of my favorite moments of the year — and this one is going to be our best ever,” promises Apple CEO Tim Cook, announcing what’s to come at the company’s most important annual event, WWDC 2024.

Will the company deliver on the promise?

The event takes place mostly online with some invited on site guests. It begins with a 10am PDT keynote speech on June 10, during which Apple’s leaders will talk about what’s coming to the operating systems and share some of its plans.

There will be developer sessions, access to Apple engineers, the annual Apple Design Awards, and more. The show’s purpose is to guide developers through Apple’s old and new technologies to empower them to build applications for the platforms.

Exploring new worlds in spatial computing

This year’s focus appears to be around spatial computing and augmented reality, as implied by Apple’s social media snippet declaring, “Code new worlds.” The developer focus is also made apparent in the WWDC invitation, which says, “Coming in swiftly,” a nod to Apple’s programming language Swift. Both suggest new development tools, additional APIs, and some focus on its Vision Pro headset.

The latter suggests Apple may announce international availability dates for the product, which has only been available in the US until now. That suspicion is also raised by the inclusion of a Spatial Computing category within the Apple Design Awards for the first time.

But will Apple’s understandable desire to promote its big bet on mixed reality be enough to satisfy company watchers? I don’t think it will.

Will Apple shine a light on AI?

That’s because the tech agenda is being set by artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI.

We’ve been hearing speculation about Apple developing plans to implement genAI across its platforms for months. Most recently, it seems Apple has reached deals with OpenAI and potentially others in the space to make their AI tools available to the iPhone in some form. These will backed up by Apple’s own AI solutions, expected to be elegant tools for specific tasks capable of running on the devices themselves, along with beefier solutions that require cloud support, potentially hosted on Apple’s own M-series servers.

The company is no doubt hoping that this partnership-friendly approach to genAI will give its customers to tools they need while securing customer privacy, at least some of the time.

Data privacy and security will no doubt be part of the company’s customer promise when it comes to the application and future development of these tools. The idea that you can transcribe voice memos without risking sharing the data with the cloud will be compelling to those in regulated industries.

The cost and consequence

All the same, somewhere an industrialist is smiling over the energy use and environmental consequences of genAI solutions. Electricity grids worldwide are already feeling the strain — nearly a fifth of Ireland’s electricity is used up by data centers, and global demand is expected to increase sixfold in the next decade.

Within that context, perhaps speculation that Apple plans its own data center server processors isn’t so far-fetched, given that the company leads the industry in power-efficient computational performance on consumer chips. That plan may help secure iCloud and should also help the company meet its ambitious environmental targets. It seems reasonable to expect iCloud+ to extend what it offers users — potentially any server-based genAI features may be protected by that system.

Apple for the rest of us

But for many Apple customers, even these announcements will be seen as less consequential than any operating system news from the company. GenAI tools to make an image or find a file may be useful, but creative and productive users will want to find out how the new systems make their lives easier for routine tasks. While most people now have used genAI, they still need to do the same tasks that existed before tech threw its LLM change-agent curveball.

Those customers will be hoping for improvements in iPadOS to fully realize the power of the new processors these tablets now contain. They will want usability, security, and privacy improvements. Some will want Mail to get a lot more attention to become the kind of powerful information manager other email packages are rapidly becoming. Nearly everyone will want Siri to grow up and get reliable — particularly on HomePod.

The usual suspects

A very small coterie of users, developers, and regulators will want to learn more about Apple’s plans for opening up its platforms. The company needs to open up about this opening up at WWDC, lest it is accused of ignoring developers who choose to use these features.

I don’t think Apple can reasonably treat people prepared to pay the Core Technology Fee in a less helpful way than it does those choosing to work entirely within the Apple ecosystem. Pragmatically, Apple may not agree with the regulations that have been (or may in the future be) enacted, but those laws are here now, and it takes less energy to move forward than to roll back. There may even be new profit centers to be explored in doing so.

While it’s clear that Apple hopes to cast the spotlight on its Vision Pro range at this year’s WWDC, it really is going to be the company’s AI announcements (or lack of them) that defines the event. But don’t be too surprised if some of these announcements have spatial computing at their core.

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Your new Android home screen command center

May 29, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

Your Android phone’s home screen is your window to the world — and unlike that other mobile operating system, this purty little platform of ours puts the power in your hands to make that landing pad look and work any way you want.

That can mean replacing your stock home screen interface with something completely customized for your own style of getting stuff done or even supplementing the standard Android app drawer with one that’s accessible from anywhere.

But it can also mean tapping into interesting tools for adding important info into whatever manner of home screen setup you’re using — because Android makes it possible for developers to pull off some crafty and creative feats that other smartphone ecosystems simply don’t allow.

And that’s precisely where the idea I’d like to share with you today comes into play.

[Psst: Want even more advanced Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone.]

An info-dense Android home screen approach

One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Android is how a home screen can be so many different things to so many different people — and how Google’s underlying ecosystem offers up so many opportunities to transform that space into whatever makes the most sense for you.

For some people, that might mean making a home screen into simple minimalist collection of key shortcuts to apps, contacts, and other frequently accessed items. For others, it might be establishing a sprawling series of grouped icons for every app imaginable. And for others yet, it might be concocting a carefully curated command center for seeing and swiftly acting on important info.

That last approach is the one relevant to our focus today — ’cause I’ve just stumbled onto a really interesting Android app that lets you expand your home screen to showcase some of the most pressing incoming info in any smartphone scenario. And that info is all about your phone’s notifications.

Check it out:

The Android home screen command center in action, with the powerful pairing of the At a Glance widget and Notification Widget.

JR Raphael, IDG

The widget at the top there is just Google’s widely available Android At a Glance widget, which shows the weather along with info connected to your calendar (both personal and work-profile-associated), optimal departure times for upcoming events (based on your current location and nearby traffic data), in-advance warnings about your next commute (based on typical patterns observed over time), and updates related to any upcoming travel (based on info available within your Gmail inbox).

But point your peepers beneath it, and you’ll see a nifty new creation called, rather fittingly, Notification Widget. That delightfully simple beaut brings all of your active notifications right onto your home screen so you can see and interact with ’em easily — without having to swipe down from the top of the screen first to summon ’em. And it’s the perfect pairing for Google’s At a Glance offering.

After all, the info in your notifications is always timely and important, right? (That’s especially true if you’re using my Android notification filtering trick to keep noise at a minimum and make sure only the alerts you actually need show up.) So rather than keeping that out of sight and a persistent swipe away, this setup puts it front and center — where you’ll always see it and can respond or mark things as done, as needed, right alongside the contextual intelligence Google’s At a Glance widget gives you.

The aptly named Notification Widget also provides on-demand, one-tap access to an expanded view of Android’s notification history — with a complete list of all notifications from the past hour, in the app’s regular free version, or the past three days if you pay four bucks for its premium version. That can be supremely handy when you swipe something away only to realize later you still need to reference it.

And setting all of this up couldn’t be much simpler.

The Android notification widget setup

All right — ready to get your Android home screen command center up and running?

First, we need to make sure the foundational basics are all in place:

Download Notification Widget from the Play Store. It’s free, in its base form, and it doesn’t require any disconcerting permissions or data access (including the ability to access the internet at all, giving some extra-hefty assurance to its promise not to collect or share any sort of personal info).
Open the app once. If you see a prompt to allow it the ability to send you notifications, tap “Allow.”
On the app’s main screen, tap “Check access to notifications” — then find “Notification Widget” in the list of options that appears, tap it, and tap the toggle to grant the app that ability (for reasons that I hope are obvious).

Got it? Good. Now, make your way back to that main setup screen, and:

Tap “Add new widget.”
Tap “Header,” then uncheck the boxes next to “Show” beneath the “Time,” “Date,” and “Battery level” headers. This will clean up the widget’s appearance considerably.
On a related note, return to the main setup screen and tap “Appearance,” then tap “Buttons.”
Uncheck the box next to “Buttons on bottom of the widget.”
And uncheck the box next to “Hide button” beneath the “Pin button” header.

Last but not least, on that main setup screen, scroll all the way down to the bottom and tap “OK.”

Then, if you don’t already see the widget on your home screen, press and hold your finger onto any open area and select the option to add a widget — then find “Notification Widget” in the list of choices and either tap or press and hold your finger onto it to select it. From there, you should be able to place it wherever you want and resize it to whatever dimensions you prefer (something you can always change later, too, by pressing and holding the widget again).

If you want the At a Glance widget above it for the full effect, like I showed above, just press and hold your finger onto any open space on your home screen again, select the option to add a widget once more, and look for “At a Glance” within the “Google” section of options — then tap or hold it to put it into place.

And that’s it: Your Android home screen command center is officially now open for business. Info should automatically appear within the At a Glance widget at the top as it becomes relevant, and notifications will appear within the Notification Widget, erm, widget as they arrive.

You can dismiss any notification in the list by tapping the red “x” in its upper-right corner. And you’ll see any available options for interacting with an alert — like replying to a message or marking a task as done — as a button within the associated notification’s card. If you ever want to get to your notification history, meanwhile, you can just tap the little clock-circle icon at the widget’s bottom edge.

So much useful info at your fingertips, eh? All that’s left is to think about what you’ll do with all the once-wasted seconds you’ve successfully fed back into your day.

Get six full days of advanced Android knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!

Windows Recall: All your privacy questions answered

May 29, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

Windows Recall is an AI-based feature that will be built into new Copilot+ PCs. Recall takes snapshots of your screen every few seconds and uses that data to make a searchable index of everything you’ve ever done on your PC. But, since that first controversial announcement earlier this year, Microsoft has delayed Recall and made some changes.

In late November 2024, Recall became available in a preview form for Windows Insiders running the right hardware. Now it’s out in the wild.

So is there cause for concern about Recall and your privacy — or the privacy of data connected to your company? I’ve gotten a lot of questions about that from readers. Let’s dig in so you can understand exactly what’s going on and what decisions you’ll have to make, whether you’re thinking about your work laptop, a home PC, or a fleet of business computers.

But first, the good news: Windows Recall is only available on those new Copilot+ PCs. It won’t arrive on your current Windows 11 or Windows 10 PC with an update. You won’t even have to think about Recall until you buy a new PC branded a “Copilot+ PC.”

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What is Recall on Windows?

Recall will be built into Windows 11 moving forward. And, again: It will only be available on new PCs Microsoft has certified as “Copilot+ PCs.”

These PCs have neural processing units (NPUs) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS.) This hardware is designed to accelerate local AI tasks — in other words, AI tasks performed on your PC without any online servers involved — in a way that doesn’t drain a lot of battery power.

If you do have a Copilot+ PC, Recall is an optional feature that can capture snapshots of your screen every five seconds. (It won’t capture audio or video — just pictures of what’s on your screen.) You will then be able to search those snapshots using plain-language search. For example, you could say: “Show me that PowerPoint presentation I was looking at three weeks ago, the one with the green bar chart” — or “What was that message Dave sent me about the quarterly budget two months ago?” These searches all happen entirely on your device, and they’ll even work offline. Microsoft’s servers aren’t involved.

It’s a more plain-language way of your computer remembering what you were doing and allowing you to dig through it — it’s clear how this type of feature could boost productivity for anyone who works on their PC — and anyone using it for other tasks, from online shopping to vacation planning to chatting with friends.

Macs have something similar with Rewind, which also captures your computer activity and lets you search it. But Rewind is a third-party tool, not something built into macOS by Apple.

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Windows Recall doesn’t just take screenshots — it uses AI models to analyze the contents so you can search for them in plain language.

Microsoft

What’s changed since the original announcement?

Since the original announcement of Recall in May, Microsoft has repeatedly delayed it and announced changes to boost privacy and security and make the feature more trustworthy. Here, specifically, is what’s evolved:

Recall will be off by default unless you choose to turn it on during the Windows setup process.
Recall will filter out sensitive information like password, credit card details, and social security numbers by default.
Recall requires you use Windows Hello authentication before you can access your snapshots.
Recall’s data is securely encrypted in a VBS Enclave, which means other users and applications can’t access it. The key is only released when you authenticate with Windows Hello.
Recall will be disabled by default on managed business PCs. Businesses will have to choose to enable it. If they don’t, their employees won’t be able to activate it.
Recall will be tested with Windows Insiders before it arrives on stable Copilot+ PCs. (Testing began in late November 2024.)

These changes were detailed by Microsoft in a blog post in June 2024 as well as an update on Recall’s architecture released in September 2024.

Overall, it’s a reasonable selection of changes that addresses many of the criticisms people had with the way Recall was originally implemented. It’s also led to a slower release with more testing — it doesn’t feel like a frantic launch that’s catching people off guard, like the original announcement did.

Is Microsoft sneaking Recall onto my PC with an update?

No. I can’t state this emphatically enough: Recall will not arrive on your current Windows 11 or Windows 10 PC. As Microsoft puts it, this feature is “exclusive” to those new Copilot+ PCs. It won’t suddenly arrive on any of your existing PCs via a Windows Update or any other mechanism.

As of November 2024, Copilot+ PCs are laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus processors, Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) “Lunar Lake” processors, or AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors.

Do I have to use Recall?

Recall is completely optional. When you’re signing into a new Copilot+ PC for the first time, Microsoft says you’ll be informed about Recall and allowed to decide. You can choose not to use Recall at that time, in which case it won’t do anything or collect any sort of data.

If you do enable it, you’ll see a Recall icon pinned to your taskbar by default, and Recall will have a system tray icon while it’s running. It’s very visible — it doesn’t just run silently in the background. After all, Microsoft wants you to use Recall to find things.

Microsoft says you can use the system tray icon or the options at Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots to pause Recall at any time. You can turn it on or off, delete existing snapshots, and choose to filter specific apps and websites so Recall doesn’t capture them. Recall also won’t capture any activity in “private browsing” windows in browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

Microsoft

How can businesses control Recall?

Microsoft says Recall will be disabled by default on managed business PCs. Organizations won’t have to do anything to disable Recall on their devices. In fact, they’ll have to go out of their way to activate it if they want their employees to have access.

Businesses that do want to activate Recall can use either group policy or MDM (mobile device management) policy. Microsoft has a guide to controlling Recall for IT administrators.

Where are the Recall snapshots stored?

Recall stores all the snapshots and other data on your PC. When you perform a search, Recall does the search on your PC. Microsoft says your data is never uploaded to a Microsoft server. It all happens completely locally, without the computer ever “phoning home.”

In a way, this makes Recall a little less useful — if you use multiple PCs, your Recall activity won’t sync between them. If you’re looking for something, you’ll need to search Recall on the PC you originally saw it on. But that may be a good thing when it comes to privacy considerations, particularly from an enterprise perspective.

The Recall data is also stored in an encrypted manner that’s specific to each individual user account on a device.

You won’t be able to access Recall to see any of that activity from that device without first authenticating with Windows Hello authentication. You’ll need your face, fingerprint, or PIN to activate it, so people sitting down in front of your PC won’t just be able to see your Recall data; it’s encrypted with a key that’s only released to make it accessible when that authentication happens.

Is Microsoft taking my Recall data?

Microsoft says that the Recall data will be stored only on your PC and never processed by its servers. Since Microsoft isn’t so much as ever seeing or receiving this data, your Recall snapshots won’t be used for targeting ads to you, training AI models, or any other purpose along those lines.

Couldn’t someone steal my laptop and look at my snapshots?

Modern Windows PCs have encrypted storage, like other modern devices. Someone who stole your PC would need to be able to sign in as you to see your data.

Recall is only going to be available on Copilot+ PCs, and Microsoft has set a higher baseline of security for these PCs: They must be Secured-core PCs, for example, and they will include a Microsoft Pluton security processor. In other words, they will ship with encrypted secure storage backed by hardware security features.

The reality is that if someone stole a PC from an office worker or a home PC user and managed to sign into it, they’d already have access to a lot of private data. This would include financial documents stored on the PC itself, sensitive business information, email accounts the computer was signed into, and so on.

Recall will definitely generate extra data that can be accessed if a criminal breaks into a PC. But, on the whole, it’s less risky to be using Recall on a securely encrypted Copilot+ PC than to walk around with a Windows 10 laptop that doesn’t use BitLocker or another encryption method.

Can other people on my PC see the snapshots?

The Recall data is stored separately for each user account on a PC. That means even if you share a PC with other people, they won’t be able to look through your Recall snapshots — not unless they can sign into the computer with your user account and credentials.

Will Recall store financial account numbers and passwords?

Microsoft originally said that “Recall does not perform content moderation.” If a password or financial account number is visible on your screen, Recall would save it.

But Microsoft changed its mind. Recall will now filter sensitive information like passwords, credit card details, and social security numbers by default. However, you have the choice here: You can head to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots and turn off the “Filter sensitive information” option if you want to see this information in your snapshots.

Either way, Recall won’t capture most passwords you type, since most websites “cloak” password entry dialogs by displaying them as ****. And you can choose to filter out specific websites (like financial websites), use private browsing, or even filter out entire applications to have Recall ignore them. Also, you can delete Recall snapshots at any time.

Any such data won’t appear in your Recall snapshots by default. If you choose not to filter it, it’s critical to remember that only someone who has physical access to your PC — and who can sign into your user account — can access this information. And someone with physical access to your PC can do much worse, including installing malware.

Microsoft

But couldn’t someone else with access to my PC snoop on it?

To snoop through your snapshots for your private information, people would need both physical access to your PC and to be signed in as you. And, with Microsoft’s changes to Recall, they’d also need to authenticate as you with Windows Hello. Even if you stepped away from your PC and left it signed in, they couldn’t get access to your Recall data without biometric identification or a PIN.

To be fair, even the possibility of that happening does raise concerns. An abusive partner or family member could dig through the snapshots to find private information, for example — if Recall snapshots were enabled and they knew the Windows Hello PIN or were granted access.

However, this was always a risk. That same person could use their access to install a keylogger and remote-monitoring software to snoop on their partner’s PC usage, with or without Recall. Someone you give momentary access to your PC could pull up your email or search for sensitive financial documents. The Recall feature introduces a new way for people to find sensitive information if they already have access to a PC — but, again, they could do a lot of damage even without Recall in the mix.

How concerned should I be about Recall?

It’s clear why Recall is concerning: It marks a change in the way our computers remember and store information. And it seems like an obvious privacy problem if people with access to our PCs can use “AI-style” plain language search to dig through our saved PC history.

In other ways, it’s not a change: It’s a disabled-by-default feature you can choose to use. Even if you do use it, all the data is stored on your PC, so it’s arguably more private than many of the cloud-connected services we use every day.

Critically, Recall doesn’t send any of this data over the internet. There are already many other details we’re giving to Microsoft and other corporations. If you’re worried about the information those companies are receiving about you, Recall isn’t the problem — but there are a lot of other Windows and web features that might be.

Recall could be a big productivity boost for a lot of workers, helping them dig through all the information they’ve seen on their work PCs. If you also use Discord to chat while working, you could filter out Discord and ensure Recall doesn’t capture anything you say in there while it takes snapshots of all the Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Outlook emails you go through all day. And, as we’ve been saying, Recall offers a lot of control in general. If you don’t want Recall to capture a browsing session, you can use Private Browsing mode.

Even veteran Windows journalist Paul Thurrott, who is often critical of Microsoft’s privacy practices, has argued that Recall is not a privacy concern. It’s not uploading anything to Microsoft, as he notes — it’s just storing the data on your PC.

But aren’t there still privacy concerns?

While I can see the benefits of Recall — especially for productivity workers who go through a lot of information on their PCs and could save time if they had a faster way to find it — there are some elements of Recall that should give everyone pause. PCs have never captured and stored this kind of information in this way before. It’s a bit of a shock.

Still, Microsoft has made a lot of good changes after the criticism. Disabling Recall by default on business PCs, filtering private information out of snapshots, and requiring Windows Hello authentication to access snapshots are all smart shifts.

But people do have at least some reason to worry about Recall. An attacker with access to a PC could just enable Recall rather than install a keylogger, and then grab private information from the Recall snapshots. That kind of attack could be a little more subtle and difficult to spot than a full install-a-keylogger attack, too. It’s a good thing that this feature will be disabled by default on business PCs.

The most important answers lie ahead

More than anything, we’ll have to see how the risks shake out in the real world. When I first broached this subject, I suggested Microsoft do more filtering of private information and make efforts to protect Recall snapshots from people with access to a PC. Microsoft made those changes.

Perhaps Recall will make everyone realize the risk of giving other people access to their PCs — something that was always a risk when sensitive documents, emails, and browser histories are just a few clicks away.

Of course, Microsoft’s big Copilot+ PC push is about more than AI. The PC industry now finally has thin-and-light laptops with incredibly long battery life to compete with MacBooks. That’s huge.

Even if you disable Recall and turn off every AI-based feature on those new Copilot+ PCs, they’re a big battery life upgrade over your current laptop.

Interested in learning more? Watch this column and sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter to keep up with all the latest intel. You’ll also get three new things to try every Friday and free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows Field Guides as a special welcome bonus.

Job seekers and hiring managers depend on AI — at what cost to truth and fairness?

May 29, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

Employers and job seekers are increasingly turning to generative AI (genAI) to to automate their search tasks, whether it’s creating a shortlist of candidates for a position or writing a cover letter and resume. And data shows it can improve the chances at getting that job or finding the perfect talent match.

For human resources and hiring managers who are seeing an increase in responsibilities, genAI can create a short list of potential candidates in seconds — and automate much of the onboarding process.

For job seekers, genAI tools like ChatGPT can not only become creative companions in crafting narratives and emails to potential employers, but even assist applicants in passing assessment tests.

The darker side to using AI in hiring is that it can bypass potential candidates based on predetermined criteria that don’t necessarily take all of a candidate’s skills into account. And for job seekers, the technology can generate great-looking resumes, but often they’re not completely truthful when it comes to skill sets.

“The use of AI in talent acquisition is particularly prevalent in tech hubs and innovative industries where the demand for skilled professionals is high,” said Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of Helios, a workforce management platform startup. “The benefits and potential problems associated with using AI to find talent have global implications.”

Hammell and others see genAI offering improved recruitment outcomes, better candidate matching, and enhanced diversity and inclusion efforts. The challenges, however, include algorithmic bias, data privacy issues, and transparency.

“The need for transparent and ethical AI practices are concerns that organizations across different countries must address to ensure fair and unbiased hiring processes,” Hammell said.

GenAI aids job seekers with research, resumes, cover letters and more

A survey by Resume Builder updated earlier this month found that 18% of US workers used ChatGPT in their job search over the past year. The majority (75%) used it for research, but almost as many (73%) used it for resume creation. They also used the AI-powered bot for interview preparation (69%) and cover letter creation (62%), and more than half (51%) used it to create email communications.

The primary reasons job seekers used ChatGPT were to improve the quality of their application materials (88%), to appear more professional (76%), and to save time (65%).

Resume Builder’s survey of 1,000 US workers actively engaged in a job search within the past year also found that ChatGPT users are more likely to negotiate higher salaries and get more frequent interview requests than those who did not use the tool.

About one-third of respondents (29%) said they did not get hired because the employer became aware of their use of ChatGPT in the hiring process. However, 55% said they their prospective employer “praised” their use of the technology in the job search process.

“My guess is that some employers think ChatGPT promotes lying or cheating, while others see the efficiency and better application materials. It really shouldn’t matter if someone is using ChatGPT, as long as they use their experiences to create the information for applications. If they are using it to pass assessments, that isn’t right,” Julia Toothacre, Resume Builder’s resume and career strategist said in a report.

Not surprisingly, younger job seekers were more likely to use the chatbots, with 24% of 18- to 24-year-olds, 21% of 25- to-34-year-olds, and 25% of 35- to-44-year-olds saying they used the tool. Only 9% of 45- to 54-year-olds used ChatGPT in the hiring process. Men were also more likely to say they used ChatGPT than women (25% vs. 10%), according to Resume Builder’s report.

“The numbers related to age discrepancies in ChatGPT use aren’t surprising for a few reasons,” the report stated. “First, younger generations have historically been more likely to embrace new technologies. Second, there are a lot of people on social media right now sharing their ChatGPT hacks for job searching, so I think it’s something that younger generations are learning about more rapidly. They are likely frustrated with the hiring process and want to try anything they can to get ahead of the competition.”

Gartner’s 2023 survey of nearly 3,000 job candidates from 13 countries in 24 industries and spanning 21 job functions found an even higher percentage of job seekers using genAI tools in their search. Among the 38% of respondents to the Q3 2023 survey who used generative AI, 43% reported using it to generate text for their resumes, and 42% used it to craft their cover letters.

Gartner

The Gartner survey also found:

Overall, those who used generative AI said it was responsible for a significant percentage of the final work.
A third of candidates try to optimize their resume for AI technologies.
Additionally, a third of candidates believe AI can introduce bias into the hiring process, while a similar number believe it can reduce bias.

Gartner

In some cases, employees also trust AI over their human managers to offer them career advice. Nearly half of Gen Z employees surveyed by an outplacement services firm Intoo indicated they’d trust a chatbot like ChatGPT for advice over their manager, who many said don’t support their career development.

GenAI automation helps overwhelmed hiring managers

On the hiring side, companies are adopting genAI to streamline their talent acquisition process. A recently published survey of 113 HR leaders by Gartner revealed HR technology as their top budget priority for the third consecutive year. Technology for “talent management” rose from seventh place last year to third this year.

A recent survey of 1,000 HR managers performed by payroll automation provider Sage showed that 95% of respondents have experienced a workload increase over the last year, and 91% noted an increase in their responsibilities. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents also believe that AI has the potential to revolutionize their work processes by reducing time-consuming tasks and ultimately easing burnout, according to the Sage survey.

More HR vendors and others are now offering AI-powered platforms to automate the creation of potential job candidate lists for hiring managers who are tasked with culling from lists of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of job candidates.

HR technology company Phenom, for example, sells an AI-enabled hiring platform that creates a shortlist of job candidates for recruiters and hiring managers. Its technology, which the company claims is used by 200,000 hiring managers, creates a candidate list based on skills, experience, and location using “fit” scores, an assessment to evaluate a candidate’s suitability for a specific role and company.

“It streamlines interview scheduling for hiring teams, interviewers, and candidates through automation. It additionally enables hyper-personalized interactions with candidates, employees, and alumni through generative,” said John Harrington, senior director of product marketing at Phenom.

For job seekers, Phenom’s tool uses a semantic search engine that scans career websites to help candidates identify relevant job opportunities through context-driven algorithms, according to Harrington.

Startup Eightfold AI recently announced its AI-powered applicant tracking system (ATS) that handles the recruitment process for companies from end-to-end. The tool is also aimed at streamlining the recruitment process, enabling organizations to quickly identify and secure top talent through AI-powered recommendations. The Eightfold Talent Tracking tool also generates job descriptions, recommends job-posting platforms, and handles pre-onboarding integrations.

Iffi Wahla, CEO of startup Edge, a network that connects companies with remote talent around the world, believes AI bot tech — including OpenAI’s new ChatGPT-4o — will be used more often by companies to screen candidates. It will also increasingly be used by job seekers to write resumes, fill out applications, and prepare for interviews. And users of AI tech, he said, are likely to get more frequent interview requests than those who don’t use it.

Wahla believes that use of genAI by job seekers will leap from Resume Builder’s 18% figure last year to 50% of candidates this year. From 70% to 80% of Edge’s prospects who are registered with his talent network admit to using AI to help them craft resumes and other materials, Wahla said.

The Edge talent network’s AI-powered platform is currently serving the medical, dental, and insurance industries, helping them find talent to fill open positions while also automating onboarding processes. It can also handle remote workforce management for HR, functions like benefits administration, payroll management, and vacation oversight to ensuring legal compliance and handling taxes.

For companies, the time spent onboarding new employees after adoption Edge’s platform was reduced by 70%, Wahla said. The AI handles user questions, so there’s not as much back and forth with the recruiters or hiring managers, and it can also walk new employees through the steps of onboarding.

Job seekers, use genAI judiciously

What may be an issue is when chatbots craft resumes that aren’t particularly honest about the job seeker’s actual skills, embellishing on their talents because that’s what the AI was trained to do.

“Job seekers should definitely use AI to help them with the job search process, but it needs to be utilized with caution,” said Resume Builder’s Toothacre. The problem, she explained, is that AI is pulling its information from what is online, and not all advice and information is accurate.

Not all hiring managers and executives are enamored with the idea that AI is crafting a job applicant’s online persona and skill set.

“Any applicant using ChatGPT or other generative AI to pass assessments or write a cover letter would be a hard pass for me. I think it’s totally fine to use for interview practice or to generate ideas. But any time you are substituting the work of an AI for your own organic work, that’s where it crosses a line for me,” Andre Kazimierski, CEO of house painting business Improovy, told Resume Builder.

Job seekers need to make sure that whatever AI drafts for them, it makes sense for their experience and job function. “AI can sound too generic at times, so this is where putting your eyes on it is helpful,” Toothacre said.

She is also concerned about the use of AI to complete assessments. “Skills-based assessments are in place to ensure you are qualified and check your knowledge. Using AI to help you pass those assessments is lying about your experience and highly unethical.”

There’s plenty of evidence that genAI can improve resume quality, increase visibility in online job searches, and provide personalized feedback on cover letters and resumes. However, concerns about overreliance on AI tools, lack of human touch in resumes, and the risk of losing individuality and authenticity in applications are universal issues that candidates need to be mindful of regardless of their geographical location, according to Helios’ Hammell.

“Encouraging a balanced approach that combines AI assistance with personalization and creativity is essential for job seekers navigating the global job market,” Hammell said.

Charting the ‘flight path’ for Copilot for Microsoft 365

May 28, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

“Copilot is so much more than a new feature within Microsoft 365. It’s about transforming the way people work.”

Whether it’s drafting a job description, sorting help desk tickets or visualizing complex data in seconds, Copilot is already creating huge value in the hands of millions of workers.

A study from the Boston Consulting Group found AI-assisted workers were 25% faster. They produced 40% better quality work. And they took on 12% more tasks than a comparable group without AI assistance.

Notably, this study used open generative AI platforms, suggesting the real impact of AI tools fully integrated with proprietary data and applications could be much higher.

It’s hard to ignore the implications for competitiveness, both on the organizational and in one’s personal career. The age of AI is here, like it or not.

Charting your “flight path” to Copilot adoption

To tap into all this potential, we recently expanded our 30-year partnership with Microsoft to better help our customers get the best value from this investment.

Taking your most important asset – proprietary data on your customers, products and markets – and having that generate truly game-changing outputs for your business takes a lot of planning and data integration capability. This needs to happen without losing sight of security and governance.

To get it right “customers should not be looking at AI or Copilot for Microsoft 365 as a simple transaction or a services project,” says Chris Woodin, Sr. Vice President – Solutions and Alliances at Softchoice.

Instead, they need to see Copilot adoption in terms of a long-term journey. That journey has multiple stages that form what we call the “flight path” for Copilot adoption. Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Plan your business case for Copilot

The first stage of the flight path is to define the vision, goals, and success criteria for using Copilot for Microsoft 365 in your organization.

We call this the “Plan” phase. Here, we look at the universe of potential use cases that might create meaningful change in value for the business and justify the case for change.

For example, you may want to use Copilot to improve the productivity and quality of your content creation, marketing, sales, or customer service teams. You might consider deploying it to IT to improve service desk ticketing, security alerts or any number of other applications. How Copilot shows up will depend on the context in which you operate today and where AI can make a difference in real productivity terms.

To help, we can support as you plan, build and win support for your business case, create a roadmap and align those with a stake in decision-making on the scope and timeline of the project.

Getting Clear on Copilot Adoption – The Business Case

Step 2: Assess your technical and organizational readiness

The next stage is to evaluate the current state of your IT environment, licensing, security posture, and organizational readiness for Copilot for Microsoft 365.

This is the “Assess” phase. In this phase, you need to make sure that existing applications, business processes, and data can be integrated effectively into Copilot. This involves a gap analysis to identify any risks, issues, or dependencies that are going to need remediation before you deploy.

For example, you may need to upgrade your Microsoft 365 subscription, update your applications, or resolve any compatibility or performance issues.

To help you gauge your readiness for Copilot, we offer a Copilot Readiness Assessment, that provides a comprehensive review of your IT environment, security posture, and Copilot requirements. This yields a detailed report with recommendations and best practices to prepare for deployment and minimize errors during the process.

The Catalyst Gets Clear on Copilot Adoption – Getting ready

Step 3: Run a pilot with select users, configure and implement

The third stage of the flight path is to configure and deploy Copilot for Microsoft 365 according to best practices and your specific requirements. This is when you integrate your custom data sources, including enterprise data, industry-specific terminology, and so on.

Then, you test and validate the functionality, performance, permissions, and security of Copilot within your IT environment with a focus on integration with enterprise data.

Note that we strongly recommend deploying Copilot as a pilot project to a select group of users first. This gives you the chance to collect valuable user feedback and course correct where needed before going organization wide.

To help you implement and pilot Copilot, we have a Copilot Implementation Service, including expert guidance and support to set up and deploy Copilot. This includes a Copilot Pilot Program with a custom plan and toolkit for deploying to an initial group of select users.

The Catalyst Gets Clear on Copilot Adoption – Implementation

Step 4: Adopt Copilot and manage the people factor

Copilot for Microsoft 365 won’t have any impact if people don’t know it’s there or why they should use it.

This means a continuous management approach to end user adoption focused on realizing the actual benefits, whether that’s increasing employee productivity or transforming the way they work with their customers.

The next phase is built to heighten awareness, engagement, and adoption of Copilot among your end users at every level. The importance of training, communication, and support to help people understand and use Copilot can’t be overstated.

You‘ll also need a clear process to monitor and collect feedback from the users on their experience and satisfaction with Copilot and apply their feedback as you go.

This is where our Copilot Adoption and Enablement Services come in. It’s meant to give you a detailed strategy and plan to drive user adoption of Copilot in your organization.

It includes a Copilot Adoption Toolkit for educating, training and supporting users on integrating Copilot into daily work as well as in cultivating an “AI-first mentality.”

Step 5: Sustain the momentum over the long term

No genuine transformation is going to be a one-and-done effort.

The final stage of the flight path involves proactive steps to keep the early momentum going. The aim is to avoid a drop-off in usage and ensure people truly integrate the tool into their work. This is more an ongoing journey than a destination.

It involves reviewing and updating the vision, goals, and success criteria as your needs and priorities evolve and as Microsoft adds new features and capabilities. You’ll want to monitor and analyze the metrics against outcomes. It may be necessary to throw in additional training, guidance, and support to the users. Remember that new hires will also need to learn the specific ways your organization uses the technology.

To help you sustain and optimize Copilot, Softchoice offers a Copilot Sustainment Service, where you can get ongoing support and guidance to maintain and enhance the performance and value of Copilot in your organization. This comes with a Copilot Sustainment Toolkit, where you’ll find the latest resources and tools to keep your users informed, engaged, and satisfied with Copilot for Microsoft 365.

The Catalyst Gets Clear on Copilot Adoption – Sustain

Ready to take off with Copilot?

You plan to adopt Copilot for Microsoft 365. Why should you trust us to help?

We know people and technology. To succeed with Copilot deployment, you’ll need to account for both and have them work in harmony.

We bring over 30 years’ experience as a Microsoft partner. This comes with a deep bench of Microsoft certified specialists who deliver thousands of Microsoft assessments and implementation projects every year.

We were our own first Copilot customer. As a member of Microsoft’s Early Access Program, we were among the first companies to use Copilot in a real-world environment.

Every Copilot needs a navigator

Explore Copilot for Microsoft 365 services

India is getting in on the iPhone sideloading act

May 28, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

The EU has done it, the UK will probably do it, the US is considering it, and now India plans to follow suit with competition laws to regulate big technology firms, including Apple. Cupertino isn’t happy.

India’s Digital Competition Bill is a similar piece of legislation to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is forcing Apple to open up its ecosystem, most visibly through support for third-party app stores. India’s bill will prevent companies from promoting their own services above those of rivals, stop them from exploiting non-public user data, and also require support for third-party app purchases.

Free trade where we want it

Apple isn’t the only technology firm that’s unhappy about India’s proposals. Google and Amazon are also full of rue.

That is why a US lobby group that represents all three big firms is pushing for India’s government to rethink its proposals, warning that the draft law goes further than the DMA. “Targeted companies are likely to reduce investment in India, pass on increased prices for digital services, and reduce the range of services,” the US-India Business Council reportedly said.

(The irony that the US Chamber of Commerce should make that argument, even while the US Department of Justice struggles to bring in similar constraints on Apple and other big companies, is hard to ignore.)

A threat to Apple’s India plan?

Threat of this new law may also displease Apple’s latest manufacturing partner, Tata, which is making big investments to stake space in Apple’s India-based iPhone supply chain. The top tech company in India by market capitalization, Tata holds a senior seat on the US-India Business Council board. Most of the country’s big names have some representation on the group.

In truth, Apple’s major investments in India may spell “iPhone” to the rest of us, but to those involved in its manufacturing supply chain there, the same word spells “profit” — and they are unlikely to want that nascent business beaten quite yet.

We shall see what happens ahead, but the stage does seem set for some wrangling over the content of the new legislation. The proposals specifically target entities with a turnover in excess of $30 billion and at least 10 million local users of digital services — which basically means the big tech firms, whose market power the bill aims to constrain.

Apple wants to build business across the nation of 1.4 billion people and is well on the way to achieving that. As it seeks to reduce its reliance on China, the company is making huge efforts to build manufacturing centers and attract new users in India, so anything likely to make that work more challenging won’t be seen as ideal.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said the company generated record revenues in India during the March quarter, though critics may claim part of this success reflects company control of the apps market on its platforms.

Control of the means of production

Wrong or right, the extent to which big firms control the digital economy is what India’s regulations, just like those elsewhere, seek to constrain. Attempts to dent such market power is very much reflected in the work of India’s Competition Commission, which has already fined Google more than $160 million over app purchases and pre-installed apps. Apple is also undergoing investigation at this time.

The act won’t become law immediately. The government is gathering feedback before submitting the regulations for approval by parliament, and there is no set timeline for that process to take place, according to Reuters.

But for Apple this new attempt to regulate its business surely makes it far more likely that it will eventually be forced to open up its platforms to third-party apps on a global basis, rather than just in the EU. I don’t see that happening swiftly, however. The cautious approach would be for consumers, competitors, the company, and any sensible regulators to review the potential failures of such openings-up in Europe, where third-party stores are now opening at a trickle, rather than a flood.

Pending further evidence, the jury remains out on the extent to which sideloading in Europe will undermine user security and privacy, or dilute the value of the user experience.

Please follow me on Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

China launches $47B semiconductor fund to counter US supremacy

May 28, 2024 / Security – Computerworld

China has established a massive new state-backed semiconductor fund worth 344 billion yuan or $47 billion aiming to ramp up its chip industry, according to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, a government-run credit information agency.

This aggressive move is seen as a countermeasure against US efforts to limit China’s access to advanced chip technology.

Christened the China Integrated Circuit Investment Fund Phase III, the investment in this phase is the largest yet and was registered on May 24. This phase dwarfed its previous two phases registered in 2014 and 2019 with investments of 138.7 billion yuan and 204 billion yuan respectively.

The Ministry of Finance holds a 17% stake in the fund followed by a subsidiary of the state-owned National Development Bank at 10.5% and a Shanghai municipal government investment company at 9%.

The fund also lists seventeen other entities as investors including five of China’s largest banks, including Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of Communications — each holding a six percent stake.

The China Integrated Circuit Investment Fund, also known as “Big Fund,” was launched under the “Made in China 2025” initiative in 2015 as a financing vehicle to promote high-tech industrial development.

The “Big Fund” has already provided financial support to two of China’s major chip manufacturers — Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Hua Hong Semiconductor, according to a Reuters report.

The investment fund is also expected to finance the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) industry and other key AI semiconductor fields, as per Chinese corporate information service, Qichacha.

While specific targets remain undisclosed, the fund in the third phase is expected to focus on AI-related semiconductors and manufacturing equipment. The fund also aims to support R&D projects and assist major Chinese semiconductor companies in transitioning from international to domestic suppliers for key materials like chemicals, industrial gasses, and silicon wafers. This move will minimize China’s reliance on foreign suppliers and potentially weaken the effectiveness of future US restrictions.

This move comes as the US tightens export controls on advanced chips and fabrication tools to hinder China’s tech advancements.

In October 2022, the US implemented comprehensive export controls to curb China’s military modernization by restricting access to advanced AI chips that use US technology. Again in 2023, the Bureau of Industry and Security updated these rules to address loopholes that compromised their effectiveness.

“Today’s updated rules will increase the effectiveness of our controls and further shut off pathways to evade our restrictions. These controls maintain our clear focus on military applications and confront the threats to our national security posed by the PRC Government’s military-civil fusion strategy,” Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo said in a statement in 2023. “As we implement these restrictions, we will keep working to protect our national security by restricting access to critical technologies, vigilantly enforcing our rules, while minimizing any unintended impact on trade flows.”