I think you missed a few of the reasons why many companies are staying solidly in the desktop camp.
Laptops are more expensive to purchase: I work for Siemens, and with our purchasing power we are able to buy 1.5ghz P4 desktop systems from Dell for approximately $677. Throw in a 15- to 17-inch CRT and total system cost is still less than $800. A similarly equipped laptop is roughly twice as much, not including a monitor, docking station, PCMCIA network card, PCMCIA modem, or bag. Total cash and prizes can easily top $2,000 to $2,500. Even if we opt for the budget line laptop it still falls in the $1,500 range. And those budget laptops perform as you would expect--slowly.
Maintenance and support costs would be enormous: Imagine thousands of users carrying laptops to meetings, chucking them down on conference room tables, and spilling donut crumbs and coffee into the keyboards (which, unlike their desktop cousins, are neither spill proof nor easy to replace). Add to this the training and support costs of tending a mobile flock and the purchase price of a laptop becomes a grain of sand in the Sahara! I support over 7,000 users, and I'd say 25- to 50 percent are below the "PC IQ" poverty line. If we're talking about the real world, figure in at least several hours of additional training for each user. Also factor in a permanent desktop support person for every conference room. Training and support would cost more.
Facilities would require power, network, furniture, and security infrastructure improvements: Every conference room seat would require at least one power outlet. Battery life be damned, anybody who has sat in a six-hour marathon meeting can tell you that the modern laptop battery isn't up to the task. Each seat would require a network drop too, or a wireless NIC on every laptop and a wireless access point in every meeting room. And the furniture? Totally inadequate in many cases. It wouldn't be long before companies would feel pressure to improve ergonomic conditions in the conference rooms just as they have in the cubicle (i.e. new tables, slide out trays, and possibly chairs). And then there is the theft problem associated with laptops. You'd need to beef up security to keep those puppies from growing legs and walking out the front door. New cables, new NICs, new network equipment, new furniture, new lockable cabinets, additional security personnel, cameras, alarms, replacements for stolen equipment = mo' money!
The investment that companies have already made on high-speed networks makes the old-fashioned conference room meeting obsolete: The whole purpose of a meeting is to exchange information among a group of people. Wasn't one of the selling features of high-speed networks the "network meeting" in the fist place? Presentations, audio, video, and documents can be streamed effortlessly across the existing network to the user's desktop computer. Rather than spending a large fortune training every user to be mobile, spend a small fortune training the managers how to leverage the existing technology. There wouldn't be any wasted time traveling back and forth to meetings either, so productivity would improve. The worker bees should never need to leave their desk for the vast majority of meetings. There would be exceptions of course, which is why the managers, sales personnel, etc., who have laptops now would continue to have them.
In the end, the laptop is an expensive proposition. Certain mobile users require mobile computers, but for the vast majority of workers, a desktop PC is the perfect fit. Will this change as the technology changes? Perhaps, but we're not there yet. The thing that troubles me most about your article is that somewhere out there, some vice president, controller, and/or manager has read it and will push for more mobility. It'll cost fists full of money despite what they've read, and the next round of layoffs will be thanks to you.
Ryan Barnhart
