Are There Workstation OS alternatives?

Ok I am asking slightly tongue in cheek (smiley), but I have both a belief system and have been learning a lot recently. So I am gonna weigh in.

It matters of course what marketplace we are talking about. In academia and home markets, Apple, both Mac OS and IOS on IPAD's, and Google, with the Chromebook, are serious players.

I suspect most people would say Windows 10 has won in the Enterprise, get over it! And at first blush that would appear to be true. Pure Linux desktops tried to have their day in the sun, with IBM trying and failing to advocate them in the enterprise, and all but the geekiest of techs concluding Linux was too much work to maintain even in deep technical environments.

But I would argue that in spite of Windows 10 enterprise dominance, the realities of Microsoft's new update cadence, coupled with deep focus on vulnerability management, is driving an immense amount of management cost, and causing enterprises to once again reconsider alternatives.

ChromeOS (Chromebook) is my personal choice. You have heard me say this before. Boots in a few seconds, battery lasts for 12 hours, does not need to run a security stack. It is a great way to access virtual desktops and that is what I use it for. And you can run great Android apps like the O365 suite of Mobile apps. Where I think Chromebook are just starting to make inroads is in the area of a low management, secure platform for browser access to SaaS apps and web based apps. Using MDM or maybe the Google Enterprise Mgmt construct you can get real close to a target zero trust, low cost platform for the Web and Mobile future many of us believe in.

I have been saying this for a while but what may indicate a change in the world is announcements from Dell, Lenovo, and soon HP about "enterprise class" Chromebook releases. Too early to tell, but maybe indicative of rising demand, or a belief that demand is about to rise. Is the shift coming?

But I have spent the last few weeks learning a lot about some interesting players trying to establish Linux as a viable option in the enterprise. They all have their origins in the thin client marketplace, and are bring some interesting capabilities to the enterprise:

• They all are selling a thinned, secure Linux OS that can operate as essentially a thin OS/thin client on any hardware (laptops, desktops, existing thin clients, Chromebooks, etc)
• As such they are software companies, even if they happen to also sell their own thin client hardware.
• They have developed around a few key themes like the ability to repurpose existing hardware, or deliver "mobile thin clients" via standard laptop offerings, or use Linux and software development to solve issues with traditional VDI/thin client offerings like voice and video support, and ultimately to go after that same dream of a simple, easy to manage end point for the future, avoiding the tremendous overheads of managing Windows 10.

Remember these names (IGEL, ELUX, Stratodesk) and do a bit of research. They are truly delivering some impressive capability. No question that they are smaller players, and that their initial in roads are usually in specialized verticals like Health Care, but you can begin to see specialized deployments in larger enterprises and the Financial vertical.

In the end it is still unclear if they, and thin clients generally, can grow much beyond current penetration levels. It is just easy for business leaders and application owners to stay with Windows, and assume Infrastructure teams will handle and absorb the every growing security burden...VDI, eliminating legacy apps, Web and Mobile first..all deliver solid benefits but require a change in thinking....and you know the old saying "Technology is easy, people are hard"