Unbounded Office: Inspiring Efficiency from the "PC of the Future"

As early as 1980, the futurist Alvin Toffler predicted the future of "no office" in his book The Third Wave, saying, "Office space will also make SOHO (working from home) possible with the invention of the computer..."

Now, we're standing at this point. Anytime，Anywhere。 Under the influence of the epidemic, Alvin Toffler's "no office prediction" is playing out in more and more enterprises.

Some companies have gone a step further, such as Google, Meta, etc. announced that even after the end of the epidemic, most employees can work from home permanently. According to statistics, by 2024, the global remote worker will reach 30%, about 600 million people.

When wearing a suit, wearing shorts, soaking your feet while holding a video conference, a peaceful scene outlined by the mixed office becomes a reality, and the "shackles" that follow are equally obvious, when the boundaries between work and life are confused, are you really free to work?

01

/ Flexible Office vs 9 to 5 /

The arrival of the epidemic is giving birth to a series of changes.

More and more people are actively or passively coming out of the office, or at home, or in the café, any space, as long as it has the three elements of people, computers and the Internet, can become the office space predicted by Alvin Toffler.

Compared with collective work, home/telecommuting usually faces two major imbalances, one is that the sense of boundaries is greatly weakened. In terms of space, the collective office has a special space area, office space, desk, desk and chair environment are relatively fixed; in time, whether it is nine to five, or 996, there is a relatively clear time boundary; in addition, commuting to work, dress, punching and many other links can establish the ceremony of commuting to work and establish the scene boundary of work and life.

Second, the sense of control has been greatly weakened. In the collective office, communication is face-to-face, and at the same time, you can disassemble each other's expressions and reactions, and verify whether the other party has really received the information, which is the sense of certainty and control brought by the subtlety. But working from home, the cost of communication has become higher. The things that were originally said clearly in two or three sentences of meeting need to be made on a conference call first, and their content should be repeatedly presented in the online meeting to ensure that the other party receives accurate information at different levels of attention, and in this process, they may also have to face various unexpected situations such as noise in the background, network stuttering or disconnection, which make the sense of control of communication continue to decline, and at the same time, such a physical distance also makes the team manager face the feeling of loss of control.

When the work content and pressure remain unchanged, people need to deal with the "uncertainty" brought about by working from home, and they will also feel the repeated pulling, friction and psychological friction of emotions and energy, which is not a good signal.

As Satya Nadella, Microsoft's global CEO, puts it, the world is going through a phase of the "hybrid workplace paradox," in which employees want both flexible ways of working and more face-to-face collaboration opportunities, and many businesses face the challenge of critical process and architectural transformation.

To put it simply, from "office-centric" to "personal-centered", mixed office has put forward new requirements of different degrees for people, places, equipment, and even a whole set of office processes, which need to be solved urgently.

In order to truly leapfrog to a hybrid office form, it is not only necessary to solve a series of problems including work efficiency, performance attendance, and safety management, but also to integrate the solution into a small device - PC.

After all, in the mixed office model, the only one that can follow people closely and have strong production capacity is a computer.

02

/ Mankind's Eternal Quest: Better Tools /

The hybrid office model essentially brings efficiency out of the office, allowing employees to innovate anytime, anywhere, and organize efficient collaboration.

In fact, in the long history of office transformation, employees' demand for diversified office scenarios has always existed. For example, business people will need to use PCs at any time during the airport or high-speed rail because of a large number of poor rate demands, so there are super high requirements for the portability of "tools".

The hybrid office model is undoubtedly an "addition" to the original scene requirements. In the new model, the demand for online communication and video conferencing is stronger, and the focus is on improving the convenience of remote collaboration functions.

Faced with the need for team collaboration and interconnection, Dell commercial terminal has come up with a set of mature and perfect solutions: First, Its equipped AI software Optimizer3.0 will connect two networks at the same time through the intelligent connection of dual networks, prepared; second, whether it is Teams or Zoom, network bandwidth will give priority to the conference software to provide services; third, sound coordination, Dell Optimizer3.0 software will be combined with reality, corresponding noise reduction processing, to ensure that speaking and listening, the clearest sound; fourth, the picture transmission, open the camera to ensure that the clearest image is transmitted to others.

Compared with centralized work, people working from home are more likely to distract their attention, especially in a relatively free environment, perhaps because of a message push, sucked into the "information flow" video, or a temporary anxiety under work pressure, so that energy is distracted and concentration is weakened.

At this time, a computer device that can help users improve their concentration is needed. In response to this demand, Microsoft and Dell have made sufficient efforts.

At the software level, Windows 11 Pro has a cleaner interface, with its "virtual desktop" function allowing users to build different spaces for themselves. Imagine that when we open a series of applications such as WeChat, games, Weibo, and stocks on the computer at the same time, and do not want to close, but do not want to be disturbed in the working state, then the direct way is to put all the applications that have nothing to do with work on a new desktop, set up a virtual "boundary" for ourselves, focus more on the current window, and put into work in a more efficient state.

At the hardware level, the Dell Latitude 9420 pre-installed Windows 11 Professional Edition provides users with an open immersive screen and a physical anti-blu-ray screen, which brings higher efficiency while protecting the eyes, and with the proportion of 91.65 large screens, it is more helpful for users to concentrate. At the same time, in terms of heat dissipation, it has also been optimized, using linearity to increase the speed of the fan, reduce noise, and avoid distracting the user's attention.

Whether working remotely or in the office, data security and privacy protection are also the needs of any era. In this regard, the newly released Dell commercial products, especially the user's privacy security has been upgraded: First, the addition of intelligent privacy protection function, you can automatically detect bystanders, if you find someone peeking at the screen, it will trigger a security reminder, first of all, the screen is dimmed, the electronic anti-peeping screen will start; second, when the user's eyes are no longer looking at the screen, it will automatically adjust the brightness of the notebook screen, additionally extend the battery life at the same time, but also effectively protect privacy and security.

It is undeniable that the arrival of the hybrid office model is triggering an office revolution around the world, and the future-oriented employee productivity transformation is the core of improving the efficiency of business nodes, among which, a productivity tool change around people, fields and processes will continue to iterate, because better tools have been the eternal pursuit of human beings since ancient times.

03

/ Practice of the Future of Office /

In the post-pandemic era, the world is still undergoing rapid changes.

More and more people across the limitations of time and space, through wireless interconnection and notebook equipment to achieve a variety of modes of mixed office, the difference is: people will choose more suitable for their own computer equipment according to their own needs.

Dell has been responding to rapid market changes with professionalism and innovation, taking into account the needs of various users in the hybrid office model from the beginning, which has also driven Dell's business PCs to continue to lead. According to official data, Dell will sell more than 53 million commercial PCs worldwide in 2021, which means that Dell receives 179,000 orders per day.

In the dell business product family, latitude notebooks have sold more than 31 million units worldwide in 2021, becoming the first choice of users; Precision workstations have been leaping forward in the past 25 years since their establishment, ranking first in the world for four consecutive years.

With such a "report card" endorsement, Dell is naturally more comfortable with the new trend of hybrid office.

If you are a person who pays attention to high mobility and multi-situation work, the Dell Latitude 7000/9000 is smaller and lighter, with ai intelligence enhanced privacy protection and battery life, etc., making it easier to deal with;

If you're a designer focused on performance and system stability, dell workstation industrial-grade components, certifications for over 200 software will ensure your design inspiration is unleashed on rock-solid Dell workstation products.

If you typically work in the office or at home, the OptiPlex Micro small chassis, with flexible deployment and minimalist cables, allows you to have an efficient and comfortable office environment.

The question that has long plagued many users is: How to make your computer more and more useful? Dell Optimizer smart tuning software also gives the answer. By updating the algorithm, optimizing the program performance, rapid response, at the same time, it can quickly connect, fast charging, intelligent noise reduction, if there are others watching your screen, AI intelligent perception function will make your screen automatically darken, so that the notebook is more secure.

In the industry sector, Dell has also observed the new trend of the times, in addition to standard commercial products, Dell also provides a variety of customized solutions.

For example, in the field of new energy, for the particularity of the industrial environment, we provide optiPlex XE series industrial desktops to ensure stable operation of equipment in harsh environments; in the field of new materials, Dell launched data science workstations to facilitate users to use artificial intelligence or machine learning for various simulation analysis.

Facing the future, digital technology and various industries are deeply integrated, from e-commerce, mobile payment, online learning, remote conferencing, video live broadcast to online government services, etc., the digital economy makes computing power ubiquitous, spawning a large number of people's demand for high-performance computing devices, Dell's powerful productivity tools will continue to empower and accelerate enterprise innovation.

In terms of sustainable development, Dell is on a mission to actively promote environmental protection and the development of the global green economy, adhering to the high standards of "safety, reliability, environmental protection and energy saving", designing and manufacturing products, and more than 80% of products are made of renewable materials. Dell has committed to 100% recycled or renewable packaging materials by 2030.

More than forty years have passed since Alvin Toffler's prediction, and although we cannot fully assert whether "no office" will really appear, the "mixed office" model is playing out in more and more enterprises, and the slow disappearance of this sense of boundaries will also be the only way for "no office".