A closer look at Lenovo's new PC as a Service (PCaaS) Program

This week during their Transform event in New York City, Lenovo not only announced new data center hardware portfolios but they also unveiled a new service program called PC as a Service aka PCaaS.

During the morning keynote Lenovo's Christian Teismann, the companies Senior VP and GM for PCSD Commercial Business Segment, he talked about the shift from Personal Computers to Personalized Computing along with the 25 year history of the Lenovo ThinkPad brand.

Included in his discussion was the fact IT is transforming in the commercial business world form the more traditional approach IT has taken over the years to a much more agile approach that includes the use carrying your own device, mobile device management, and cloud image &  recovery. He also pointed out the need for companies to understand that the workforce is evolving right alongside the workplaces transformation. 

One solution Lenovo wants to offer businesses approaching these changes is PCaaS so that they can have a much more dynamic support structure with modern hardware devices and other services.

I attended an afternoon session on this service, which also got referred to as Devices as a Service, that was presented by Lenovo's Diane Croessmann and Jay Watson.

They covered three key areas that help to convey why the time is right for a product like PCaaS.

Changing Role of IT

In the workplace trends such as flexibility, mobility, and device choice are driving the move from a pre-configured device that is completely controlled by IT to a system that provides secure access to not only enterprise applications but also the data necessary for an employee to get their work done. There also needs to be freedom to use other tools to get the job done.

The current landscape of PC Lifecycle Management is a tangled web of services from multiple companies across six areas:

-- Design
-- Implementation and Deployment
-- Support
-- Management
-- Optimization
-- Protection

Sometimes these scenarios can cross multiple OEMs, contracts, and invoices on top of being very costly and inefficient. According to Lenovo, it is these situations that are making the marketplace ready for PCaaS.

Emergence of PCaaS

PCaaS brings this conglomeration into a single channel that provides an improved customer experience because it is one contract that includes hardware, software, and services into one bundle.

Another aspect of this PCaaS approach is the flexibility companies can have to tailor their service to fit their needs. No more one size fits all contracts that can have companies paying for more than they actually need.

Lenovo PCaaS Value

That single source benefit is a big part of Lenovo's approach to PCaaS and also includes reductions in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) , the ability to flex the plan as needed, and a large selection of servicing options.

By moving to PCaaS, companies will be able to abandon the multi-vendor approach and the myriad of pitfalls. The move to a single source contract streamlines all aspects of a companies IT approach and provides much greater flexibility.

Lenovo shared that end user cost per seat for IT can cost $1,500 per year but they believe their PCaaS can cut 30% off of that cost.

The service will be continuing to roll out globally to 24 countries throughout 2017.

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