Windows 10 Mobile is looking like a tool business users,- it could be the phone that replaces the PC for a lot of users.
Do you remember when Microsoft’s mission statement was to put a PC in every home? How things have changed. Teens are walking around these days with smartphones that have more functionality and connectivity than your PC with a 28,800 modem could have ever achieved. And something new is coming
People in developing nations couldn’t afford a PC or a laptop; instead they went for a feature phone. Apple, followed by Android, shook the world up and gave us smartphones where the primary function isn’t to make phone calls, but to give us access to cloud services
At Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2014 keynote, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner announced that Microsoft held only a 14 percent share of all devices, and yet that still accounts for their dominant 90 percent plus share of the PC market. It’s clear that the PC is now the minority device.
So what is Continuum?
Continuum is a Windows 10 feature for devices, such as the Microsoft Surface.
– When you have the keyboard attached, the device is desktop-centric and features keyboard and mouse as the primary input methods.
– When you remove the keyboard, the device switches to a touch interface by featuring a Start Screen.
But there’s another trick to Continuum.
◾One OS: Windows 10 focuses on IoT devices, such as Raspberry Pi or your next microwave cooker, tablets, PCs, HoloLens, Surface Hub, and Windows Phones.
◾Universal Apps: A developer can write a program once and have it work across all Windows 10 devices.
A feature that enables this cross-device functionality is dynamic screen scaling. Microsoft is releasing Office 2016 as a universal app at around the same time as Windows 10, and it will work in this way — one Office, lots of devices.
Continuum is for hybrid devices and Microsoft never limited that description to just tablets with attachable keyboards. In fact, Microsoft also intended the smartphone to be a hybrid device.
So, in theory, use your smartphone like your PC today with Microsoft Office and plenty of business apps . Edit a spreadsheet, write a Word document, and wirelessly present a PowerPoint presentation
In theory but a five-inch screen might be okay for checking Twitter , but it’s not great for editing documents or interacting with business applications. The screen is too small, a touch UI is not as efficient as keyboard and mouse input.
Continuum was created for Windows Mobile 10.so that it cna also work with full-sized peripherals, and a bigger screen. Use your phone as your primary device e on the go. When you get home or to the office, plug your phone to charge, and connect a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the phone. The phone will display the normal Windows 10 desktop on your monitor. Interact with it as you would on the PC — and the same Windows 10 OS. Click the Start Menu, and instead of a Windows 10 Start Menu, you’ll get the Start Screen of your phone for a consistent experience. Click Excel, and Excel will open in a window or full screen on the monitor, just like it would on the PC — it’s the same Microsoft Office thanks to Universal Apps.
Microsoft has not been good at taking hardware to market- it needs to use all its channels with this.
we also have to recognise that not all corporations want their data mobile, and that it may take along time before bespoke application like erp, finance and payroll, are all updated and compatible with Windows 10 and that means a lot of some pcs will stick around for a while yet.
If you go down this route, then think about back ups, and security and support e.g If you lose your phone – second-factor authentication – optic nerve, fingerprint or facial recognition authentication – someone else logging on auto blocks the device etc.
If you are truly mobile with your business apps and devices then think abuot mobile network management e.g patches, anti virus updates, geo fending etc
The future of the enterprise desktop is stateless (i.e. mostly online) clients.
Phones and tablets can not be stateless devices because mobile focused devices are offline too much.
Thus a future phone based enterprise will be maybe more of support nightmare than the current windows desktop. Its unlikely at least for now that you will have only one device – we don’t live in a single use case world. Entertainment focused mobiles are a very different use case to a work device( Just as we need shopping trolleys cars, lorries etc..)
