So... what's the big deal about DaaS?

As a HP Inc Gold partner we spend huge amounts of time with them on an ongoing basis understanding changes in the market place, how they’re reacting to and driving those changes, and most importantly how the actions they’re taking can benefit customers. Over the past year or so we’ve seen an exponential increase in focus on their DaaS (Device as a Service) solution. This in itself is interesting as the concept of DaaS is hardly new, buying kit on finance has been around nearly as long as the kit itself. This leads us on to two questions – what’s different, and why now?

In terms of ‘what’s different’ this can be answered in three words: the application layer. As well as providing the solution on a per device, per month cost basis, HP’s DaaS solution incorporates intelligent technology that monitors device health and performance and feeds this back to the IT team via an easy to manage dashboard. This gives 2 key benefits:

• Potential hardware failures can be identified early and fixed before they become a problem. Dependent on the level of service taken, new parts can automatically be shipped the moment an issue is identified, and well before the part actually fails. This eliminates both having to maintain a stock of parts and user downtime and increases the IT team’s efficiency, which in turn frees up time to focus on core business issues rather than being reactive.

• Resources can be reallocated according to user requirement. Does Debbie on reception really need 6 cores? Why can’t Finance get the monthly numbers out until the following week (could it possibly be due to Samantha’s long-suffering I3 not taking kindly to those 50MB Excel files?). By giving IT visibility of resource utilisation within individual machines, devices can be reallocated to ensure that staff have enough power to handle their workloads whilst also ensuring a cost-effective IT portfolio. The result? Samantha can access the resource she needs to get the numbers out in time, Debbie experiences no detriment to her quality of service, and the business incurs no additional cost.

This probably sounds good but budgets are tight and most IT departments have more than enough projects in the air without adding another one to the fray. So the second question – why now? With Windows 7 end of support less than a year away, it’s becoming more and more critical for businesses to move on to supported versions. This inevitably means most organisations will need to replace at least part of their estate at a substantial cost that may stretch budgets. By moving onto an opex model, organisations can invest in the right level of upgrades with minimal impact to cash-flow, keeping cash in the bank to invest in the core business whilst ensuring staff have the resource required to maximise productivity. Wins all round!

At Ultima we recognise every customer is different and we’d never suggest that DaaS is for everyone (on the contrary, we recognise it isn’t!). That said, we’ve modeled it extensively and in many cases it can actually work out cheaper for organisations to utilise DaaS rather than purchase the devices outright. HP also offer 3 levels of service (Standard, Enhanced and Premium) so ensuring you have the right level is critical to achieve the best possible business value. Interested to know more? We have an interview with our Head of Modern Workspace focussing on DaaS, along with more content on our website here. Alternately, please speak to your Ultima Account Manager to understand more and arrange a device demo.

- By Tom Walker (Strategic Vendor Alliance Manager)