The enterprise desktop is most definitely becoming an integral part of the datacentre, a fact that must be true if only because of the number of companies now offering different types of desktop solution. There are virtualised desktops, PC-blade desktops and their associated thin clients, and there are the tools that allow the IT department to build, and therefore control and manage, the workspaces that individual users are provided. One of the latest to move in on this latter area is Dutch-based Getronics, with what it calls its Future-Ready Workspace. 

The fundamental idea here, as with all such approaches, is that key one of trying to balance at least the appearance of end-user `freedom of action and choice’ within an infrastructure that lives largely by being well-controlled and managed. The Getronics approach is to provide a reasonable level of end user choice – and let’s face it, in practice many end users do not require too much of that to be effective for the business – by building on standards.  

This is being built upon an existing `pick and mix’ communications and networking infrastructure from the product and service roster of Dutch telecoms service provider, KPN, which acquired Getronics during the latter part of last year. The upshot is that the KPN telecoms infrastructure components have been pulled together and placed under the Getronics brand, where they have now been integrated with the workspace tools and existing infrastructure components.  

The company then works with other partners such as Accenture, which provides the integration piece and Atos Origin, which is responsible for the datacentre, in order to build an end-to-end offering.  

To make this work, of course, requires building on standards and as this is all about the desktop workspace, Getronics has opted for the de facto standard of Microsoft for the desktop environment. This is then used as the basis of a three-tier development model with which end user workspaces can be built.  

At the base level there are a range of core services that every user will need and are therefore part of the underpinning workspace infrastructure. These include all the obvious candidates such as print, mail, standard Office applications, storage (including backup and restore), communications and collaboration infrastructures and a baseline security offering. 

Above that in the model comes a range of services modules from which users can pick and mix the functionality that will be required. Getronics is hoping that most users will be able to find modules for most of the workspace requirements they have, and it does create an obvious opportunity for the company to grow that module repository as user demand/popularity changes. The current modules mainly include extensions to the core services, particularly in areas such as communications, collaboration and security. 

The final level of the model is where user enterprises can develop their own specific modules, if required. This is aimed at those users that have specific requirements in areas such as security and collaboration. 

This end-to-end package is primarily aimed at the larger enterprises and, with Getronics being Dutch, Shell is an unsurprisingly obvious typical customer. But it is now looking at a SaaS offering which, while intended as an alternative delivery system to onsite installation, can also open up the workspace offering not only to small and medium sized business (SMB) community, but also the channel systems integrators and applications vendors that service much of this large market sector.