There used to be a time when the laptop was a symbol of power and status. These days you see people using these devices everywhere-in airports, coffee shops, at press conferences-even on public transport. When buying a laptop, an information-empowered buyer asks questions about battery life, screen size, weights, connectivity and security features.

Further, new features such as instant-on, all-day battery life, seamless connectivity, multi-factor authentication and small form factor are fast becoming a standard on the mobility platform. Features seen in consumer notebooks, such as touch-sensitive controls and multi-media capabilities are now coming to professional notebooks. There is also a stronger focus on design and security aspects. The Notebook technology trend are more robust and powerful.

Here are other significant trends that are driving the adoption of notebooks in the enterprise:

INSTANT ACCESS

As more enterprises replace desktops with notebooks, OEMs are focusing on efficiency and time-saving features. One feature that is fast catching on is instant access to e-mail, contacts, calendaring and scheduling tools-even applications.  This features spares you the annoying 3-5 minutes windows boot-up routine, just to check the latest e-mail. HP, for instance, calls this features QuickLoo  2. Asu  calls it Express Gate and Dell has  Latitude ON, though these terms generally refer to the Linux-based operating systems (OS) embedded in secondary systems that offer instant-on  functionality. To enable this functionality, notebook OEMs incorporate Splashtop technology  from a company named Device VM. BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies has a similar product called Hyperspace.

Dell latitude E and latitude Z notebooks have a secondary mini motherboard and separate ARM processors. You can access e-mail, contacts, calendars and your firefox browser through a separate non Windows interface. Call it a ‘system within a system’ if you like, but it ensures that essential productivity tools are always running in the background and are in sync with the main system-so that you always have instant access to the latest information.

The press-of-a-button feature is also applicable to other functions such as switching wireless radios on/off, launching applications like the Windows calculator or Excel, loading the browser, launching presentations or for optimizing power management and other settings.

SECURITY

Due to an increasingly mobile workforce more employees carry confidential company information on laptops. This puts the organization at a greater risk because laptops can be stolen or left behind in public transport. A study conducted by the ponemon institute this year shows that the average value of a lost notebook is USD 49,246-much more than the cost of the laptop itself. This value is based on seven cost components: replacement cost, detection, forensics, data beach, lost intellectual property cost, lost productivity and legal, consulting and regulatory expenses.

Enterprise class notebooks usually have security features such as fingerprint readers and hard disk encryption through TPM (Trusted Platform Module). But now OEMs want to make these portable storage vaults more secure by introducing multiple security features and multi-factor authentication. That’s why you’ll see enhanced security features such a HID-compliant contact-less smart card reader, physical smart card reader, token authentication, poison pill technology, facial recognition and standards such as opel and FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standardization) becoming common in notebooks.

The combination of fingerprint reader, password and contact-less card makes for multifactor authentication. while this makes for strong access security, what features are available for protecting data, especially on stolen laptops?

OEMs like Dell, HP and others are using Intel Antitheft (AT) technology for notebooks. Intel AT is a hardware-based technology that can intelligently detect suspicious behavior or receive a remote theft alert. The system then responds in three ways:

• When a user reports a lost or stolen laptop incident to a service provider, it can help by sending a ‘poison pill’ to disable the laptop.
• In the event of suspicious activity such as excessive login attempts, the laptop disables itself.
• If the laptop does not log into then network within a set period of time, it disables itself.