Top device considerations for remote workers
Employees expect their workplace devices to keep functional pace with their consumer experiences, with accessibility and power to keep them productive. AMD can help.
With the pandemic still surging, your business has almost assuredly shifted toward remote work. Indicators show that this could well become the new normal, but does your organisation have the right tools and hardware to accommodate this seismic shift without cutting into worker productivity?
Even before COVID-19, IDC research showed that 62 percent of organisations surveyed had started allowing flexibility when it comes to remote work. This spring, everything changed when the pandemic triggered a near-global work-from-home mandate in near real time.
Because most organisations’ remote work plans were not fully operational, many discovered that the infrastructure put in place to support remote workers was not on par with the infrastructure catering to in-office employees. Other findings from the same IDC report showed:
• Over half of respondents had difficulty communicating or collaborating with internal colleagues
• 43 percent had trouble communicating or collaborating with external stakeholders
• Almost 40 percent had limited effective remote access
Unleashing the power of the right PC or laptop platform can revolutionize your approach to these remote work challenges. AMD Ryzen™ PRO 4000 series processors, found in a variety of leading OEM partner platforms, are designed to meet key enterprise requirements. At the same time, they allow users to effectively collaborate with colleagues and keep up with work demands smoothly from a remote workplace.
Boost worker productivity
Colored by their consumer experiences, employees have high expectations that their workplace tools will be accessible and powerful enough to keep them productive. The AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 family offers up to eight cores and 16 threads—the most on a mobile business processor for ultrathin notebooks1 —which makes it up to 33 percent faster than systems based on a competitive chip set, according to AMD performance testing.2
AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 systems also get high marks for accelerating the performance of today’s business applications. This is a huge advantage for “mega taskers,” or workers who toggle between everything from videoconference meetings to multiple PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets.
The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U platform offers up to 37 percent faster performance running Microsoft Office in PCMark 10 Applications benchmark compared to the previous generation Ryzen 7 PRO 3700U processor.3
In addition, the same AMD platform offers up to 19 percent faster performance in Microsoft Word, up to 77 percent faster performance in Excel, and up to 27 percent faster performance in PowerPoint versus the previous generation.
Battery life is another critical element for promoting productivity when working from home or on the go. The Ryzen 4000 series processors, built on advanced 7nm technology and “Zen 2” architecture, enable exceptional battery life and up to 2X the performance-per-watt when compared to the previous processor generation.4 In fact, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U processor offers battery life of up to 24 hours.5
“By not having to plug in all the time, you have the flexibility to do what you need, where you need it ,when you need to do it,” says Matt Unangst, Director of Commercial Client Business at AMD. “That translates into productivity gains because you get things done no matter what the environment is.”
Enable team collaboration
With many employees still working from home, it’s critical that systems support the communication necessary for remote collaboration. Applications such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, and other collaboration tools are essential for working remotely. To that end, HP EliteBook and Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks powered by AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 processors incorporate high-end webcams and privacy shutters to support realistic collaboration.
The AMD chip family’s premium graphics capabilities also ensure employees won’t skip a beat when using digital media. “Everything we do today incorporates more graphics-intensive workflows,” says Matt Unangst, Director of Commercial Client Business at AMD. “Premium graphics are more important to employees now that everyone is working remotely with colleagues and including more visual mediums as part of the content they are sharing.”
Protection for enterprise information
Security threats are on the rise as we shift to remote work. Data breaches have increased 3X from 2018, a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds, and 80 percent of the costs associated with a laptop loss can be directly tied to a data breach.6 The fallout from COVID-19 has only exacerbated security concerns: A CSO survey found 61 percent of respondents are worried about attacks targeting work-from-home employees.
The Ryzen PRO 4000 processors feature AMD PRO security, a multi-layered approach to security that includes silicon and firmware-level security features in addition to AMD Memory Guard, which uses system memory encryption to help reduce the threat of physical memory attacks even if the laptop is left in standby mode. AMD PRO security complements Windows 10 security capabilities, including Windows Device Guard and enhanced sign-on.
Lift the remote management burden
IT departments are already stretched thin–and supporting remote users adds to their workloads. AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 series processors, which includes AMD PRO manageability, are designed to simplify and streamline the management process so IT departments aren’t bogged down by fleet deployment, imaging, and patch management. Support for Microsoft Endpoint Manager, a unified endpoint cloud-based management platform that combines Microsoft Intune and Configuration Manager, helps IT personnel reduce the time spent on remote support.
In this unprecedented era of change, your organization requires a whole new level of flexibility and performance from PCs and laptops. Systems that offer AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 series processors strike the right balance between increasing worker productivity and easing the burden on your IT personnel, all while keeping security features top of mind.
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- As of February 2020.“Most Cores and Threads” in a mobile business processor for ultrathin notebooks. RNP-19
- Testing as of 1/24/2020 by AMD Performance Labs on a Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U (AMD Reference Platform) vs. i7-10710U (Dell XPS 13). Results may vary. RNP-11
- Testing as of 1/24/2020 by AMD Performance Labs on a Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U Reference Platform vs. Ryzen 7 PRO 3700U (HP EliteBook 745 G6). PCMark is a registered trademark of Futuremark Corporation. Results may vary. RNP-6
- Based on AMD internal analysis and testing by AMD Performance Labs as of 11/22/2019 utilizing the Ryzen™ 7 4800U vs. 2nd Gen Ryzen™ 7 3700U in Cinebench R20 Benchmark. Results may vary. RM3-123
- A properly configured HP EliteBook 835 G7 with AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U Processor, gets up to 24 hours of MM14 battery life: https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2020/hp-provides-ultimate-office-experience-at-home.html Actual battery life will vary based on several factors, including, but not limited to: system configuration and software, settings, product use and age, and operating conditions. AMD has not independently tested or verified the battery life claim. See www.bapco.com for additional details. RNP-28
- https://www.channelpronetwork.com/article/mobile-device-security-startling-statistics-data-loss-and-data-breaches