So, this week started with a failed laptop. And even though the laptop was only 8 weeks old, these things can, and do, happen. The laptop in question, was used by our Sales Director, Paul Kiveal.

We are used to managing this type of situation, after all, as a technology company, we have earned a living from getting our clients back up and running when IT does not behave the way you expect it to. Equipment failing is usually met with frustrations of lost work, downtime, and that sick feeling as the disruption to your coming days / weeks starts to sink in. Questions like “What was I working on?”, “Do I have a backup?”, “Is there anything confidential on the machine that I now cannot access?” and perhaps the biggest one, “How long will it take to get fixed?”.

In Paul’s case however, all his work is in the cloud, all his emails are in the cloud. In fact, every part of Paul’s connected world, including his phone, is in the cloud.

The ability to have roaming desktops has been around for years, and in years gone by; if Paul was based permanently in our office, then this process would have still worked. The on-premises servers would have helped to make the process less tedious. Our team would have had Paul back up and running by the end of the day on another machine. Today’s technology, however, no longer requires you to be in the office. In fact, we no longer have a requirement to have servers, in our office. Our line of business application and phone system are cloud based, our email is cloud based and now that our documents are stored in SharePoint, this is also cloud based.

Paul was able to use another machine in the office and simply “sign in”. By signing in, he had access to, well quite simply, everything. Even his recent documents list showed exactly that, his recent docs. His phone app showed that last calls he had made. As he handed over his laptop to Craig, I do recall him being asked one last question, “was there anything on the laptop that he needed?” His answer was a simple “no”.

With the laptop being so new it was under a like for like replacement warranty and to answer the “how long” question, within 1 week, Microsoft had sent him his replacement. All Paul had to do to be back up and running on his machine was – you guessed it, “sign in”.

Welcome to Microsoft’s Modern Workplace.