For decades, the desktop was the center of work. A worker sat down at a physical machine—typically running Windows—and everything they needed was right there: apps, files, security, and access. Their work lived in a single, managed workspace, tightly coupled to a device controlled by IT.
Today, that world is long gone. The old metaphor of “the desktop is the workspace” has melted, as the components that made up the workspace now float freely and recombine dynamically when needed. Today’s workspace isn’t tied to a specific operating system or machine, rather it’s more abstract, portable, and accessible. The modern workspace is no longer a place where work happens. It’s the control plane for work itself.