Introduction

The conventional desktop provisioning and management system has increasingly become costly and insecure. Organizations are looking for alternative mechanisms like desktop virtualization to reduce their management costs and to improve security of their data as well as enhance productivity of their work force.

This report analyses desktop virtualization with more focus on VDI. Comprehensive business cases include analysis of ROI for virtualized versus traditional desktop, virtualized versus offshored/automated desktop and up-front costs needed to develop a VDI ecosystem. Buyers’ concerns and strategies of top desktop management suppliers (MNCs and Indian) have been elaborated along with key dimensions of their divergence. The report also predicts the most likely scenario of VDI evolution.

Scope

• Definition of the desktop virtualization landscape and its flavors
• Assessment of buyers’ concerns and business cases, which include cost comparison to a traditional desktop environment, and to a highly automated and offshored desktop environment as well as analysis of up-front investments needed to deploy a VDI ecosystem
• Profiling of major desktop management suppliers, including multinational companies (MNCs) and Indian suppliers in terms of their desktop management and desktop virtualization strategies
• Alternate scenarios for adoption of VDI with likelihoods

Contents

This research focuses on VDI flavor of desktop virtualization and analysis the ROI and other related issues and challenges with VDI. Buyers’ concerns and supplier strategies have been elaborated across five sections: desktop virtualization overview, business case and buyers’ concerns, supplier strategies, likely scenarios of evolution and implication for key stakeholder. For instance the second section of the report discusses value from desktop virtualization and buyers’ concerns.

• Various challenges that buyers are facing and their main reasons for adopting desktop virtualization as well as major hindrances towards adoption
• Value derived out of desktop virtualization in terms of reducing technical support costs, PC engineering costs and application administration costs over a traditional and a offshored/automated desktop ecosystem
• Up-front investments needed to deploy a VDI environment
• Different management tasks which a buyer can offshore/automate to derive significant efficiency in its end-user environment
• The analysis of intangible benefits on which most of the suppliers rest their business case for desktop virtualization
• A set of unique risks which VDI in general may bring post-implementation