Organisations are showing strong interest in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as they try to increase security and manageability and leverage expertise gained in server virtualisation initiatives, according to a report by market research firm InformationWeek Analytics.
The report said, the comparatively tight spread among the Big 3 vendors – Citrix, Microsoft and VMware – suggests that this market will not be dominated by any one supplier, as VMware has done on the server side.
The report revealed that most implementers have chosen to limit VDI to a partial deployment by user category, ranging from 68% of corporate office workers down to 3% of media production workers.
In addition, there is a 20-point spread between those who say the IT organisation is satisfied or very satisfied with the current VDI infrastructure (93%) and those who can say the same for end users (73%).
The research firm said that the current attitudes toward cloud-based or outsourced VDI are far from positive, with only 14% of organisations reporting use vs. 39% who say no to a services model; 47% are considering.
The initial investment in hardware and software needed to deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure is high, with 31% citing cost as the primary reason for not adopting.
InformationWeek Analytics content director Lorna Garey said that the VDI technology had a good bit of room to mature, but a wide variety of companies were taking the leap anyway.
