In enterprise organisations, choosing the right hardware strategy for end users during a desktop refresh cycle can feel a bit like playing a game of Monopoly. This is especially the case when the desktop refresh is part of a major migration project (such as a Windows migration), but it can also be the case when no large-scale migration is involved.
We could call it endpoint migration-opoly.
You roll the dice with the hardware, physical devices, and VDI mix you currently have in your infrastructure, making decisions on where to land on what is a constantly moving target (price increases, minimum device specifications, vendor acquisitions and divestments, etc).
Just think, when you were making desktop refresh decisions four or five years ago, hardly anyone had heard of ChatGPT (and all the other generative AI tools that have sprung up since then). And not many of us were considering whether any of our organisation’s users needed NPUs (neural processing units) in their day-to-day work devices.
So, today, what does your next desktop refresh contain?
Physical or Virtual Desktops
The move to virtual desktop solutions has dominated a lot of the debate over recent years, even if the discussions were often pushed by those who stand to benefit from a shift to virtual. What is the reality, though?
Reliable statistics and research are difficult to come by, but what is available almost always predicts that the global VDI market continues to be in a strong growth phase.
Our experience says that physical devices still dominate, including in well-resourced and forward-thinking enterprise organisations. With no publicly accessible statistics on the split between physical desktops/laptops and VDI/DaaS, we asked a generative AI engine to look at the information that is available and make an estimate. The result was 60% to 80% of business users continue to use physical desktops/laptops, with 20% to 40% on VDI/DaaS. It’s not scientific, but it does correlate with our experience.
So, the summary is that VDI/DaaS is growing according to recent data and predictions, but physical desktops/laptops continue to dominate.
The Cost Question
One of the big selling points for VDI solutions over recent years is cost. However, we are seeing more and more organisations recalibrate their thinking. This is being driven by a number of factors, including VDI vendor price increases and a better understanding of what are often highly complex licensing costs. This is leading some tech leaders to switch back to physical or initiate a slowdown of VDI adoption.
Let’s look at some numbers. At the time of writing, the lowest published Windows 365 Enterprise plan is $28 per user per month (2 vCPU with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage). Over three years, the total licensing cost at those rates will be $1,008.
Comparing to the physical device option, you could buy a decently specified desktop or laptop for a similar cost, and it will probably last for at least three years.
Of course, you then need to factor in maintenance costs. That often moves the cost balance back in favour of VDI and DaaS.
But even that is not a simple equation when you compare the direction of travel for hardware costs versus licensing costs. The cost to purchase a physical desktop or laptop has remained fairly static, i.e., a device with a good spec by today’s standards is likely to cost roughly the same as a device purchased four years ago with a good spec by the standards of the time. On the licensing side, however, the trend for many vendors is upward with subscription price increases.
And there are also other factors to consider, including security, compliance, flexibility, and scalability.
Today’s Desktop Refresh Decision-Making Process
The specifics can vary organisation to organisation, but what doesn’t vary is the multitude of variables at play.
That leads to two conclusions:
- A one-size-fits-all desktop solution doesn’t exist, especially in larger organisations.
- A more flexible, hybrid solution is needed that features a mix of VDI, DaaS, and physical device endpoints.
How do you make that work? How do you decide who gets what? How do you make sure spending on performance is targeted to where it is needed most and not where the loudest shouts are coming from? How do you make sure the allocation of spend across departments is fair? And how do you conduct the refresh with multiple end-user device solutions in the mix? For example, how do you efficiently package and distribute apps needed by users on physical, VDI, and DaaS devices when the packaging formats and deployment methods are all different?
There are three main components to the solution:
- A well-defined desktop refresh and end-user computing strategy.
- Clearly defined personas, where you group users based on actual performance metrics rather than lobbying or guesswork.
- Automation to give you the data, end-user collaboration, and management capabilities you need.
This is where we can help at Access IT Automation. Our Symphony product, for example, will help you create user personas based on data, while our Capture product will automate application management regardless of the mix of end-user devices.
Back to our question at the start: what does your next desktop refresh contain? It seems the most common approach is a mixture. In your organisation, make sure the mix is based on data-derived personas with a focus on performance and supported by automation.
