Ten reasons to think twice about virtual desktops

Margevicius said it would be incorrect to assume that virtualising the desktop makes it easier to manage.

3. Not necessarily easier to manage

There are two types of virtual desktops today.

The first is the pooled environment - in which regardless of which virtual machine any user logs in to, they see a fresh instance with the same look, feel and applications as their peers. This version of the virtual desktop is, almost without question, easier to manage.

"It is naturally very scalable and the least costly to implement. But is far more static than many users actually like," Margevicius said.

The second is the persistent environment, in which each individual worker has the ability to maintain a persistent layout from day to day.

"When I log in from wherever I am, persistence is maintained to me - it is a replication of the physical environment into the virtual," he said. "Users are likely to prefer this model, but this is far more expensive and complex to manage."

Gartner anticipates a future virtual desktop that can be managed like a pooled environment, with "the technology in place that can maintain persistence," he said.

"That means de-coupling the things that I do as a user for customisation and storing it independently of the image," he said. "It is not here yet, but most definitely on its way within a few years."

In the meantime, Margevicius said that the roll-out of virtual desktops doesn't magically "make PC management issues go away.

"You are just virtualising the mess," he said. "It moves - but it doesn't go away."

He expects another iteration of improvement in management tools needs to evolve before he could confidently say virtual desktops are easier to manage.

2. Benefits are hard to quantify

There is, according to Gartner, a good possibility that upgrading to virtual desktops can save an organisation money over time.

But the problem most CIOs face is having to justify the upfront capital costs of the new infrastructure required.

"The Total Cost of Ownership of your desktop environment will drop," he said. "But most cost savings occur in hidden and indirect ways.

"If a user reboots less frequently, if the number of helpdesk calls goes down and there is less time spent on calls, these are real benefits. But are they quantifiable for the organisation?"

There is only one way to make such a business case stack up, he said.

"It is a very good idea to understand your existing support costs," he said. "The most important argument as to why virtual desktops should be deployed is to argue from an operational point of view.

"You need to look at that army doing break-fix and distribution and be able to say - I can reduce headcount for 40 percent to justify this investment." 

1. The economics don't stack up

If there are no headcount reductions to be made, the business case is going to struggle to stand up, he said.

"The costs that matter most today are capital costs," he said.

"When you do comparison of PC pricing to the real investment in server, storage, network, licensing, management tools and cabling required for virtual desktops, the cost of the virtual desktop is 1.4 to 1.7 times more than the traditional PC," he said.

The cost of virtual desktops could drop to 1.5 over the year or so," he said, "but it will never get as cheap as a PC does.

"That is too much for many organisations to stomach and we agree."

What do you think? Does the business case for virtual desktops stack up?