Business agility is slowly replacing cost as the factor driving most companies down the path of desktop virtualisation. According to a survey from Molten Technologies, companies are also unsure whether the drive to desktop virtualisation would be a way to simplify processes - more than half thought desktop virtualisation presented the same management challenge as their existing physical PCs.
The survey, which examined the attitudes towards virtualisation among UK businesses also found that 96 per cent of IT professionals questioned for the survey thought that IT professionals needed to be more business-savvy. "They've spoken about it for long enough," said Robin Tapp, Molten's managing director for client services. Interestingly it's starting to do this with end user computing."
It's the business case for operational flexibility. Tapp said that the drive to desktop virtualisation came about as a need to reduce costs but other factors come into play. "It's important to build the price point for PC but agility is more important - that's the key word that came out in the survey," he said. This could sometimes be accidental. "We spoke to a US bank who were expanding their desktop virtualisation greatly for security reasons. They originally went to the technology for cost reasons but chose to expand after they perceived an operational management benefit.
Other factors that come into play are supporting flexible and contract workers, particular for larger companies and finance houses and security, which was an issue for SMEs and enterprises alike.
There's certainly a growing interest in desktop virtualisation as more companies drive towards it. "Server virtualisation is a given now," said Tapp. But companies are concerned about the complexity of managing a move to desktop, which must be sweet music to the ears of Molten, who offer hosted desktop virtualiation. According to the survey, only 34 per cent think it will lessen complexity while 13 per cent think it will actually increase it.
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