Anybody who as undergone a consultative exercise to establish if VDI is suitable for their business will have almost definitely come across two results:
1 – Yes there is a fit and a definite need for VDI in key areas of the business if not all
2 – There is an unknown element of licensing that needs to be considered – VECD from Microsoft.
In a recent event we ran with Microsoft it was stated that about 60-70% of VDI solutions are infringing Microsoft licensing agreements – luckily those are not our solutions!
Anyway the good news is that Microsoft looks like they are to modify their licensing model for VECD.
Rather than on products, Microsoft is focusing on VDI licensing.
In July 2009 it introduced two new VDI licenses, the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Standard Suite and the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Premium Suite, on top of its well-known Virtual Enterprise Centralised Desktop (VECD).
Now the company may perform additional adjustments to its offering.
A couple of days ago TechTarget reported that Microsoft plans to modify the VECD to reduce the cost per user.
Although Microsoft will update its per-use device model, the company continues to license per device because right now it's the only way to provide an accurate count of licenses per access point. Microsoft passed the following comment on per user or per device licensing:
"Per user creates more complexity, and a wholesale shift to per-use licensing would be too costly," Microsoft said. "Most customer agreements are constructed around devices."
Therefore, it's likely some kind of hybrid model will come first.
"Some of the changes around the relaxation of use rights to support more flexible rights to allow roaming, and to other devices, will come in this calendar year," he said.
I certainly hope that this is the catalyst for VDI, it certainly cant do any harm.
Are you considering VDI? If so contact us to see how we can help, call Charles Barratt on 0845 260 5757.