Standing on a Whale, Fishing for Minnows

Why VDI?

I have spent the better part of the past three years as an evangelist for the business and technical merits of VDI (and all of the associated hosted/streamed/hyper-vised/abstracted/delivered those three letters stand for these days.)

Yesterday, reading a document by Microsoft of all people on Windows 7 Migration, it dawned on me...clear as a bell ringing....why exactly we are all so fascinated with new desktop strategies. Here is my manifesto. Honest and brutal feedback welcome.

What is the Primary Driver for VDI?

• Capex Savings....nope, Capex is for Wimps. This driver will convince you to pay more I am betting.
• Opex Savings...nope, soft costs are cool, but there is more
• Agiligy....important, but nope
• Central Management ... a bonus, but nope
• Security...really important, but nope
• BYOPC .... cool, but nope
• Business Continuity ... valuable, but nope

Why VDI?

So, roll the clock back to 1977. Everyone is sitting at their nice and stable $299 IBM Selectra Typewriter, pecking away, writing memo's, putting them in bins, folding them into envelopes, and moving information around quite well. Doing their jobs. The typewriter not only cost a few hundred dollars...it only needed ONE SKU to support it give or take (a ribbon cartridge), hardly ever broke, and did the job perfectly, lasting for years.

A sales person comes in one day, and says " I have a new thing for you. It costs $2999, it needs about 20 Skus to support it, you are going to have to hire a bunch of people to learn how to work the software and stuff needed to keep it working. It breaks a lot. When it does, you may not know what actually happened, it will last about 3 years, then i will be back to sell you a new one, when i do, it will take a week or so to get them to you. Your users will have to sort of start from scratch. We call it a PC.. How many would you like to buy?"

The salesperson leaves, we say, maybe for some users, but gosh, at that Capex vs. what i pay now, i just can't justify it. Oh, and this is all taking place during the Oil Crisis, during horrible economic times.

And yet, within 5 years, almost every single typewriter on the planet was ripped out, and replaced with this new thing, the PC.

Why?

So, its now 2009. We have $299 PC's, and a Sales person comes in and says..."I have this new thing for you..I won't be able to match the CAPEX you spend now, i believe i can lower OPEX, I believe my technology leads to security, agility, easier management, disaster resiliency, and a host of other good things. Applications may get easier to use, you may be able to buy less of some stuff, but probably more of others. My solution comes in a million flavors, can be complex to configure, definitely will not work for everyone, is new, and ultimately may lead to your cloud dream fulfillment. We call it VDI. How many would you like to buy?"

The salesperson leaves, we say, maybe for some users, but gosh, at that Capex vs. what i pay now, i just can't justify it. Oh, and this is all taking place during the Financial Crisis, during horrible economic times.

And within 5 years, almost every single PC on the planet could be replaced by this new thing, VDI.

Why did we migrate away from the typewriter, to the PC, and why will we migrate to VDI?

Productivity.

If I pay an employee $100,000 a year, and i can restore 5% of the productivity lost by PC "issues" using a new solution = $5,000

If that employee contributes $400,000k in revenue to my organization a 5% increase in productivity = $20,000

If that employee can process 5% more files, logs, cases, calls, complaints....work =  what is that worth?

The current debate has me thinking we are "standing on a whale, fishing for minnows"

VDI is not about Capex. VDI is not about Opex. Those are nice benchmarks to pass smile tests. 

VDI is about Potential Productivity.  What would you pay for that?

J.Tyler "t-rex" Rohrer

September 11, 2009