OK sports fans, get ready with those hisses and boos. Here goes....

"The iPad is the Ultimate VDI Endpoint" - T.Rex Rohrer January 28 2010

Why?

1. User Acceptance - the iPad passes the first smile test - a really cool form factor that end users will digg. Rich and robust local experience for the STUFF we do when we are not doing work. iPad/iPhone familiarity [ i heart my iPhone]

2. Ultra Mobile - small, light, just big enough, i probably will drop it less than i have my laptop. 

3. Always Connected -With 3g and wifi, I am in an always connected state. Offline will be dropped from the dictionary and wikipedia soon anyway, so - good to have this now.(or soon, i think April)

4. Remote App Delivery - Corporate can provision, update, patch, tweak, and entitle applications centrally, and deliver them to those of us that need them centrally. This boosts agility, manageability, drives down costs. This form of "VDI" mitigates some of the burden of OS costs. Again, depends what you need, depends on your config, depends on your Apps, depends on your users. Depends on the end point OS. But -  i used Citrix Receiver yesterday on my iPhone and i gotta be honest...creating a powerpoint in office 2007 on my iPhone (while not ideal in size) was surreal and cool.

5. Remote Desktop Delivery - Pure VDI as i like to call it. The desktop is centrally located. My IT folks provision, manage, and entitle them. Any device, any place, any time, i can view my desktop. Fully windows XP, WIn7, Google Chrome (another prediction i have) desktop, all my apps, profile, etc just waiting for me to port in. Yes, this is a why VDI bullet, But to use the iPad (ok, maybe with a keyboard dock) you have my vote. why have the desktop local.

6. I can now use the word CLOUD and not grimmace - in about 2007 bill gates and steve jobs at the D5 All things Digital predicted there would always be three screens in our life (until flexible size projection technology is perfected) Small phones, workspaces, and larger entertainment screen. Yes you COULD do all your work from one, but we PREFER larger for movies, smaller for convenience based tasks. So, this iPad blurs the lines a bit, BUT - i get a rich and robust local experience for what i PREFER to do, and, ability to interact with Cloud Services - like my IT departments VDI session they have waiting for me. 

7. Cost - i believe the ALL IN wifi/3g version will click in at under $700. So my IT guy can make me super happy, i get all the bells and whistles for non-work stuff, and she can deliver full corporate managed applications or full desktops to my device as she sees fit. 

8. Lack of Complexity [user]- one button and i know how to use it. One ICON and i know how to get to my VDI desktop (which is a windows session and we all have been assimilated to that). So, no training required.

9. Lack of Complexity [IT] - they buy and provision these devices. They stand up VDI farms. Aside from placing one icon on my iPad desktop so i can launch into their corporate controlled VDI farm....what can i mess up? Dont remember the last time i crashed my iPhone (or mac for that matter) with driver conflicts. :)

10. The "dude" Factor - required for the pervasive expansion of any new technology. I suspect the first time i fire up my iPad, click to launch into my VDI Win7 Desktop, use outlook, powerpoint, ftp some files around....i will utter ...."dude!"

Ok, for those of you who know me - ya know I  have pretty thick skin and can take the slings and arrows of disagreement. Those of you who dont...would really really really like to get your opinions on this.

is the iPAD the ultimate VDI ENDPOINT

[discuss]