Have we reached Peak VDI?

In my previous post, I wrote that I’m now seeing more desktops delivered via VDI than RDSH. (See that post for the list of specific reasons.) Based on that, you might be thinking, “Oh wow, if VDI is winning, does that means the desktop of the future will be VDI?”

Not so fast.

While it’s true that VDI may win out against RDSH (in terms of full desktop publishing, not for individual apps), VDI is far from winning out over traditionally-installed locally-run Windows on laptops and desktops. And with recent advancements (from Microsoft, VMware, and others) which simplify traditional physical Windows device management, I’m actually starting to wonder if we’ll see some of the desktops that went to VDI over the past few years get switched back to traditional?

In other words, will the recent advancements in traditional desktop management mean we’ve reached peak VDI?

Let’s dig in.

Despite the many advances in remoting protocols and datacenter hardware, remote Windows desktops—whether they’re VDI or RDSH, on-premises or cloud—are still just a small minority of all the corporate Windows desktops in the world. I don’t have an exact figure, but if I were to guess, I’d suggest something like 5-10%. Maybe 15-20% if you count all the RDSH-based “overlay” apps that are published to traditional desktop users.

Regardless of the exact number, the point is that the majority of Windows desktops in the corporate world—even in 2018—are physical desktops and laptops with Windows running locally.

It’s easy to see how this might change, and how even desktops could move from physical to VDI in the next few years. The cost of delivering a desktop from the datacenter continues to decrease every year, while the price of a standard business laptop is pretty much the same as it's always been. Server-based desktops get faster every year while Windows 10 1803 on a brand-new laptop boots and feels just about as fast as any version of Windows on any new laptop from the past five years.

That said, it’s also important to consider that the complexity (and cost) of managing physical Windows desktops and laptops is coming down too! Just five years ago (in the Windows 7 days), we were managing physical desktops with tools like Microsoft SCCM—the same way we’d been managing them for 20 years! They were domain-joined, we built out our own CDNs of SCCM distribution points and WSUS servers, we assumed every device had a network connection, and we assumed the corporation “owned” the device so we could do whatever we needed to manage it.

Fortunately that world is starting to melt away. The main credit goes to Microsoft for creating the so-called “modern management” APIs for Windows 10. Modern management essentially allows you to manage a physical Windows 10 device more like a mobile device. It doesn’t have to be domain-joined, it doesn’t need a consistent network connection, it doesn’t need to be owned by the corporation, etc.

Windows 10 also supports something called “Autopilot” which allows a user to take a random brand-new computer they bought on their own at a retail store, turn it on, and type in their work email address where their Azure AD account in the background will connect them with their company’s management platform (whether it’s VMware Workspace ONE or something else) and then push out all the corporate configs, settings, policies, & apps while also removing all the pre-installed bloatware from the laptop manufacturer. In other words, with Windows 10, the days of imaging machines, or having laptops sent to the IT department before they are re-sent to users, or the days of only be able to support certain models, are gone.

So, if Windows 10 makes it simple to manage remote, physical laptops and desktops, regardless of how they were acquired, who owns them, where they are, or whether they’re in the domain, I have to wonder: How many Windows desktops were migrated to VDI in the past 5-10 years for reasons that could be completely solved by a physical Windows 10 laptop being managed in a modern way?

In other words, as more people roll out Windows 10, will we see VDI instances getting shut down and replaced with traditional Windows 10 laptops now that those are easier to manage than with SCCM?

(Side note: There are some limitations with Windows 10 modern management out of the box that people have cited as show-stopping reasons why you can't fully manage Windows 10 devices in the modern way versus SCCM. However VMware Workspace ONE fills those gaps, including the ability to delivery any Win32 app and any registry or GPO settings. I won't go into the details because I don't want to turn this into a commercial, but I want to point this out: For the people who think Windows 10 modern management isn't a viable alternative to SCCM, check out the VMware approach. :)

Or will the trend lines of VDI continuing to come down in price and up in performance, combined with external drivers like 5G networking, mean that the opposite is true and more physical Windows devices will migrate to VDI?

Will Windows 10 S mode help or hurt this?

Or does it even matter? If you create a single digital workspace platform that can include both physical and virtual instances, who cares?

I guess I just gave myself a list future topics to explore. In the meantime, what do you think?