Moving away from physical to virtual desktops has too many benefits to ignore, and organizations are exploring new options to make the transition. One approach that’s gaining a lot of traction is desktops as a service (DaaS), which enables the move of virtual desktops—and their related applications and infrastructure— to the cloud. DaaS is picking up a lot of support from industry experts. Select Tel can assist your organization in selecting the best DaaS provider for your environment.

While there are many compelling benefits to DaaS when compared with both physical desktops and too early iterations of VDI, here are five that stand out:

Financial advantages – One of the biggest challenges IT organizations face today is finishing—or, in some cases, even starting—migrating away from Windows XP in favor of Windows 7 and 8. However, the newest versions of Windows almost always require major upgrades in client hardware. As a result, many organizations are moving to DaaS to save potentially large capital expenditures. Removing or reducing a CapEx category like PC hardware costs from the financial ledger and replacing it with operating expenses like cloud-based subscription services is extremely attractive to business executives. At the same time, DaaS provides the additional incentive of helping to control operating costs by reducing the need for IT deployment resources and in-house technical support, as well as having predictable subscription costs that are less likely to throw a wrench into corporate financial planning.

 Faster, easier deployment for various use cases –  Organizations can no longer tolerate days- or months-long time frames for bringing new employees or “as-needed” personnel up to speed with desktops. The quest for organizational agility and flexibility is a key driver in such trends as hiring temporary workers or consultants for short-term opportunities, and DaaS gives organizations the ability to provide all necessary desktops rights and resources in a matter of hours.

Support for pervasive mobility – The bring-your-own-desktop movement is now a tidal wave throughout organizations, with users clamoring for mobile access to applications, data and services via their own familiar consumer devices. DaaS helps ensure a consistent user experience, regardless of device format or brand, while standardizing deployment, security and support. In an era where telecommuting and remote-office computing are increasingly the norm, DaaS is an ideal solution for geographically dispersed workforces. This is particularly the case in “always-on” global industries like financial services, retail, and hospitality.

Security – Even in the face of improved threat detection, intrusion prevention and security breach resolution, IT organizations still have nightmares that their organization may be the next to suffer high profile problems around theft of identities, customer data or intellectual property. Since security breaches often take place at the edge of the network, DaaS is an attractive security option because data and applications reside in the cloud, not on end-user devices that are ripe targets because of weaker security tools and more lax security practices of the end users themselves. Cloud-based DaaS also helps alleviate another challenge associated with BYOD by enabling a consistent set of security protocols across users’ own mobile devices, regardless of mobile operating system or hardware brand. Finally, tactical security steps increasingly become the purview of cloud service providers rather than in-house IT, which is a huge advantage because of the service providers’ ability to generally devote more resources and utilize a greater body of experience on security matters than most resource-strapped in-house IT organizations can deliver.

Avoids drain on internal IT skills –  Few IT organizations can claim they have bigger and more specialized staff today than they did even a few years ago, and that trend isn’t likely to change. This puts a premium on the IT department’s ability to onboard new users faster and more easily, as well as in making the move to virtual desktop deployment at less cost and with a smaller IT footprint. VDI, of course, was the first step in that direction and it has been a real plus for many organizations. But VDI does require some specialized expertise from IT organizations (or mandates that organizations hire outside help to make the move). DaaS, by contrast, doesn’t require the same level of expertise and experience that VDI deployment requires, which cuts down on deployment and support requirements for in-house staff, and obviates the need to spend money to hire external VDI specialists. Time, money and talent otherwise spent on transitions to virtual desktops can instead be allocated to transformative applications and other sources of IT-enabled innovation.

More and more organizations are quickly coming to realize the many benefits of moving away from physical desktops in favor of desktops as a service. This transition already has helped numerous organizations reduce IT management complexity, cut costs, improve workforce productivity and deliver an enhanced user experience by allowing employees to access corporate files, applications and services on any device, anytime and anywhere.

Contact Select Tel today for a free consultation to see if DaaS is right for your organization.