1Addresses Only a Small Market
VDI technology generally assumes users will work on a high-speed LAN that has relatively static desktop images with a limited number of applications and are using thin-client devices. Analysts report that 410 million PCs were shipped in 2010 as opposed to 6 million thin clients.
2Doesnt Use Power of a PC
Conventional VDI does not take advantage of the native performance of a personal computer. Business users usually prefer the access to multiple applications, speed and power provided by full-featured PCs.
3Some Systems Still Dogged by Latency
Issues with low bandwidth or high latency networks still cause issues, although this is becoming less common.
4Not the Best for Multimedia
Applications requiring multimedia (video, voice, Flash) and high performance and 3D applications are a challenge—especially over a wide-area network.
5Upfront Cost Is Non-Trivial
VDI is capital expenditure (CAPEX)-intensive: 20 to 40 users per server plus expensive storage and additional networking equipment.
6Its Resource-Intensive in the Racks
VDI comes with significant data center power and cooling costs.
7Not Simple to Install and Maintain
It is often complex to deploy, configure and manage VDI infrastructure and protocol.
8There Are Trade-offs if You Want to Personalize
Personalization either requires expensive third-party software or sacrificing storage and image management efficiencies.
9Bandwidth Hog?
Virtual desktops consume a significant amount of network bandwidth.
10Single Point of Failure
Due to its single connection to the data center, there is only one point of failure for employee productivity if the network fails due to a natural- or human-created disaster.