Yesterday at VMWorld, IBM announced a "Public Desktop Cloud" in partnership with several leading virtualization vendors.  The startup Desktone, calls this VDI in the cloud.  Today, at the VMworld keynote, a partner called VDI "a dam of cost and complexity holding back the market."  To me, the problem is that VDI asks more questions than it solves.

Managing desktops can be a costly endeavour, requiring significant effort and constant attention to user's needs.  How does moving a desktop into the data center solve the desktop management problem?  Centralized management is an important tenet in lowering the overall cost of management process.  But, what costs does it bring along?

My goal today is to investigate this question, how does VDI or desktops in the cloud help solve the desktop management problem.  Stay tuned, hopefully I will find the answer.