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Benefits of Hosted Desktop for IT companies and their customers

When you work in a particular part of the computer industry for such a long time, like we have with Hosted
Desktops, it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that everyone else in IT knows all about your product, which of course they may not. Hosted Desktop for IT Companies

This was hit home to me following a discussion with an IT support company looking for solutions to replace a customer’s Small Business Server.   The consultant there hadn’t come across hosted desktops and was surprised at what a simple solution this would be for his customer, and other customers he had on his books.   So I wanted to use this article to share a summary of the benefits of hosted desktops both for companies working in the IT industry and also their customers.

Benefits of Hosted Desktops for IT Support companies

  • Add cloud hosting to your portfolio of services. Customers will have heard of “The Cloud” and be asking if it’s something they should be moving to.   They may be familiar with Office 365 and DropBox and other cloud services but they may be looking for cloud solutions for all their applications.  Cloud Hosted Desktops will help you offer the complete package.
  • An additional ongoing revenue stream, with little, if any, ongoing cost or effort. Once the customer is signed up you can earn a rebate of 15% of the monthly rental for as long as the customer is on the platform.   This can add up to hundreds or thousands of pounds a year.
  • Maintain your relationship with the customer. Even when companies move to the cloud there is still the need for onsite support for local infrastructure.   Your support contract with your customer can include the cloud hosting and we can invoice you directly instead of the end customer, with the same 15% discount.
  • Most support issues are dealt with by Your Office Anywhere. We look after all the backups, underlying hardware, Anti-Virus, Windows Updates and infrastructure related support.   You can if you prefer act as first line support and forward issues back to us.

Benefits of Hosted Desktop for Software Developers or Vendors

  • Cloud enable your application without any re-coding. Our Hosted Desktop platform is essentially a hosted terminal server AKA hosted remote desktop server with all the surrounding infrastructure to enable customer to securely logon and run their applications “streamed” over the internet.   They will look and feel exactly the same as if they were installed on their local PCs.
  • Give your customers additional options for running your software than just installing on a local server.
  • Provide hosted SQL Server and SQL CALs on a subscription basis. Purchasing a SQL Server licence, CALs and the hardware to run it can be a real barrier to sales for some applications.  I did a quote today (genuinely) for perpetual licences for an on-premise solution and for 1 SQL licence and 20 CALs the total came to over £4,000.  Add on the cost of dedicated hardware plus installation and you’re close to £10,000.   For the same number of users a hosted SQL Server would be around £190.00 a month

Benefits of Hosted Desktop to the end customer and their users

  • Run any and all of your applications “in the cloud” accessing them from anywhere
  • Access the applications on any device, including Windows, Mac, iPad and Android tablets
  • Access via a web portal if needed
  • Enjoy the flexibility of only paying for what you need. No money is wasted buying licences if you need to reduce user numbers.   Easily scale your solution
  • Remove the need for local IT infrastructure and associated purchase, licence, maintenance and upgrade costs.
  • Reduced risk, enjoy the security of UK based ISO 27001 certified Tier 3 data centres.