Cameyo, the Virtual Application Delivery platform provider, today announced the results of a new survey and a report from IT analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), sponsored by Cameyo and other technology vendors, which reveals that, even though 4 out of 10 organizations are using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop as a Service (DaaS) products to enable remote work, the top challenges those organizations experience with those products were cost, complexity, and security. The complete report can be downloaded for free here.

"With the dramatic increase in organizations that have enacted mandatory remote work policies, the demand for remote access to critical applications has skyrocketed," said Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "Organizations need solutions that can be deployed quickly and cost-effectively while also ensuring security. These survey results show that, despite the benefits of VDI and DaaS, those who have deployed those technologies continue to be challenged with the overall cost, management complexity, and security issues of those technologies."

High Demand Before COVID-19, But Not a Long-Term Solution

The ESG survey shows that demand for remote work solutions like VDI and DaaS was already high prior to COVID-19. And with conservative estimates stating that 25-30% of workers will never go back to an office setting (and aggressive estimates saying 82% may continue to work remotely), nearly every organization is in search of the right long-term digital workspace solution for remote work.

But the report indicates that further adoption of VDI and DaaS for remote work could be hindered if the challenges that existing customers face aren't addressed. The ESG survey reveals that organizations currently using VDI and DaaS list cost, complexity, and security as their primary challenges and concerns, making it clear that - in the current pandemic landscape where organizations need to deploy solutions quickly, securely, and cost-effectively - neither VDI or DaaS fits the bill.

A New Category of Remote Work Solutions Emerges

VDI is pre-cloud technology, and DaaS was the evolution of that legacy technology into a cloud environment. The next evolution of these technologies forms a new category, Virtual Application Delivery, which consists of platforms that were purpose-built for the cloud to enable remote work by delivering digital workspaces for productivity. Virtual Application Delivery platforms like Cameyo are a critical component of these digital workspaces, enable organizations to provide their people with access to all of their business-critical applications from any device, from the browser, without VPNs. This enables organizations to empower all of their employees to be just as productive from home as they would be in the office, all without the high cost, complexity, and security concerns of VDI and DaaS.

The benefits of Virtual Application Delivery over VDI and DaaS include:

• Deploys in Hours, Not Weeks or Months - Especially in today's environment where IT departments need to support remote workers immediately, solutions that can be quickly and reliably deployed are critical. VDI and DaaS deployments often take months to deploy, whereas Virtual Application Delivery platforms can have organizations up and running within hours - like this large energy company that was able to provide their employees with access to their critical applications in just 3 hours.
• Significantly Reduced Costs - When compared with VDI products like Citrix, Virtual Application Delivery platforms can save organizations up to 75% in upfront infrastructure costs and ongoing licensing fees. In addition, the ESG report reveals several hidden costs of VDI and DaaS that increase the total lifetime cost. For example, the ESG research also revealed that 90% of VDI and DaaS implementations require more than 10 full-time employees (FTEs) to support it on an ongoing basis. Virtual Application Delivery, on the other hand, can be deployed and managed by just one person, with almost no technical skills required.
• Improved Security Posture - For many organizations, VDI and DaaS entail an entirely new subset of IT infrastructure that has to be licensed, administered and maintained - which is not only expensive and resource-intensive - but it increases your attack surface. Virtual Application Delivery platforms like Cameyo enable you to deliver any Windows or internal web apps to any device, from the browser without the security concerns of patching and managing legacy infrastructure. In addition, Cameyo's NoVPN capabilities enable organizations to give remote workers secure access to Windows desktop and Intranet web apps from behind the corporate firewall without the cost and user-experience compromise of VPNs so that people can access business-critical applications from anywhere in the world just as productively as if they were in the office.

"The complexity, cost, and security concerns around legacy VDI and DaaS products make them untenable for many organizations who are preparing long-term solutions for remote work," said Andrew Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of Cameyo. "When it comes to protecting your people while also enabling them to be productive from any device, anywhere - VDI and DaaS are not up to the task, and this survey reveals that the cost, complexity, and security concerns aren't worth the risk. Cameyo pioneered the category of built-for-the-cloud Virtual Application Delivery platforms, and enables organizations of any size to provide all of their people - regardless of location - with secure access to their business-critical applications on any device, from the browser."