Step 8A - Reduced Capital Costs

The reduction in desktop endpoint capital (or CapEx) costs from converting to VDI can be calculated from two factors:

  1. Lower Purchase Costs: even with shared server costs included, new VDI workstations can cut capital outlays.  Alphaform and Nina Plastics both found that VDI reduced the initial cost of workstation purchase by 50%.
  2. Longer Endpoint Life Spans: zero-client VDI endpoints are both more durable and less obsolescence prone than PCs. Baker Hill found Pano Zero Clients extended the desktop life-cycle by years. Chumash Casino expects life spans on the casino floor to more than double from 2 years for PCs to a planned 5 years with Pano Zero Clients.

Taking both these factors into account, savings in initial capital outlays of up to 50%, plus a potential doubling of the time before endpoints need to be refreshed, can result in up to a 75% CapEx savings compared to PCs.

You can calculate CapEx savings for your VDI deployment by the following:

  1. take the purchase cost of a new fully configured PC desktop.
  2. subtract the cost of VDI endpoint hardware (e.g. $389 for the Pano System).
  3. subtract the per seat portion of the VDI server with all necessary software and storage (calculated by dividing the total server costs by the number of DVMs that will be run on the shared server, typically between 30 and 50). This will give you savings per VDI seat for the initial purchase.
  4. multiply that by the number of VDI seats being deployed to get the total initial savings.
  5. multiply that by the life span of the Pano Zero Client divided by the life span of the PC desktop to adjust the CapEx savings to reflect the differing life spans.

The Pano Logic TCO Model can help you do more detailed modelling of capital cost savings, including server and storage outlays, for your VDI deployment.

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