What is the perceived benefit of virtual desktop infrastructure technology?

Well, reduced hardware costs for one. Because it is a thin client technology, you don't have to have cutting edge PC hardware, which means that the computers that the users are using to connect to it can be used for a lot longer than they could if you are upgrading operating systems every couple of years. You've also got the benefit of centralized operating system management. You can deploy it a lot faster than you could with a physical operating system. And there are lower support costs because you don't have users tinkering around with their operating systems, which tend to cause a lot of the problems that companies experience. There are also going to be fewer application compatibility problems than there are in a traditional thin client environment. The Windows terminal services are designed so that you've got one server operating system supporting a bunch of different users, and because of that each application that is running on there is servicing multiple users at the same time and a lot applications just aren't designed to be used simultaneously by multiple users. With VDI, each user has their own virtual desktop session so you just don't run into those types of compatibility issues.