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AWS Cracks Desktop-as-a-Service Leaderboard
Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined fellow cloud giant Microsoft as a “Leader” in the latest Magic Quadrant report on the Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) space from research firm Gartner.
AWS, in last year’s report, was in the “Challenger” quadrant of the report series, which also includes quadrants for “Visionaries” and “Niche Players.”
That’s something AWS crowed about in a blog post celebrating the company’s new leadership status.
“Last year we were recognized as a Challenger,” the company said. “We believe this is a result of our commitment to meet a wide range of customer needs by delivering a diverse portfolio of virtual desktop services with license portability (including Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise), our geographic strategy, and operational capabilities focused on cost optimization and automation.”
Gartner, meanwhile, had this to say about AWS: “Amazon Workspaces offers vendor-assembled desktop-as-a-service options, while Amazon WorkSpaces Core offers self-assembled options. Amazon WorkSpaces Web provides access to web applications, and Amazon AppStream 2.0 offers application virtualization with multisession configurations. Its operations are global, with clients mainly from medium and large enterprises.”
AWS further described both of those offerings in its blog post, and noted, “Also, our focus on easy-to-use interfaces for managing each aspect of our virtual desktop services means that our customers rarely need to make use of third-party tools.”
That’s something Gartner took note of, too, as one of the company’s strengths, namely viability: “AWS has significant DaaS revenue, alongside a diverse portfolio of cloud services. AWS is one of the few hyperscale vendors within this Magic Quadrant and is not reliant on others for the Amazon WorkSpaces virtual desktop software or the remote network technology, the WorkSpaces Streaming Protocol.”
As for the DaaS market in general, Gartner said it keeps growing amid a transition from traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) services to the cloud while addressing the security challenges that come with highly distributed work. The firm predicts that DaaS spending will grow from $3 billion this year to $4.4 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 10%.
“The DaaS market has also benefited in the last 12 months due to turmoil in the on-premises VDI market,” Gartner said. “Gartner clients have cited Citrix price increase and license bundling, as well as the uncertainty related to the now completed KKR acquisition of Omnissa, as reasons they have moved from on-premises VDI to DaaS.”
While Gartner’s research reports are usually for-pay offerings for clients only, the Magic Quadrant series of reports are often available for free in licensed-for-distribution editions from the covered vendors, discoverable via a simple web search.
