How to choose the best hosted virtual desktop provider?

There are multiple virtual desktop providers – the major players being Microsoft, VMware, and Citrix. You can consider the following factors or parameters while choosing a hosted desktop provider:

• Availability: The provider must offer a near to 100% uptime and reliability of the systems.
• Security: The data accessed by the provider must be secured and protected.
• Industry Compliance: The workload supported by the provider must be compliant to industry standards like HIPAA, PCI. The provider must have deep domain experience in regulated environments.
• Performance Requirements: Based on the usage, you must ensure that the provider is capable to meet your specific performance requirements. High end usage like graphics-intensive applications, such as computer-aided design, editing, will require a graphics processing unit (GPU) as part of their hosted desktop configuration to achieve the desired level of performance.