Now you can deliver a Windows 10 Enterprise desktop powered by Citrix HDX technology for as little as $32.72 per user per month, and that includes the costs for both Citrix software and Azure resources!

Last month I wrote a blog post on our recently published whitepaper, “XenApp Essentials Total Cost of Ownership Analysis.” The document was designed to help organizations get a better sense of the costs to expect when delivering apps from the cloud. With the overwhelming popularity of XenApp Essentials since its release, it was best to first break down the costs of XenApp Essentials, and follow that with a TCO analysis. Today, I’m proud to announce the availability of the “XenDesktop Essentials Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)” whitepaper!

This paper is much like the analysis we did for XenApp Essentials; however, this paper is focused on deploying Windows 10 on Azure with XenDesktop Essentials. In this new whitepaper, we take a deep dive into the complete cost structure of a financial organization with 250 users accessing an Azure-hosted Windows 10 desktop that is secured, managed, and delivered by XenDesktop Essentials. With many companies evaluating ways they can migrate their users to Windows 10 to take advantage of the operating system’s end-user experience and security enhancements, our goal is to help organizations get a high-level overview of the costs to expect as well as the key enhancements Citrix XenDesktop Essentials provides. The idea is to make the migration seamless, cost-effective, and more secure.

How much does XenDesktop Essentials cost?

XenDesktop Essentials is available for a flat cost of $12 per user per month and can be purchased directly from the Azure Marketplace. XenDesktop Essentials includes all the XenDesktop management components (Citrix Studio, Director, Delivery Controller, and SQL Server) and the underlying Microsoft Operating System and Azure infrastructure for those components. Also included is 1GB of NetScaler Gateway Service data transfer per user per month. The service auto-renews on a monthly basis until you cancel. If your organization is migrating to Windows 10, having the centralized approach of delivering desktops from the cloud allows you to provide IT services in line with business demands.

What about Azure compute?

Azure consumption is the area where we get the most questions since the costs are variable. Through our analysis, it was determined that most organizations can deliver a Windows 10 desktop that provides the same experience delivered by a locally installed Windows 10 desktop with the A2V2 Azure instance. This instance is suitable for the average task worker’s workloads, but other instances are available for those users that need a bit more horsepower. The beauty of delivering desktops from Azure is that you can map out these resources to match your end-users needs. You can also give them the flexibility to access their desktops on their choice of device. Want to mitigate hardware costs? You can keep the old hardware because we can easily enable you to run Windows 10 on those end-points.

Are there other costs?

Yes, there are other costs such as file servers, storage and cloud connectors. However, XenDesktop Essentials is based on industry-leading XenDesktop technology.  XenDesktop delivers critical user experience, security, and management capabilities that maximize the overall costs savings while also improving administrator and user satisfaction.  All of these details are explained in more depth in our Citrix XenDesktop Essentials Cost Estimate Kit.

We’re constantly improving our offerings to best fit the needs of our customers and their end-users.

To learn more or stay up to date on the latest features and updates to the Essentials Services, visit http://www.citrix.com/microsoft.