Looking to upgrade your virtual space? A lot of buzzwords are thrown about, and the ongoing debate of Hosted Desktop vs Modern Workplace remains a huge topic within every industry.
At HDUK, we often hear confusion between the two services, so we want to ensure you make the right choice for your business. So, let’s get into it.
A hosted desktop is a complete Windows desktop running on servers within a secure data centre instead of a PC that sits underneath your desk. You can log in from any device, and you’ll see everything you need, such as applications, management software, network drives and even the same printers.
Essentially, your physical PC lives in our data centre, but your work can be carried out anywhere without the hindrance of physical hardware. This has a number of practical advantages such as:
Our Modern Workplace isn’t a single product. It’s an entire rework based within the cloud, including essential applications for day-to-day duties such as Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint), Microsoft Teams for communication, SharePoint, and OneDrive for files. It also includes Intune for managing devices and Entra for security and access.
Instead of streaming your desktop, the modern workplace gives each user a Microsoft account that follows you across devices. Your identity can be carried throughout different devices, for example, Outlook on your laptop, Teams on your phone, and SharePoint in your browser. The same identity with the same preferences and settings applied through every device you access. There are a number of advantages to this:
Companies always ask which is better, but that’s the wrong question. Instead, both products solve different problems, and the right choice depends on how your firm operates.
Your Software
This is usually the deciding factor. If you run on modern case management and practice management software, a cloud-based environment is your best bet. This is due to a single sign-on process, browser interfaces and mobile apps. If your firm runs on cloud-first tools (Xero, QuickBooks Online, Clio, Actionstep), Modern Workplace tends to fit naturally.
If your business works comfortably with traditional Windows-based software like legacy practice management systems, document tools that work directly with local drives, or case software that hasn’t been rewritten for the cloud, hosted desktop would be the product that makes the most sense for you.
How standardised your environment needs to be
Hosted desktop allows every user to utilise the same Windows desktop from any device. Firms where multiple people share workflows, new starters need to be up and running from day one, and consistent compliance matters, hosted desktop seems like your best bet.
Modern Workplace allows people to work from difference devices, with different setups, each with a different combination of applications. If you have a team that holds different daily duties, flexibility is what the modern workplace offers.
How your team actually works
A firm with everyone in the office five days a week using dual screens, dictation, and a fixed set of applications has different needs from a firm with consultants working from client sites, home offices, and the occasional café.
Hosted desktop tends to suit predictable, desk-based working patterns. Modern Workplace tends to suit mobile, multi-device, multi-location patterns. Many firms are somewhere in between, and many run a hybrid of the two, which is a perfectly reasonable business model.
You also might be wondering how cyber security plays into both products. Both are deployed with strong baseline security, however, neither have a continuous monitoring and response capability.
This is where SOC (Security Operations Centre) SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) comes into play.
SIEM
SIEM is built across your virtual environment, monitoring security signals from your devices and applications. If a pattern suggests something is wrong, like failed logins from an unusual country, mailboxes created at unusual times i.e. 2am, or files being downloaded on masse, SIEM will pick this up.
SOC
This is where a team of analysts, watching those signals, act upon them.
Overall, SOC/SIEM offers a layer that determines whether a security incident becomes a contained inconvenience or a regulatory and reputational crisis, which can work in both Hosted Desktop and Modern Workplace
The honest answer for most businesses is that it depends on your software, working patterns, flexibility, and how you dictate to your employees.
If you’ve read this far and you’re still not sure which describes your firm, that’s a useful signal. It usually means the right next step should be to get in contact with us, we can walk you through everything while answering all of your questions.
You can book a consultation with us here.
Behind the technology and security that customers have come to know and trust with HDUK, it's our people that make the real difference. We take great pride in offering dedicated IT support for our customers by investing in specialists, that are experts in the tools you use every day. It's why we put people at the heart of our business.
We are dedicated to providing reliable, secure, industry-leading IT solutions to elevate your business, maximise your potential and create a Modern Workplace to be proud of.
Working remotely has never been so important, so join the 7,500 users who already trust HDUK with their hosted services.
