"Companies across the UK are facing one of the biggest decisions of the decade as they consider the long overdue upgrade to Windows 7. If they take the right path they'll get the desktop of the future, but if they get it wrong they will be on the verge of making a hugely expensive mistake," said Rhys Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at SCC.

Latest survey results indicate that some 48% of IT decision makers remain uncertain or unconvinced by the returns on recently implemented virtualisation projects, with many believing that the potential ROI from such implementations has been overstated. According to the market leading technology group however, those customers finding it difficult to achieve the ROI promised by vendors are, in the main, not taking the long term strategic view required to make a success of the virtualisation journey.

"This is not a simple case of looking at savings over one or two years - you've got to consider the refresh costs of your entire infrastructure. It's all about getting the journey right, and there's no doubt that if you approach a £1million to £2million upgrade project with VDI already deployed, the migration costs could be 70%-90% less," said Sharp.

"The move towards virtualisation is one of the defining moments of desktop infrastructure, and if you don't get it right you will miss out on a huge opportunity. It has never been so important to get the right partners in to help you decide what services you need to maximise the potential benefits of these accelerating technologies."