Nerdio and Microsoft: From Legacy VDI to Modern Cloud – Streamlining Endpoints Across Industries
How One Partnership Is Quietly Killing the Old-School Virtual Desktop and Making Hybrid Work Actually Work.
For two decades, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) was the answer enterprises didn’t love but felt they had to live with.
Expensive on-premises Citrix and VMware farms, six-to-nine-month deployment cycles, constant performance complaints, and capex budgets that made CFOs reach for antacids.
Then Microsoft flipped the table with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), and Nerdio showed up with the power tools to make it sing.
Microsoft Solutions for the Digital Enterprise
Microsoft’s End User Computing (EUC) solutions offer channel partners strong opportunities to support modern, hybrid work environments.
The key offerings—Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365 Cloud PC—deliver secure, flexible access to Windows desktops and applications from any device, integrating seamlessly with Microsoft 365, Azure, and Intune.
Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a cloud-hosted VDI service on Azure, providing customizable virtual machines (single-session persistent or multi-session pooled), global availability, advanced security features like zero-trust and multi-factor authentication, and pay-as-you-go pricing based on active usage.
It excels for complex enterprises, supports migrations from legacy systems (e.g., Citrix), and has driven significant cost savings—over 50% in cases like Eurowings. Microsoft was recognized as a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for AVD in 2025.
Windows 365 Cloud PC offers a simpler SaaS model with personalized Windows experiences streamed to any device (including non-Windows ones).
It features easy Intune management, strong cloud-based security, flexible editions (Business and Enterprise), and subscription pricing—often 11% more cost-effective than equivalent AVD for always-on needs, with promotional discounts available. Recent 2025 updates include enhanced BYOD security and AI integrations, making it ideal for rapid onboarding in hybrid setups (e.g., New York Life).
These solutions enable cost reductions, elastic scaling, device-agnostic performance, and zero-trust security while boosting productivity and collaboration in remote/hybrid scenarios. AVD suits high-customization enterprise needs, while Windows 365 prioritizes simplicity and user focus.
Nerdio Empowers Microsoft MSPs to Accelerate EUC Adoption
Channel partners, especially Managed Service Providers (MSPs), find significant opportunities in Microsoft’s EUC suite amid the rise of hybrid work. MSPs can capitalize by offering AVD and Windows 365 as managed services, helping clients transition from on-premises VDI to cloud models without expertise. This shift replaces CapEx with OpEx, leverages Microsoft 365 licenses, and taps into CSP incentives like rebates, boosting revenue.
Nerdio partners with Microsoft to help organizations and MSPs shift from costly, outdated Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions (like VMware and Citrix) to efficient modern cloud-based endpoints using Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365.
Legacy VDI faced major challenges in 2024–2025: VMware’s licensing costs spiked after Broadcom’s acquisition, Citrix support and renewals became expensive, and Windows 10’s end-of-life forced urgent migrations.
Microsoft’s AVD offers scalable, low-cost Windows 11 multi-session desktops in the cloud, but it lacks built-in tools for image management, auto-scaling, cost controls, FSLogix profiles, backup, and disaster recovery.
Nerdio Manager
Nerdio fills this gap with its Nerdio Manager platform—a unified management layer that automates these tasks.
Key benefits include:
- Dramatic cost savings — often 70–90% versus traditional VDI, with auto-scaling reducing Azure consumption by 50–80%.
- Faster deployments — from months to under 30 days.
- Simplified management — single pane of glass for AVD, Windows 365, Intune, and even physical endpoints via Nerdio Universal Agent.
- Advanced features — one-click golden image building, automated patching, security policies, backup/DR, and hybrid support for on-premises transitions.
Real-world examples:
- Children’s Health (Dallas) migrated 8,000 endpoints from Citrix, cutting costs by 72% in under 60 days.
- Engineering firms run GPU-intensive CAD workloads on Azure with auto-scaling savings in six figures.
- High-security sectors like finance now adopt it confidently with features like Azure Confidential Computing.
Microsoft strongly endorses Nerdio—calling it the management platform the ecosystem needed—and the companies co-sell aggressively. Nerdio holds AVD Advanced Specialization as one of few global Azure Expert MSPs.
For MSPs, Nerdio enables recurring revenue through managed services, faster client onboarding, up to 65% Azure cost reductions, and differentiation in hybrid work environments. The combination is powering rapid growth—over 2 million managed AVD seats worldwide, with explosive year-over-year expansion across healthcare, legal, government, AEC, finance, and more.
In short: Legacy VDI is rapidly becoming obsolete. Azure Virtual Desktop + Nerdio delivers modern, automated, cost-effective endpoint management that’s already transforming the industry.
