Helping a Friend Modernise: Why I Recommended Azure Virtual Desktop

Thomas Hawkins – April 12, 2025  – 6 mins read

A few months ago, an old colleague and friend reached out. He’d just stepped into a new role — Head of IT at a small legal firm that had been relying on aging hardware, scattered laptops, and remote access that barely functioned.

His words were:

“It’s held together with duct tape and good intentions.”

He asked what we were doing differently. I didn’t hesitate:

“We moved to Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop — and I think it would fit your firm even better than it fits ours.”

1. The Situation: Small Firm, Big IT Pain

He was facing the same issues many smaller legal teams deal with:

• Aging on-prem hardware
• A mix of personal and firm-issued devices
• No consistent remote access strategy
• Compliance worries growing louder with every client review

For him, buying new desktops wasn’t just expensive — it would lock him into another five-year refresh cycle. I told him:

“AVD lets you leapfrog that headache and run your desktops from the cloud.”

2. Why Azure Virtual Desktop Made Sense

I explained what we’ve gained from moving to AVD:

• Remote access from anywhere, no VPN struggles
• A full Windows desktop experience from thin clients, laptops, or even tablets
• Integration with Microsoft 365, Azure AD, and Defender
• Central management through Intune and Endpoint Manager

For a small firm, these aren’t just nice-to-haves — they’re critical in staying nimble and compliant.

3. What I Told Him to Watch For

I gave him the honest take too. Azure Virtual Desktop isn’t plug-and-play.

• You’ll need to properly plan your licensing (AVD is “free,” but Azure compute and storage isn’t).
• Right-sizing VMs and enabling auto-scaling is a must, or costs can spiral.
• If your team hasn’t worked with Azure before, lean on a partner — or invest time in learning the ropes.

4. What My Friend Liked Most

After testing a proof of concept, his team noticed:

• No more “it works on my machine” issues — everyone had the same environment
• Onboarding was simple: provision a user, assign a desktop, done
• Reduced hardware costs — they even repurposed old laptops as thin clients

And the security angle sealed it. No local files, built-in multi-factor authentication, and easy role-based access control gave him a structure he could defend in any audit.

5. Final Thought: Right-Sized Cloud, Done Right

I’ve worked in firms big and small, and the truth is: small firms need enterprise-grade tools just as much as the big ones — they just need them to be affordable and manageable.

AVD is that middle ground. I told my friend:

“This isn’t about going full cloud for the sake of it — it’s about giving your users a better experience, reducing the chaos, and sleeping better at night knowing things are secure.”

He made the move. Six months in, he’s told me it was the best early decision he made in the new role.