*This post originally appeared on the AppSense blog prior to the rebrand in January 2017, when AppSense, LANDESK, Shavlik, Wavelink, and HEAT Software merged under the new name Ivanti.

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Business users and IT disagree. They have a clear difference of opinion on what impacts a great desktop user experience – particularly in the areas of security, performance and productivity.
These are just some of the findings in the new AppSense 2015 Desktop Experience Study which was designed to compare IT professional and business user opinions on the value of physical and virtual desktop experience.

What does it show? IT needs to take a closer look at what is important to their desktop end users. Business users’ expectations are becoming more sophisticated. Take the topic of security. More than three in five (63%) end users ranked unobtrusive security as important to a great desktop experience compared to just 46% of IT professionals. Even while nearly half of IT professionals valued unobtrusive security, as many as 35% still limit their end users’ ability to personalize their desktops based on corporate security policies. The result is an increasing frustration among end users who continue to believe that security is negatively impacting experience.

And how about desktop performance. Even while 63% of both end users and IT professionals ranked fast logon and logoff times as the third most important factor to a great user experience, they diverge on what a “fast” logon time truly is. More than three in five (63%) end users believe an acceptable standard is a logon time of 30 seconds or less. In contrast, more than two in five (42%) IT professionals believe that an acceptable end user logon time can be as much as three minutes.

Then there’s productivity. Users are frustrated with the lack of their ability to personalize their desktops. In fact, over half (52%) feel their productivity would benefit from being able to personalize their computer. Yet, the vast majority (95%) of IT professionals limit desktop personalization, with only 5% allowing end users to change their desktops in any way they like.
The take away? IT needs to take a much closer look at what end users need and look to technologies that can still deliver the security and control the business requires without keeping users from working the way they want or slowing productivity.

More than 868 IT and business professionals contributed to this study which also delivers some revealing information about user behaviors by generation and the adoption barriers to virtual desktop projects. Download and read the survey findings report today.