It seems like VDI/Virtual Desktops/Hosted Desktops/Cloud Desktops has been the "next big thing" for about five years or more at this point, but it keeps staying the next big thing and not really happening. One of the reasons might be right there in my first sentence: what do we want to call it? Having a good name that everyone agrees upon might be a good start.
Beyond that, though, there have been problems with OS licensing, cost model for SMBs, and lack of a real push across all business segments to drive awareness and availability to anyone other than enterprises doing their own virtual desktop implementation. That's all changing, both because of some industry consolidation, and also because some big names *cough, cough* Amazon *cough, cough* have thrown their hat in the ring officially.
I think the crown jewel, however, is going to be in delivery and ease of use, especially for business under the enterprise level. They will need self-service options that make sense financially, but perhaps more importantly, just make sense. They need to be easy to manage, offer a wide range of functionality and compatibility with software packages that those companies are already using, and make deployment and management a snap.
The work of companies like IndependenceIT (http://www.independenceit.com/) and Desktone (http://www.desktone.com/ -- now part of VMware) is going a long way to making it happen. 2014 may truly be the year that virtual desktops stops being the next big thing and starts being a real big thing.
