Last company that I worked for used Virtual Sessions with all of their outsourcers.

Advantages of having a virtual machine to which the employee connects VIA RDP (remote desktop connect)

- You decide what the user has or does not have on the computer (games etc)
- Your private data won't fall into the hands of the wrong person if the employee's computer is infected with trojans
- All of your favourite software is loaded onto the session
- You can record and/or monitor what the person does on the PC real time
- You can "push" new software updates quickly and easily
- Troubleshooting is a breeze (simply replace the image if anything goes down)
- Cheap and fast

Yesterday I was pleasently surprised by the speed and quality of Amazon's Virtual Machine Instances, the thing flies and it got me thinking...

Has anyone considered using these instances for outsourcing? Do you use virtual machines with your outsourcers?