Remote control software such as VNC has a variety of uses. It allows a person at a remote computer to assume control of another computer across a network, as if they were sitting in front of the other computer.

For the individual user, one common scenario is using VNC to help troubleshoot the computer of a distant less-technically-savvy relative. In other words, sitting at your desk in Baltimore, you could use VNC to take control of your mother's PC in London and show her how to install and use some new software package by actually doing it yourself.

For the business user, VNC can be used to provide a flexible hot-desking and road-warrior environment by allowing employees to access their office desktop and server machines from any machine in the company's offices or from other remote sites, regardless of the type of computers involved at either end. An equally popular business application of VNC is in remote system administration, where VNC is used to allow administrators to take control of employee machines to diagnose and fix problems, or to access and administer server machines without making a trip to the console.

VNC can also be used in educational contexts, for example to allow a distributed group of students simultaneously to view a computer screen being manipulated by an instructor, or to allow the instructor to take control of the students' computers to provide assistance.

Of course, as these examples illustrate, the variety of uses of VNC is really as diverse as the number of VNC users, a number which is big and growing all the time!