Hardware GeekIt's certainly speculation on my part, but considering Microsoft is moving further and further into software as a service, I expect eventually windows will have a monthly fee eventually. I'm sure they'll justify it by calling it a security measure.

My current hardware can't "upgrade" to windows 11 so I'll be in the market for a laptop soon. Even if I could though, my laptop is simply too big to be usable on an airplane. I just accepted a job that requires flying out to new locations every week and I'll need to be able to work on the plane, so I'll have a chance to use it, and I hope I'm wrong about the direction they are heading.

They already do, its called Enterprise.

For consumers though, there is more value for it being effectively free.

CammMicrosoft categorises the machine options by use case, the 2c options are tagged as Point of Sale and Kiosk systems

And that's pretty much what I would use a 2c actual system for. It still doesn't indicate that the background OS has its own cores and they are just listing the number of cores you have at your disposal to use for apps and programs.

AFAICT it’s just managed Azure VD. In that environment you can choose how many cores are available to the server and how many cores each client has access to.

In the last year, many companies have learned that they don't even need office space anymore and can just allow people to work remotely most of the time and just come to a smaller facility for occasional meetings that can't be handled in Teams/Skype/Zoom?etc. The next step is just telling employees to BYOD (if they haven't gone that route already) and just set them up with these virtual work environments. I'm assuming they will still allow the client's IT department manage the content, so testing and compatibility is there. MS's timing is actually probably pretty good here, as I think even a couple years ago, my large company was kicking around the idea of extending BYOD to desktop machines (we already do it for phones), and they probably just provide a monthly allowance for the employee to get their own device.

To MS, it only needs to be priced cheaper than the current cost of doing business, and phasing out hardware purchases and refreshes, and the cost of maintaining them, should be substantial. MS's OEM partners probably aren't too excited, as I suspect they profit pretty well on PC sales to corporations--high volume, universal configurations, limited price haggling, docks and extra monitors sold, etc. I would never buy the same hardware my company would, and I don't suspect many others would either. In theory, you don't need much since it's all hosted elsewhere.

lexluthermiesterThis is likely meant for enterprise users.

Agreed.

Enterprise has their own VMs. This is a sad joke. Even if they don't (unlikely), they're not going to pay these outrageous costs.

TheGuruStudEnterprise has their own VMs. This is a sad joke.

If you have invested into MEM, this integrates in with all of your existing tooling. Whilst price is high, I can see why some businesses would prefer this over Azure Virtual Desktop.

But I agree, I want to see the ease of implementation of W365 with more of the functionality and consumption based pricing of AVD.

lexluthermiesterThis is likely meant for enterprise users.

Agreed.

Even for businesses, a remote terminal server will be better

smiler3dEven for businesses, a remote terminal server will be better

Considering most businesses wouldn't know how to secure one if it bit them in the ass, eh?

nope, nope, nope, cloud stuff with low spec? nope, especially in here where it said 4G but the speed way pretty low