Thoughts on Windows 365?

[jerryk]

I know this is one of the nice aspects of living in on of the main Swiss cities, the best fiber in the world (10Gbs symmetrical) at the cheapest price, but as everything, we have other "issues". Since the main city often top the world charts for quality of life, everyone wants to come and work/live here, which makes rents very expensive (70% of the population rents in Switzerland).
I am sure many people would gladly pay 10 times their fiber in exchange for paying half the rent if the could choose... Here a 3 bedrooms apartment costs $3000 per month...

$3000/mo for 3 bedrooms is super cheap! Down the road in the Silicon Valley, a 400 sq ft one-room studio is about that much. Of course, if you are qualified you can work at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and make $250,000-300,000/yr or hundreds of startups and maybe get stock worth millions, so that makes the price is somewhat acceptable.

But I do like Switzerland. I use to consult with the UBS decades ago and traveled to Zurich. Very nice country and city.

 

[SigEp265]

For the price I would look for a cheap but capable windows laptop in addition to my macs

 

[JMacHack]

Windows 365? More like 365 days I don’t wanna use it, ha!

Stupid jokes aside, I think it represents a shift in strategy from Microsoft. Nadella seems to want to offer more things as services rather than discrete products. With Azure and the like it’s apparent that MS is putting their future in the hands of the cloud.

 

[JMacHack]

$3000/mo for 3 bedrooms is super cheap! Down the road in the Silicon Valley, a 400 sq ft one-room studio is about that much. Of course, if you are qualified you can work at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and make $250,000-300,000/yr or hundreds of startups and maybe get stock worth millions, so that makes the price is somewhat acceptable.

But I do like Switzerland. I use to consult with the UBS decades ago and traveled to Zurich. Very nice country and city.

It’s all a matter of perspective. $3000 a month would buy a mansion where I live, but there’s zero tech jobs and nobody wants to live in bumble**** nowhere.

 

[jerryk]

Windows 365? More like 365 days I don’t wanna use it, ha!

Stupid jokes aside, I think it represents a shift in strategy from Microsoft. Nadella seems to want to offer more things as services rather than discrete products. With Azure and the like it’s apparent that MS is putting their future in the hands of the cloud.

It is a product offering to deal with the reality of work. Many people are working in a hybrid environment. Part-time in office, Part-time at home. They need to have access to the same computing environment in both places. If you moved something to one place on your desktop while at the office yesterday it needs to be in the exact same place. Same if you are on travel with just your iPad.

But, Microsoft is not trying to move everyone to the cloud. Windows on individual computers will continue to be a large segment for them. Microsoft is big enough to support Cloud, home desktop computing, and services and make a nice profit from them. Personal computing, Cloud, and Productivity and Business Process (consulting services and business processes) each account for about 1/3 of the company's income.

 

[mj_]

Personal me doesn't care.
Business/enterprise me is intrigued and very interested.

 

[theluggage]

It's relatively expensive for single users looking to replicate an Intel VM experience on Apple Silicon. Two CPUs and 4GB of RAM runs $32 a month and it's around $100 a month for 4 CPUs and 16GB of RAM, which I imagine is about the minimum configuration most folks using Parallels on Mac are running (splitting their Mac's CPU cores and RAM 50/50 with the Windows VM).

All true, but an advertised $32/mo + "buy now" button service still represents a shift from a "have your people call our people and we'll negotiate a deal for 5000 licenses" type of service to a mass-market product. You're not going to pay that for fun and giggles, but - if you're a Mac user who needs a PC to do paid work and, post-M1, the alternative is to buy a PC - $1,500 over 4 years with no hardware maintenance costs (...and as a direct business expense that goes straight on your annual tax return rather than some faffy 'capital asset pool' calculation) isn't out of the question.

Really, though this is probably aimed at businesses who want to let employees work at home (on their own machines) - and the timing is probably no coincidence. Unlike a laptop (or a flash disk full of data) it can't be left on a train - or if you do lose a laptop that you may have left logged in you can shut it down remotely.

...even from an employees point of view, there are a lot of arguments for keeping separate work and personal machines to make sure the two don't mix and this is a cheaper & less cluttersome alternative.

I don't think this solves "how do I run windows if I switch to M1 right now problem" for everybody, but it's an example of why Windows virtualisation isn't going to be quite such a big deal over the coming years that it was in 2006.

(Or Linux, for that matter when you can spin up a Linux VM in the cloud for $5/month billed by the hour)

 

[bluecoast]

I can see this being great for corporates with very specific security requirements and who deploy machines set up with access to internal software etc.

I don’t work in IT or IT support, but for these scenarios, this sounds like a great way to get freelancers and temp employees (working for corporates) set up quickly on their own machines.

And it’s probably only corporates who will use this at those prices anyway!

 

[Digitalguy]

All true, but an advertised $32/mo + "buy now" button service still represents a shift from a "have your people call our people and we'll negotiate a deal for 5000 licenses" type of service to a mass-market product. You're not going to pay that for fun and giggles, but - if you're a Mac user who needs a PC to do paid work and, post-M1, the alternative is to buy a PC - $1,500 over 4 years with no hardware maintenance costs (...and as a direct business expense that goes straight on your annual tax return rather than some faffy 'capital asset pool' calculation) isn't out of the question.

Really, though this is probably aimed at businesses who want to let employees work at home (on their own machines) - and the timing is probably no coincidence. Unlike a laptop (or a flash disk full of data) it can't be left on a train - or if you do lose a laptop that you may have left logged in you can shut it down remotely.

...even from an employees point of view, there are a lot of arguments for keeping separate work and personal machines to make sure the two don't mix and this is a cheaper & less cluttersome alternative.

I don't think this solves "how do I run windows if I switch to M1 right now problem" for everybody, but it's an example of why Windows virtualisation isn't going to be quite such a big deal over the coming years that it was in 2006.

(Or Linux, for that matter when you can spin up a Linux VM in the cloud for $5/month billed by the hour)

as someone that uses Windows for paid work I don't buy the arguments that this is a better solution than remoting into physical hardware, which is much cheaper and the tax argument doesn't hold either, it's not like it's that much more complicated to expense a fixed asset over several years or it's the only one anyway....
Having said that though, as correctly pointed out, this does make senses for businesses with several employees
But I am sure some individuals will subscribe simply because they don't know much about remote desktop and don't even realize it's an option that can work just as well for cheaper

 

[adr1974]

I wanted to try it but wasn't smart enough to properly set it up.

 

[senttoschool]

You can get the same result at a cheaper price (over the long term), but buying (or reusing) a Windows desktop or laptop and remoting into it from any device. And the Windows 365 service itself (contrary to Office 365) is based on remote desktop. I have calculated that on average you would have paid an equivalent Windows desktop in around 1 to 1.5 years (and this is going new, if you go used you it would be earlier).

The big difference with Parallels is that Parallels works offline too. So if you have no internet connection (plane, some holiday places, temporary issues with you ISP) or if you have poor internet connection in some places remote desktop and Windows 365 are either not going to work or work poorly, while a VM will continue to work normally

Did you factor in the cost of time/fixed cost for the following?

• Configuring and managing security in an ongoing basis
• Power backup and power outages scenarios
• Reconnection after internet outage of the Windows computer server
• Stable and consistent internet speeds of the Windows computer server
• Building your own remote application so that you can remote into it from any computer

This reminds me of people years ago saying that you shouldn't use AWS because you can build your own computer and use it as a server for a cheaper cost.

If this is a hobby for you, then it's fine. But if this is how you make a living, you're crazy if you think you can do it as good or cheaper than Microsoft can.

 

[senttoschool]

PS. I believe Apple will eventually need to put MacOS on the cloud as well. But unlike MS, Apple will likely require that you already have a Mac/iPad device in order to use its cloud instances. Also, Apple will likely do some kind of deep local OS and cloud OS integration instead of going the browser route. This keeps you buying Apple devices.

One day, you will be able to use your M5 Macbook Air in a coffee shop and have the power of an Apple Silicon with 256 CPU cores and 512 GPU cores.

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Hence, it’s not an “if” but “when” Apple will offer Apple Silicon in the cloud. When Google/Microsoft/Amazon can start clearly provide more via the cloud, Apple will need to as well.

forums.macrumors.com

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Having Apple Silicon Cloud solves the problem of having to build your own server room. You can just have a cheap Mac Mini connected to a big monitor and still have the power of a 40 core SoC. This is actually one of the main reasons why cloud computing took off. It’s almost always way better to...

forums.macrumors.com

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Mark Gurman is saying that Apple is working on a 40-core SoC for the Mac Pro for 2022. You're Tim Cook, sitting in his nice office, looking at how much money you just spent to make this giant SoC for a relatively small market. In fact, you have to do this every year or every two years to keep...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Chancha]

Even for businesses you need to be sufficiently large to even start enjoying the benefits of this scheme, especially considering the cumulative cost. We have a primarily Mac based music studio but we need some Windows 10 PC to run our custom accounting / stock software, just last month we bought dozens of Dell OptiPlex micros as thin-clients after considering all the other fancy options of VMs / cloud or anything involving remote access. Having a physical brick and mortar machine sitting right at where you are is still the safest and easiest to maintain, until you reach a certain scale / headcount.

 

[Chancha]

PS. I believe Apple will eventually need to put MacOS on the cloud as well. But unlike MS, Apple will likely require that you already have a Mac/iPad device in order to use its cloud instances. Also, Apple will likely do some kind of deep local OS and cloud OS integration instead of going the browser route. This keeps you buying Apple devices.

One day, you will be able to use your M5 Macbook Air in a coffee shop and have the power of an Apple Silicon with 256 CPU cores and 512 GPU cores.

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Hence, it’s not an “if” but “when” Apple will offer Apple Silicon in the cloud. When Google/Microsoft/Amazon can start clearly provide more via the cloud, Apple will need to as well.

forums.macrumors.com

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Having Apple Silicon Cloud solves the problem of having to build your own server room. You can just have a cheap Mac Mini connected to a big monitor and still have the power of a 40 core SoC. This is actually one of the main reasons why cloud computing took off. It’s almost always way better to...

forums.macrumors.com

You're Apple. You just built a 40-core SoC for Mac Pro. Now what?

Mark Gurman is saying that Apple is working on a 40-core SoC for the Mac Pro for 2022. You're Tim Cook, sitting in his nice office, looking at how much money you just spent to make this giant SoC for a relatively small market. In fact, you have to do this every year or every two years to keep...

forums.macrumors.com

Apple kind of tried doing that with the iWork cloud version, or have some parts of the existing iCloud being powerful and accessible through a browser, but it seems they never took it as seriously as Google and MS.

 

[senttoschool]

Even for businesses you need to be sufficiently large to even start enjoying the benefits of this scheme, especially considering the cumulative cost. We have a primarily Mac based music studio but we need some Windows 10 PC to run our custom accounting / stock software, just last month we bought dozens of Dell OptiPlex micros as thin-clients after considering all the other fancy options of VMs / cloud or anything involving remote access. Having a physical brick and mortar machine sitting right at where you are is still the safest and easiest to maintain, until you reach a certain scale / headcount.

Not convinced.

If you have 50 Dell OptiPlex clients, you need dedicated IT staff to manage it, replace it, service it, configure it, provide security for it, have space for it, back it up. You're not taking advantage of economy of scale for the IT department.

Windows 365 is exactly the kind of service that could replace what your studio needs, provide more work flexibility, and lower the overall operating cost.

 

[senttoschool]

Apple kind of tried doing that with the iWork cloud version, or have some parts of the existing iCloud being powerful and accessible through a browser, but it seems they never took it as seriously as Google and MS.

iWork - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This? I don't think this is the same thing as what we're talking about.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I really like the idea, but the value (specs for the price) is disappointing. I'd rather just buy a PC and run it remotely.

 

[Digitalguy]

Did you factor in the cost of time/fixed cost for the following?

• Configuring and managing security in an ongoing basis
• Power backup and power outages scenarios
• Reconnection after internet outage of the Windows computer server
• Stable and consistent internet speeds of the Windows computer server
• Building your own remote application so that you can remote into it from any computer

This reminds me of people years ago saying that you shouldn't use AWS because you can build your own computer and use it as a server for a cheaper cost.

If this is a hobby for you, then it's fine. But if this is how you make a living, you're crazy if you think you can do it as good or cheaper than Microsoft can.

Maaaan.... where do I start... I have the impression I am reading a message from a lawyer trying to scare people that don't think that this cloud service is a valid options for individuals. But it was funny to read... 😉

1. Configuring and managing security on an ongoing basis? Man, that's scary... I think nobody should even consider using Windows, it's so much work... you constantly need to tinker with security, configuring and managing on an ongoing basis... Oh wait... someone just told me that Windows takes care of security by itself as long as you keep it updated... unless you have someone at home messing with it... I don't... ouf... I am safe!

2. This depends on where you live... Where I live I have never had a power outage in the last 20 years. Ever. But if you frequently do, you better get a device with a good battery and cellular connection...

3. See point 2. And it's on ethernet anyway so it would reconnect automatically

4. Most of the time my 10Gbs fiber works fine. In the very rare instances it doesn't I have LTE on 2 devices that will act as modems. And if I am on the go, I always assume my internet connection could not be enough to remote, not just on the server side but on the client side too, so if I now I need to do serious work I take a laptop with me...

5. Oh man, I really need to build my own remote desktop...But I can't code... Oh my.... Oh wait, I have already bought Jump Desktop for $7.5 on iPad and $15 on Mac... And I also have Screens, RealVNC, Anydesk, Chrome Remote, Teamviewer and Parsec just in case... Ouf... I won't need to learn coding....
Ah and by the way ALL my files are synced via Dropbox.

And to conclude, you are right, I must be completely crazy... Because yes, I still think you can do it not just as good but better and cheaper than Microsoft if you are and individual and yes I make a very good living out of it... Just crazy...

 

[senttoschool]

Maaaan.... where do I start... I have the impression I am reading a message from a lawyer trying to scare people that don't think that this cloud service is a valid options for individuals. But it was funny to read... 😉

1. Configuring and managing security on an ongoing basis? Man, that's scary... I think nobody should even consider using Windows, it's so much work... you constantly need to tinker with security, configuring and managing on an ongoing basis... Oh wait... someone just told me that Windows takes care of security by itself as long as you keep it updated... unless you have someone at home messing with it... I don't... ouf... I am safe!

2. This depends on where you live... Where I live I have never had a power outage in the last 20 years. Ever. But if you frequently do, you better get a device with a good battery and cellular connection...

3. See point 2. And it's on ethernet anyway so it would reconnect automatically

4. Most of the time my 10Gbs fiber works fine. In the very rare instances it doesn't I have LTE on 2 devices that will act as modems. And if I am on the go, I always assume my internet connection could not be enough to remote, not just on the server side but on the client side too, so if I now I need to do serious work I take a laptop with me...

5. Oh man, I really need to build my own remote desktop...But I can't code... Oh my.... Oh wait, I have already bought Jump Desktop for $7.5 on iPad and $15 on Mac... And I also have Screens, RealVNC, Anydesk, Chrome Remote, Teamviewer and Parsec just in case... Ouf... I won't need to learn coding....
Ah and by the way ALL my files are synced via Dropbox.

And to conclude, you are right, I must be completely crazy... Because yes, I still think you can do it not just as good but better and cheaper than Microsoft if you are and individual and yes I make a very good living out of it... Just crazy...

Wow. Let's all go back to just hosting servers in our homes for businesses.

Sorry man, I don't think you really have that much of a clue on business requirements.

But please don't tell the world your secrets. Otherwise, Windows 365 is DOA.

 

[theluggage]

as someone that uses Windows for paid work I don't buy the arguments that this is a better solution than remoting into physical hardware

I wouldn't try and claim that it is a better solution for everybody.

Sometimes, the need for Windows might be something really trivial and having a 4GB/Dual Core "cloud" PC for a few months would solve the problem - and I'd have no qualms about billing the whole cost to a client as an extra expense, whereas "even though I'm an IT consultant I need you to buy me a new PC for 30 days of work" might be a sticking point. If you need Windows on a daily basis - or if you need it to run demanding software - not so much.

it's not like it's that much more complicated to expense a fixed asset over several years or it's the only one anyway....

YMMV depending on jurisdiction. Certainly in the UK you never quite get tax on the full cost of the asset back that way. It's one (albeit not the only one) argument for leasing rather than buying. It's not a big deal for a one-man-band, but a larger outfit might be swayed (esp. since accountants tend to act like a penny offset against taxable income is a penny earned 🙂 ).

 

[Digitalguy]

I wouldn't try and claim that it is a better solution for everybody.

Sometimes, the need for Windows might be something really trivial and having a 4GB/Dual Core "cloud" PC for a few months would solve the problem - and I'd have no qualms about billing the whole cost to a client as an extra expense, whereas "even though I'm an IT consultant I need you to buy me a new PC for 30 days of work" might be a sticking point. If you need Windows on a daily basis - or if you need it to run demanding software - not so much.


YMMV depending on jurisdiction. Certainly in the UK you never quite get tax on the full cost of the asset back that way. It's one (albeit not the only one) argument for leasing rather than buying. It's not a big deal for a one-man-band, but a larger outfit might be swayed (esp. since accountants tend to act like a penny offset against taxable income is a penny earned 🙂 ).

I agree. And I said it in a earlier post, specifying in the long run. For a few months the MS solution is definitely interesting (even if I don't know what is the minimum subscription period).
And true, expensing hardware varies according to jurisdiction and also to what you do. With my business I can justify it pretty easily and expense it over 4 years, but depending on what you do and where you live, things may be different.

 

[Digitalguy]

Wow. Let's all go back to just hosting servers in our homes for businesses.

Sorry man, I don't think you really have that much of a clue on business requirements.

But please don't tell the world your secrets. Otherwise, Windows 365 is DOA.

Yeah sure, I am clueless and you are the real expert. Let's end it here, before moderators intervene.

 

[badsimian]

If you run a standalone computer now to do your work, this is unlikely to make a lot of sense. However in the corporate world, even laptops can be painful to keep the data secure (I don't mean the OS, I just mean leaking of data, sensitive documents being upload to dropbox etc)

Cloud PC will spin up these VMs in Azure and allow you to connect them up to an Azure vnet that you operate. This then means they can be domain joined, have Group Policies deployed to them etc just like any other corporate desktop. This consistency saves a lot of operational cost. They also allow the use of custom OS images so if you already have an image building piipeline to get a base OS build to your spec (most large orgs will have this) then you can just use that here.

Overall this is a nice easy way to get corporate desktops up and running. Although, if you fall into the group I describe above you are likely to skip this and go straight to Azure Virtual Desktop which allows you to configure everything yourself and with judicious power management of the VMs you can get the cost down to approx half of what MS are charging here.

It's interesting and probably suited to medium sized orgs who don't currently run a VDI infrastructure. I think it is step 1 though, I can see consumer versions coming down the line at some point too.

 

[deconstruct60]

PS. I believe Apple will eventually need to put MacOS on the cloud as well. But unlike MS, Apple will likely require that you already have a Mac/iPad device in order to use its cloud instances. Also, Apple will likely do some kind of deep local OS and cloud OS integration instead of going the browser route. This keeps you buying Apple devices.

One day, you will be able to use your M5 Macbook Air in a coffee shop and have the power of an Apple Silicon with 256 CPU cores and 512 GPU cores.

macOS doesn't scale past 64 threads/cores. ( with SMT/hyperthreading 32 cores . without 64 cores). The likelihood over the next several years of any M-series going past 64 cores is pretty dim. The bulk of the systems that the Apple Mach kernel is distributed for is for iPhones and iPads and lower end laptops. The very large scale sales of your M5 MBA example is exactly why Apple would have very little interest in pushing macOS past 64 cores. The iPhones and iPads just add even more emphasis. Add in the Apple WatchOS , tvOS for a cherry on top.

As for folks with 256 CPU core problems. Most likely there is a Linux based computation solution for that already. If it is cloud computational service who cares. "On the Internet nobody knows you are a dog". That's the primary point of the vast majority of webservices they just get done. Users can get to Windows or Linux instances just as easily over the backend "cloud". (MS Azure cloud has a susbtantail amount of Linux in it exactly because "cloud" substantively levels the playing field. )

Apple's push toward numbers like 512 GPU cores is exactly why the CPU core count will probably remain suppressed below 64 cores for a very, very ,very long time. ( past the point of any reasonable projections into the future).

The notion that Apple is launching off to go toe-to-toe with ARM's Neoverse , Ampere Computing's Altra, super high end AMD EPYCs and top end Xeon SP SoC is probably misguided. Apple probably isn't going to build a multitenant focused SoC. The current "state of the art" on cloud server focused SoC are all over 50 cores at this point. Apple coming with a 40 count isn't particularly competitive at all. 2022 forward, it is an all over 64 cores playing field.

We'll see when Apple releases their XCode cloud pricing , but more than pretty good chance that when you get an "equivalent of M1 Mini" service that when you multiple that monthly cost by 18-24 months that will get the cost of a Mini back out the other side. Also likely won't be absorbing the source code version management ( e.g. git ) hosting costs either. ( interim build space so no long term backups). Super fast fail-over availability ? ... probably not.

If Apple's cloud service is more like a system (software+hardware) financing plan then it it won't be mostly a "more cost effective" option. It will be more. The question would be what admin overhead is there. ( somewhat doubtful Apple is going to be a source of "cheap labor". )

 

[deconstruct60]

Overall this is a nice easy way to get corporate desktops up and running. Although, if you fall into the group I describe above you are likely to skip this and go straight to Azure Virtual Desktop which allows you to configure everything yourself and with judicious power management of the VMs you can get the cost down to approx half of what MS are charging here.

But to bring it back to a macOS perspective how many generic corporate desktop deployments does macOS really represent in the total overall market? Even where has some corporate penetration how many are at 95+ % off all desktops at the company ? (e.g, would a company split their hosted desktop deployments over multiple service vendors? Probably not. (i.e., those desktop have shared resources they access and splitting that over multiple service providers is probably painful. It is a dual edge sword. Windows 365 where macs do have a decent sized share of the desktops is awkward there also. Although AWS/Azure/others has have some hosted Macs too. )