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Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

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Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#31

Post by quaffapint »

cowsup wrote: post #25
notthedroids wrote: post #16

Anyone else developing on a Mac/Linux desktop, and looking at Windows 365 to run/test/prototype windows applications?

Windows 365's lowest tier, with only 2GB of RAM, works out to $288/year. If you're on a Mac, you can grab the Pro version of Parallels for $99USD/year and run it locally, and spin up an instance of any version of Windows you need, along with guaranteed uptime and availability. I really don't see Windows 365 as a viable option for most developers, when there are so many better -- and cheaper -- alternatives readily av…

Not disagreeing with you, but just a note that with the M1's being ARM based, the Windows 10 will also be ARM based and may not run the necessary software for you to test with. For example, I know currently Visual Studio will not run on that.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#32

Post by betaby »

mnkypete wrote: post #20
donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

You have an 8core laptop with 32gig RAM for $700? That's not super common though, I think usually you'd spend more like $2500-$3000k for it. Count in the reduced maintenance and hardware support + having your whole stuff in one place.. Might make sense if you are not super low on money

You still have access that cloud Windows from ... laptop. So one have to pay for laptop + that cloud instance.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#33

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

cowsup wrote: post #25
notthedroids wrote: post #16

Anyone else developing on a Mac/Linux desktop, and looking at Windows 365 to run/test/prototype windows applications?

Windows 365's lowest tier, with only 2GB of RAM, works out to $288/year. If you're on a Mac, you can grab the Pro version of Parallels for $99USD/year and run it locally, and spin up an instance of any version of Windows you need, along with guaranteed uptime and availability. I really don't see Windows 365 as a viable option for most developers, when there are so many better -- and cheaper -- alternatives readily av…

Or you can just use windows iso as is without activation on a VM and call it a day. Then, if you are adventurous, fire up that kms38 and you are off to the races

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#34

Post by JTbane »

cptskippy wrote: post #22
donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

When you use a lot of contractor developers, being able to provision out devices for temporary work is powerful. A lot of time is spent provisioning machines, white listing ips, setting up VPNs, and getting the contractor to the point where they can work. In some cases I've seen it take 2 or 3 weeks to get a contractor up and running on a 6 month contract. Being able to give them credentials to a machine that's ready…

I absolutely hate using VMs over VPNs, any slight interruption in my fragile home Wi-Fi (or whatever the hell the VPN is doing) causes my whole dev environment to freeze.

It's a security/usability trade off for me.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#35

Post by formerly_proven »

cptskippy wrote: post #22
donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

When you use a lot of contractor developers, being able to provision out devices for temporary work is powerful. A lot of time is spent provisioning machines, white listing ips, setting up VPNs, and getting the contractor to the point where they can work. In some cases I've seen it take 2 or 3 weeks to get a contractor up and running on a 6 month contract. Being able to give them credentials to a machine that's ready…

Okay, now I'm just laughing out loud. My org has an internal/external reputation for not exactly being fast moving and having convoluted IT processes, yet we can onboard people within a few days.

If it takes you 2-3 weeks to onboard ANYONE please realize that your IT processes are complete, unmitigated garbage. Paying Microsoft for some Windows VMs through the nose isn't going to change anything about that.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#37

Post by vlan0 »

iddan wrote: post #2

With fibber internet increasingly becoming standard around the world and 5G it makes perfect sense people will use their computer as a terminal for a more powerful computer in the cloud than buying powerful computers

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Last mile ISPs are not optimizing for those traffic patterns. And there really is no incentive for them to do so.

For exampe, there's 70ms between my Verizon phone and the PC sitting in front of me on a very well connected network. The traffic goes from WNY > NYC > DC > NYC > CNY > WNY. Very much not optimal.

At the same time, AWS us-east1 is 9ms away from my desktop.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#38

Post by formerly_proven »

betaby wrote: post #32
mnkypete wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have an 8core laptop with 32gig RAM for $700? That's not super common though, I think usually you'd spend more like $2500-$3000k for it. Count in the reduced maintenance and hardware support + having your whole stuff in one place.. Might make sense if you are not super low on money

You still have access that cloud Windows from ... laptop. So one have to pay for laptop + that cloud instance.

The idea is probably that employees / contractors use their own hardware to access this. Someone likely already figured out how to fill out the Excel spreadsheets to make this secure.

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#39

Post by jensensbutton »

donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

This sounds a lot like, "why pay for when it's cheaper to provision your own hardware?"

Re: Microsoft pauses free Windows 365 cloud PC trials after ‘significant demand’

#40

Post by pwinnski »

donmcronald wrote: post #10

> including one at the top end that includes eight vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $158 per month Why is it so popular? I can't understand the economics of it. Can someone explain? Why would I pay ~$10k over 5 years for something that's similar to the laptop I'm typing on which costed me $700 used? I know it's for businesses, but even then, does it come with tooling or something that makes management eas…

Companies amortize capital expenditures, while monthly service costs are a separate line item (operating expenditures). I think there's also a perception that deploying and support physical hardware has higher labor cost associated. If it take one IT staffer per every X PCs, the presumption might be that X is higher when the "PCs" are virtual.

But mainly, companies aren't doing what you're doing: looking at the five-year cost. They don't care what it costs over five years, or often even over one year. This quarter, the cost for that beast is $474. Can you deliver an 8-CPU PC with 32GB of RAM for $474? Today? Then the MS offering is better.

Also, when you lay off an employee, you get to stop paying for their Windows license, instead of it being a sunk cost.

There's definitely a reason they're targeting companies first. The economics make so much more sense in that world.

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