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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’

#161

Post by AlphaSite »

znpy wrote: post #132
betaby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still didn't get how bare Windows VM can speed up a new developer on-boarding. In all my jobs slowest part was always familiarization with a new build/deploy environment. OS/Laptop setup was always trivial and took 1-2 day max, even in orgs with 20k employees.

Lol not everyone is a developer. This offering makes perfect sense to replace those dumb dell machines equipped with 4gb ram and a core i3 with even dumber machine and slash the local it team. Think of thin clients, all over again. Think of call centers. Think of receptionists, or bank clerks that all they do is use internal web-based software, and print a pdf file. No more hardware maintenance, just throw away the w…

You still need something to run the thing client, thin client doesn’t mean no client. So where does it run?

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

#162

Post by _carbyau_ »

raesene9 wrote: post #62
formerly_proven wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This it true but I've seen orgs in the past where a business unit would happily pay quite a lot of money to avoid going anywhere near central IT. I think the most extreme example of slow process I saw was an organization where central IT wanted to charge $20k and take two months to quote for a project. In that kind of environment things like this with opex pricing that can be assigned to a project's budget and fast s…

I've seen this arise from financial policies whereby the IT cost centre must be financially self supporting.

Hence IT department has to charge everything it does, swamping everyone involved - business and IT both - in bullshit paperwork, taking time from everyone. Like a finance version of fighting entropy, you can have everything perfectly neatly ordered but it takes effort.

Then someone in IT gets sick of hearing bullshit hopes and dreams ideas from business; "Ok, but what if cereal box toys were spruced up with crypto? Go cost it up will ya?"

And so IT swings the financial ban hammer with $20000 quotes. Bullshit begets bullshit.

There will be a "who you know" club of people from business and IT who can skip the bullshit, not fill out the financial paperwork, meet over coffee or lunch and hash out ideas. If this club does not exist, woe betide the company.

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

#163

Post by 908B64B197 »

Macha wrote: post #154
908B64B197 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Keyboards, headphones, mice, monitors, desk chairs purchased for software engineers... Pretty self explanatory.

Here's how that'd go in the last two companies I worked for: Purchase declined. Not valid under T&E policy. Please follow IT acquisition policy for computer equipment and real estate acquisition policy for furniture. Card payment is due by xx/xx to reimburse for invalid expense.

That sounds a little too... bureaucratic?

Anyways, final approver should be somewhere between you and the CTO.

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

#164

Post by sorry_outta_gas »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #96
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…

>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? My guess is that this kind of financial inanity is being driven by accounting rules: CapX vs OpX, revenue recognition rules, etc...

10k for five years isn't that bad when you factor in upgrade policy, support staff and scale it up to a company of 50-60k employees.

just reducing some of the policy enforecemnet requirements with machines being virtual is probably worth the cost of two or three laptops

no need to overthink VPNs with tricky clients vm's already on the right network/subnet/whatever, hell each machine can have nice software controller azure IAM roles it's a dream for cloud working

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

#165

Post by twobitshifter »

AlphaSite wrote: post #161
znpy wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol not everyone is a developer. This offering makes perfect sense to replace those dumb dell machines equipped with 4gb ram and a core i3 with even dumber machine and slash the local it team. Think of thin clients, all over again. Think of call centers. Think of receptionists, or bank clerks that all they do is use internal web-based software, and print a pdf file. No more hardware maintenance, just throw away the w…

You still need something to run the thing client, thin client doesn’t mean no client. So where does it run?

I’ve seen organizations that just run Intel nucs.

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

#166

Post by valzam »

TheNewAndy wrote: post #160
unoti wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? It's probably not similar to the PC you're typing on in many ways, including the following: - Probably si…

You still need another device to connect to it right? The hardware reliability can only go down by adding more hardware to the system. Same goes for power, and to some extent network.

What you can do though is offer very generic, lightweight, long battery life laptops (chromebook maybe?) that are completely interchangeable. You could literally have a stack in every office building (like big companies have vending machines for power cords etc.) and if someone's laptop dies they just take another one, log in, done. You can also give everyone the same laptop and then configure the necessary hardware requirements virtually. I still think it's very expensive but I can see the appeal.

Also don't forget: Companies love OPEX and hate CAPEX. Does it make sense from a pure sticker price perspective? Maybe not. But it could from an accounting and tax perspective.

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

#167

Post by fartcannon »

tw04 wrote: post #47
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're assuming that a physical desktop or laptop is the alternative. Likely this is an alternative for people using vmware horizon or citrix for virtual desktops. In which case you'll be spending almost half that on just the software, not including any hardware at all. I'd need more info on the service, but I'd imagine this is very cost competitive. As to "why?" - because for things like HIPPA data, I'd MUCH rather…

Microsoft has been hacked twice this year already. They're a huge target. All you're doing is guaranteeing you're part of the inevitable next hack. If you're managing my data, I'm going to ask you how you plan to prevent being part of that attack.

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

#169

Post by Godel_unicode »

jcelerier wrote: post #115
SCHiM wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohhh man/woman. I'm a security person. I often work with my customers' central IT. I'm not going to have an opinion or judge you, but consider: You're giving people nightmares. I've seen it go very wrong (front-page news wrong). And then the threads commenting on "how incompetent can they be, blabla". I've worked with the people stressed, sad and disappointed that they got pwned because of shadow IT. It's a ticking t…

> You're giving people nightmares. I've seen it go very wrong (front-page news wrong). And then the threads commenting on "how incompetent can they be, blabla". I've worked with the people stressed, sad and disappointed that they got pwned because of shadow IT. It's a ticking time bomb. Who cares about front-page news wrong lol. Equifax was front-page news wrong, and there were 0 actual consequences for people in it.

Solarwinds stock price is up a few percent compared with a year ago. Neither Home Depot nor Target appear to be hurting.

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

#170

Post by Godel_unicode »

donmcronald wrote: post #67
tw04 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that a physical desktop or laptop is the alternative. Likely this is an alternative for people using vmware horizon or citrix for virtual desktops. In which case you'll be spending almost half that on just the software, not including any hardware at all. I'd need more info on the service, but I'd imagine this is very cost competitive. As to "why?" - because for things like HIPPA data, I'd MUCH rather…

The VDI angle makes the most sense out of all the answers I've seen. However, I can't imagine anyone concerned about security would do BYOD for laptops or desktops. Every person I've ever seen using VDI has a company PC plus a virtual desktop, so there's no cost savings there. The main advantages I can see are easier backups and not having to worry about network bandwidth too much (just enough for RDP is good), but t…

Yubikey webauthn over RDP works just fine for me.
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