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Windows-as-an-app is coming

computerworld.com

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Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#21

Post by [deleted] »

thegrim33 wrote: post #13
crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

Would never be appealing to me in the slightest, having my compute taken away from me and put in someone else's control to siphon away even more data about me, where they have the power to shut my compute off if I violate their TOS, accidentally or not, where I'd lose what little remaining privacy I have left. Of course it'll end up that way in the end eventually, as the enshitification continues; no way would compan…

[deleted]

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#23

Post by smoldesu »

dingnuts wrote: post #15
smoldesu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To do what ? Is it not obvious? It's the same purpose as XCode Cloud and Ubuntu Pro and Office 365; force users to pay recurring fees for basic functionality. This is what service-ification of completely normal software looks like, our penance for not caring enough as consumers.

The "basic functionality" that an OS provides requires constant maintenance from the vendor. You're welcome to use Windows XP if you want, and then you can enjoy not having new device drivers for modern hardware or patches to protect against new attack vectors. Or is Microsoft supposed to patch security vulnerabilities forever, after your one time purchase? I don't like subscriptions for everything but don't act as t…

Constant maintenance does not entail running an OS on their servers and RDPing into it. I have a capable machine, I can service it myself. If Microsoft wants to EOL OSes after a one-time purchase, that is their prerogative. There is a distinct difference in expectation between subscription OSes and LTS releases, though. That's why Microsoft can value a Windows license at hundreds of dollars.

OS vendors have a continued interest in supporting my hardware so they can exploit me as a customer. If Microsoft makes too hasty of a move, they know they'll just push their users onto competing platforms that don't charge for 5+ years of support. Stuff like MacOS, ChromeOS or even Linux.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#24

Post by leobg »

thegrim33 wrote: post #13
crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

Would never be appealing to me in the slightest, having my compute taken away from me and put in someone else's control to siphon away even more data about me, where they have the power to shut my compute off if I violate their TOS, accidentally or not, where I'd lose what little remaining privacy I have left. Of course it'll end up that way in the end eventually, as the enshitification continues; no way would compan…

Was that not precisely @Suhail’s business plan? I hear they have since pivoted to AI image gen.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#25

Post by secfirstmd »

danpalmer wrote: post #17

I'm not quite sure I get the strategy. For people who need Windows for some business requirement, this lets them use less Windows, and have a Mac or Chromebook as their hardware. The result: less Windows. For people who don't currently use Windows, does a slower, internet-only Windows present a compelling product? Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming plat…

One big area will be security.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#26

Post by LegitShady »

crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

In a recent sale, I saw a 15" macbook air for $1750 Canadian Dollarydoos (a discount of $250 from the original price of $2000). For t hat money it came with an M2 chip, 512gb SSD, and 8gb of RAM.

There is no alternate timeline of this universe that would make a $1750 or $2000 laptop with 8gb of RAM ok with me in 2023. The prices are high and the upgrade costs for RAM are abusive. Of course, it doesn't use SODIMM modules so you can't upgrade the RAM yourself, you have to buy an even more obscenely priced model from apple.

That being said using thin clients with even less control than existing windows or mac computers have sounds terrible too.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#27

Post by tenebrisalietum »

danpalmer wrote: post #17

I'm not quite sure I get the strategy. For people who need Windows for some business requirement, this lets them use less Windows, and have a Mac or Chromebook as their hardware. The result: less Windows. For people who don't currently use Windows, does a slower, internet-only Windows present a compelling product? Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming plat…

Two thoughts:

A) Consumer Windows PCs and laptops have been getting cheaper and cheaper. You can get a Windows laptop for $200 at any Walmart. That's $200 in 2023 dollars versus for example $1000 for desktops in 1997 dollars. Microsoft's money off of Windows consumer licenses has to be declining.

B) Windows may be dying but Active Directory isn't, plus everything moving to cloud.

For the business side, it started with Microsoft's hosted email service - a subscription service many, many businesses saw value in using over hosting their own email. What's happening is the amount of things hostable is growing until Microsoft basically has Active Directory completely in the cloud. Then businesses can run with even less IT staff than they do now, but still have all the access control that Active Directory offers, even among non-Microsoft products that support SSO.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#28

Post by paulddraper »

thegrim33 wrote: post #13
crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

Would never be appealing to me in the slightest, having my compute taken away from me and put in someone else's control to siphon away even more data about me, where they have the power to shut my compute off if I violate their TOS, accidentally or not, where I'd lose what little remaining privacy I have left. Of course it'll end up that way in the end eventually, as the enshitification continues; no way would compan…

Fair enough, but most people are far far past that.

Email, photos, notes, relationships, documents, professional work...every part of their life is already in the cloud.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#29

Post by jhbadger »

danpalmer wrote: post #17

I'm not quite sure I get the strategy. For people who need Windows for some business requirement, this lets them use less Windows, and have a Mac or Chromebook as their hardware. The result: less Windows. For people who don't currently use Windows, does a slower, internet-only Windows present a compelling product? Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming plat…

>Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming platform for that)

And the Steam Deck shows that you can run nearly any Windows-based game locally on a machine not running Windows at all (Wine/Proton on Linux, but a Steam Deck user doesn't have to worry about the details; it just works).

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#30

Post by 0xNotMyAccount »

secfirstmd wrote: post #25
danpalmer wrote: post #17

I'm not quite sure I get the strategy. For people who need Windows for some business requirement, this lets them use less Windows, and have a Mac or Chromebook as their hardware. The result: less Windows. For people who don't currently use Windows, does a slower, internet-only Windows present a compelling product? Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming plat…

One big area will be security.

Yep, this is Microsoft's answer to the terrible Citrix user experience, which is a non-trivial component of burnout in healthcare.

Every hospital basically tells their staff, several times a day, via an electronic health record system served over Citrix: we don't trust you, and you time is worthless, fuck you. All in the name of security.

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