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Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

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Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#21

Post by scarface_74 »

drdaeman wrote: post #11
what-the-grump wrote: post #3

Oh, no it's a thin client. Everyone, get the pitchforks.

I don’t think the author (or anyone else) has issues with thin clients. My understanding is that the issue is rather with how this particular thin client is designed. Conceptually, it’s somewhat not entirely unlike those weird printers that require a subscription to work. No clue who in their sane mind would buy something like that, but turns out some people actually do.

The printers never “required” a subscription. You could choose to buy subscription cartridges or cancel your subscription and use regular cartridges

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#22

Post by scarface_74 »

gigel82 wrote: post #6
TZubiri wrote: post #4

Sounds like a good product. Definitely not a fan of free software's monotonous take on proprietary software. Yes, we get it, it's proprietary, anything else to say?

Is it a product though? What can you do with it after you buy it besides paying Microsoft monthly for the rest of its lifetime to actually do something with it? I'm pretty sure this is just part of a service.

This is for the enterprise. They are paying per seat subscription fees now and have been for decades.

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#23

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

scarface_74 wrote: post #20

Like others have said this is just a thin client. The concept has existed since the beginning of modern computers. This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts. Besides, “the enterprise” has been “imprisoned” by Microsoft for decades. They were never going to switch over to Linux or anything else en masse. Even companies that did have Macs were still buying…

I actually think I agree overall, but...

> This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts.

Chromebooks make it trivial to switch to developer mode and get root, and then even disable write protection and flash arbitrary firmware. Can you do that with these boxes?

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#24

Post by scarface_74 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #23
scarface_74 wrote: post #20

Like others have said this is just a thin client. The concept has existed since the beginning of modern computers. This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts. Besides, “the enterprise” has been “imprisoned” by Microsoft for decades. They were never going to switch over to Linux or anything else en masse. Even companies that did have Macs were still buying…

I actually think I agree overall, but... > This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts. Chromebooks make it trivial to switch to developer mode and get root, and then even disable write protection and flash arbitrary firmware. Can you do that with these boxes?

That’s not the target audience.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/link

> Windows 365 Link is for organizations that have desk-based workers and are using, or are considering using, Windows 365. Windows 365 Link is well suited for enabling secure productivity in shared workspaces such as hot desks, call centers, reception desks, labs, and more.

And on top of that it’s a desktop computer. There are plenty of mini PC’s for about the same price that are more powerful and not locked down.

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#25

Post by TheJoeMan »

Is this similar to Microsoft Xbox’s “Cloud Gaming (beta)” where it just streams you the picture from the server? I see comparisons below to Chromebook but at least a Chromebook boots offline. From my experience with the cloud gaming, the image quality is atrocious and honestly I can’t believe the marketing team features it so prominently on the store page. So all I have to say is, those shots in the youtube video are probably composited.

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#26

Post by jhickok »

noen wrote: post #19

Thin client - no big deal. $30-300 per month per device? LOL. Dead on arrival.

That 30-300 dollars is just the range of virtual machines you are connecting to-- I can't imagine it is very surprising that a personal VM starts at around 30 dollars per month and GPU-enabled machines would be substantially more expensive. A quick spot check suggests this pricing is in line with the same type of offerings available in AWS (~$30-$1000) https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces-family/workspaces/pricing/.

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#27

Post by scarface_74 »

codebje wrote: post #17
gigel82 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a product though? What can you do with it after you buy it besides paying Microsoft monthly for the rest of its lifetime to actually do something with it? I'm pretty sure this is just part of a service.

That's just a semantic game. It's a product. Services are products. Bank loans are products. Devices sold for narrower end goals than general purpose computing are still products. Cable TV boxes are products. For enterprise IT, it's got some potential. Devices users can't muck with facilitate standard operating environments, hot desks, and similar practices that are already user hostile. In that setting, there's no b…

Microsoft doesn’t really care about making low margin hardware that won’t move the needle. Microsoft is a high margin software company.

Microsoft knows that no other vendor in the race to the bottom commodity market that is the PC space is going to make anything of any quality.

It’s the same motivation that Google has for the Pixel. Google knows that the Pixel is not going to take the world by storm.

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#28

Post by mixdup »

The author of this post seems to think that a) Microsoft is targeting end users with the device (they're not, they're targeting IT departments) and b) that IT departments don't know exactly what they're getting into or have no control over this thing

IT administrators will have plenty of control over this, and the software it runs, and the configuration of it

I'm not sure the author has ever worked in or has any knowledge of corporate IT departments, their priorities, or how any of it works

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#29

Post by mixdup »

scarface_74 wrote: post #20

Like others have said this is just a thin client. The concept has existed since the beginning of modern computers. This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts. Besides, “the enterprise” has been “imprisoned” by Microsoft for decades. They were never going to switch over to Linux or anything else en masse. Even companies that did have Macs were still buying…

> I’ve seen plenty of places that use Citrix with terminals.

I doubt very many enterprise level IT departments are running any kind of thin client infra such as Citrix or Horizon or anything else (like, god forbid, Oracle) without maintenance agreements in place on both the software and the hardware side of things so just moving everything left and renting the whole stack instead of having half of it capex and half of it opex isn't that big of a shift in how these things are paid for

Re: Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud

#30

Post by VladStanimir »

noen wrote: post #19

Thin client - no big deal. $30-300 per month per device? LOL. Dead on arrival.

The cost of 30 to 300 is the cost of the cloud pc, with or without this device. The device just provides a secure way to access it.

For context

For 30 you get 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM,64 GB Storage. For 300 you get 16 vCPU,64 GB RAM, 1 TB Storage.

https://www.microsoft.com/en/windows-365/enterprise/all-pric...

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