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I read the whole announcement. Sounds like RDP which we’ve had for 20+ years. I’m assuming it’s different but this doesn’t explain how. “We’ve created a cloud P

I read the whole announcement. Sounds like RDP which we’ve had for 20+ years. I’m assuming it’s different but this doesn’t explain how. “We’ve created a cloud PC” So a thin client?

glitchcrab 5y ago
I got a few sentences in and thought 'thin client' too.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Which is newspeak for “terminal” ;-)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 5y ago
And Dropbox is just rsync, right?
- Macha 5y ago
  Hasn't this ultimately been the downfall of Dropbox? Not that consumers are doing it themselves, but Microsoft, Google, etc. all spun up competitors and turned their main product into a feature. Their one selling point is being the independent option, and I'm not sure the people who care about that are actually large enough to sustain them long term...
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Eh? Kinda. Storage still costs money and they’re all about the same. Dropbox loses because of preferential integration and defaults.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    All software is replicable by a competitor. How you create it into a product is what matters. That's what the 'rsync' dumb argument misses.
- cunthorpe 5y ago
  To be fair so far it looks like it's just VNC from a browser. Call me when I open an app and it's transparently run from a remote server, similar to what they've done with the Windows Defender Application Guard (i.e. it looks like a regular Edge window, but it's run in a VM) Opening a browser in a OS in a browser in a OS isn't that revolutionary. Cloud Gaming demonstrated this decades ago.
  - user3939382 5y ago
    > I open an app and it's transparently run from a remote server Windows Server has a feature like that called RemoteApp, it's pretty cool!
  - f1refly 5y ago
    That's an easy task with xorg based desktop environments, it's more performant as well
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Something doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be a good product. They don’t claim it’s a research result!
  - williamtwild 5y ago
    >Cloud Gaming demonstrated this decades ago. What cloudd gaming service existed devades ago?
    - Alaba 5y ago
      OnLive existed in 2009
jeremyjh 5y ago
Its more like AWS Workspace. RDP is just a client/server software - someone needs to setup VMs somewhere, ensure files are saved to a network share, install applications on them, give you the IP address etc. Workspace and similar solutions abstract a lot of that away.
mdorazio 5y ago
As chrisseaton said, this is the exact response users on this very forum had to both Dropbox at its launch ("it's just rsync, why would anyone use it?") and Slack ("it's just IRC, why would anyone use it?"). This is a poor mindset to take when it's clearly not targeted at you. It's for businesses and more casual users who don't want to deal with full local installs, and that userbase is far larger than the HN crowd.

I read the whole announcement. Sounds like RDP which we’ve had for 20+ years. I’m assuming it’s different but this doesn’t explain how. “We’ve created a cloud PC” So a thin client?

glitchcrab 5y ago

I got a few sentences in and thought 'thin client' too.

rbanffy 5y ago
Which is newspeak for “terminal” ;-)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chrisseaton 5y ago

And Dropbox is just rsync, right?

Macha 5y ago
Hasn't this ultimately been the downfall of Dropbox? Not that consumers are doing it themselves, but Microsoft, Google, etc. all spun up competitors and turned their main product into a feature. Their one selling point is being the independent option, and I'm not sure the people who care about that are actually large enough to sustain them long term...
- Spivak 5y ago
  Eh? Kinda. Storage still costs money and they’re all about the same. Dropbox loses because of preferential integration and defaults.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  All software is replicable by a competitor. How you create it into a product is what matters. That's what the 'rsync' dumb argument misses.
cunthorpe 5y ago
To be fair so far it looks like it's just VNC from a browser. Call me when I open an app and it's transparently run from a remote server, similar to what they've done with the Windows Defender Application Guard (i.e. it looks like a regular Edge window, but it's run in a VM) Opening a browser in a OS in a browser in a OS isn't that revolutionary. Cloud Gaming demonstrated this decades ago.
- user3939382 5y ago
  > I open an app and it's transparently run from a remote server Windows Server has a feature like that called RemoteApp, it's pretty cool!
- f1refly 5y ago
  That's an easy task with xorg based desktop environments, it's more performant as well
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Something doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be a good product. They don’t claim it’s a research result!
- williamtwild 5y ago
  >Cloud Gaming demonstrated this decades ago. What cloudd gaming service existed devades ago?
  - Alaba 5y ago
    OnLive existed in 2009

jeremyjh 5y ago

Its more like AWS Workspace. RDP is just a client/server software - someone needs to setup VMs somewhere, ensure files are saved to a network share, install applications on them, give you the IP address etc. Workspace and similar solutions abstract a lot of that away.

mdorazio 5y ago

As chrisseaton said, this is the exact response users on this very forum had to both Dropbox at its launch ("it's just rsync, why would anyone use it?") and Slack ("it's just IRC, why would anyone use it?"). This is a poor mindset to take when it's clearly not targeted at you. It's for businesses and more casual users who don't want to deal with full local installs, and that userbase is far larger than the HN crowd.