4 ms·

Not surprising, there is a decent value proposition in buying a thin client and leasing online compute. Certainly you can get a used PC for less but most new P

Not surprising, there is a decent value proposition in buying a thin client and leasing online compute. Certainly you can get a used PC for less but most new PCs start at $500 with limited storage. Getting a fully functional PC for $X/month could work for certain values of X.

dist-epoch 3y ago
One of the biggest value proposition would be that Microsoft will take care of keeping it working and backing up your data. That's a huge sell if they can make it work. You would probably need a very good network connection. I don't think this would work for non-stationary laptops.
- doubled112 3y ago
  A remote desktop session takes a surprisingly small amount of bandwidth until you're running at ridiculous resolutions or trying to watch videos. Latency is a huge killer though, and any small interruption becomes a problem.
  - dist-epoch 3y ago
    Well, YouTube watching is a thing. But I'm also thinking about stuff like locally connecting a USB hard-drive, you will want to have good speed copying the files to the cloud computer.
    - doubled112 3y ago
      Absolutely. It won’t work for everybody. I wonder if the video could be accelerated for common sites by playing locally and being overlayed into the remote session. A good portion of the people I know would not know what a USB stick or hard drive was for or how to use one. Their phones do upload all of their content to the cloud though. This is only becoming more common.
    - wilsonnb3 3y ago
      We are already not allowed to use external drives at my employer, I imagine a similar rule exists at a lot of other large companies
  - jayski 3y ago
    I don't think the idea is to stream a windows session ala vnc, rdp, citrix, etc. What they're trying to do is to migrate the OS itself into something that can run on a browser and interact with the windows cloud vía xhr calls. webassembly makes this wholy possible. this is how office 365 works, it's not windows office software streamed to your computer,it's office ported to the browser and cloud is your storage.
    - doubled112 3y ago
      From the slide > Build on Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system system streamed from the cloud to any device. I interpreted that as a remote desktop session of some sort, but maybe some day it will look more like you're suggesting. It is the word "full" that sways me this way. I don't know how I feel about booting an OS (Linux, MacOS, Windows) to open an OS (actually a browser) that runs the OS (Windows Online) though. Every time I say it though, I realize we're already pretty close.
      - gausswho 3y ago
        The Year of the (Thin) Linux Desktop
      - peddling-brink 3y ago
        At that point, is it even considered an OS, or a web app?
        doubled112 3y ago
        With a browser doing everything it can (abstracting graphics acceleration, USB access, etc) the lines get more blurry every day. Web app? But if it runs applications, and provides access to and manages resources, at what point is it also considered an OS?
  - gosub100 3y ago
    I just bought a hybrid smart-tv computer monitor and it has some form of office on it. I haven't logged in to use it, but I'm sure it's just a web browser that renders content from Azure. I don't want them to succeed, but it might actually work for many customers that just use social media and web. They're just re-inventing "mobile apps" for the desktop.

dist-epoch 3y ago

One of the biggest value proposition would be that Microsoft will take care of keeping it working and backing up your data. That's a huge sell if they can make it work. You would probably need a very good network connection. I don't think this would work for non-stationary laptops.

doubled112 3y ago
A remote desktop session takes a surprisingly small amount of bandwidth until you're running at ridiculous resolutions or trying to watch videos. Latency is a huge killer though, and any small interruption becomes a problem.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  Well, YouTube watching is a thing. But I'm also thinking about stuff like locally connecting a USB hard-drive, you will want to have good speed copying the files to the cloud computer.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    Absolutely. It won’t work for everybody. I wonder if the video could be accelerated for common sites by playing locally and being overlayed into the remote session. A good portion of the people I know would not know what a USB stick or hard drive was for or how to use one. Their phones do upload all of their content to the cloud though. This is only becoming more common.
  - wilsonnb3 3y ago
    We are already not allowed to use external drives at my employer, I imagine a similar rule exists at a lot of other large companies
- jayski 3y ago
  I don't think the idea is to stream a windows session ala vnc, rdp, citrix, etc. What they're trying to do is to migrate the OS itself into something that can run on a browser and interact with the windows cloud vía xhr calls. webassembly makes this wholy possible. this is how office 365 works, it's not windows office software streamed to your computer,it's office ported to the browser and cloud is your storage.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    From the slide > Build on Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system system streamed from the cloud to any device. I interpreted that as a remote desktop session of some sort, but maybe some day it will look more like you're suggesting. It is the word "full" that sways me this way. I don't know how I feel about booting an OS (Linux, MacOS, Windows) to open an OS (actually a browser) that runs the OS (Windows Online) though. Every time I say it though, I realize we're already pretty close.
    - gausswho 3y ago
      The Year of the (Thin) Linux Desktop
    - peddling-brink 3y ago
      At that point, is it even considered an OS, or a web app?
      - doubled112 3y ago
        With a browser doing everything it can (abstracting graphics acceleration, USB access, etc) the lines get more blurry every day. Web app? But if it runs applications, and provides access to and manages resources, at what point is it also considered an OS?
- gosub100 3y ago
  I just bought a hybrid smart-tv computer monitor and it has some form of office on it. I haven't logged in to use it, but I'm sure it's just a web browser that renders content from Azure. I don't want them to succeed, but it might actually work for many customers that just use social media and web. They're just re-inventing "mobile apps" for the desktop.