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Windows 365 Link is a $349 mini PC that streams Windows from the cloud
- sangeeth96 2y agoThe timing of this is so poor for Microsoft after Apple delivered a savage beatdown with the new M4 Mini. As a former Windows camper, this is just so disappointing to see.
- dagmx 2y agoI’m of two minds on this. 1. This is a great idea for really cash strapped offices (that somehow have great internet?) or super quick deployments. As long as you only use Windows. 2. This is basically a PCoiP box a few years later. But locked to a single backend…which is not the best value proposition. But it does help with reducing client side maintenance. 3. The base M4 Mac mini is a far better value proposition if you don’t fall exclusively into the above two categories. Fast local compute, workers don’t stop when the Internet goes out, and not tied to a single backend provider.
- toast0 2y agoI feel like $350 is a pretty high price for a cash strapped office. You can get an acceptable desktop pc from BestBuy for $250 [1]. It's not great, but it'll probably work. Yes, it's a clearance price, but there's always something on clearance. [1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-desktop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-ssd-black/6532244.p?skuId=6532244 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-desktop-intel-core-i7-1...
- ndriscoll 2y agoAn i7-13700 and 16 GB of DDR4-3200 seems pretty great to me. My i5-6600k is still way more than adequate, and that thing is ~6x more capable. Honestly a $160 N100 minipc is probably more than enough for office work.
- dagmx 2y agoThere’s the other aspects though like security , management and hot desking that fall under my definition of cash strapped that I think would drive sales of this.
- BenjiWiebe 2y ago$350 gets some pretty awesome ex-office PCs. I've upgraded my friends/family/neighbors with them and only heard good things about them. (1st/2nd generation ryzen towers from ebay - typically with 8gb ram and a ssd.)
- ssl-3 2y agoSure. Used PCs can be a great bargain. But they're not new. And that can be an important distinction for a buyer -- including one who is operating on a budget.
- ndiddy 2y agoI think cash strapped offices won't be willing to pay $41/user/month for access to a dual-core system with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/business/compare-plans-pricing https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/business/compare... You'd be able to get a refurbished office PC with better specs than that for around the $350 price point of the Windows 365 box.
- dagmx 2y agoI meant more cash strapped as in without a large IT resource to manage the systems versus just device cost.
- idolofdust 2y agoIs the value proposition of this just the implied simplicity of setup? This doesn't look like the best value.
- wannacboatmovie 2y ago> that somehow have great internet? We were running RDP and Citrix ICA over dial-up in the 90s. Unlike X or VNC, Windows protocols were designed to be low overhead. It wasn't great, but it worked.
- dagmx 2y agoThis is streaming dual 4k video streams from the cloud. The windows protocols don’t really matter here.
- hulitu 2y ago> This is streaming dual 4k video streams from the cloud. The windows protocols don’t really matter here. Compression was never an issue. Just look at youtube.
- dagmx 2y agoYouTube doesn’t have to deal with the same latency, or deal with representing lots of text. Streaming like this is much harder than folks pretend it is.
- PretzelPirate 2y agoI bet a lot of finance companies will love this. Many already make their developers use virtual development environments, and this takes away all management of physical machines. It might be a bit more successful if there was also a laptop version that cost the same.
- bluSCALE4 2y agoThis seems like a low value proposition. They claim think Xbox so it’ll depend just how powerful a machine you get.
- SirMaster 2y agoWhat's inside? This feels too expensive for what I imagine it is.
- rnd0 2y ago>What's inside? "Microsoft Recall", or whatever they're branding their surveillance software as this week....
- artomglol 2y agoMonthly pricing: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/enterprise/compare-plans-pricing https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/enterprise/compa... Doesn't really make sense to me. The main benefit seems to be the desktop-as-a-managed-service bit. Aside from this, it would fail to make financial sense after about 6 months of paying for the Windows 365 subscription.
- rty32 2y agoThat's exactly who they are targeting, and you can be assured that there are organizations who would be willing to pay for this. Your dentist will be more than happy to pay Microsoft $40/month to manage their desktops.
- toast0 2y agoOnce digital records became a thing, my dentists have all had one desktop per chair, plus one for reception, maybe one for a finance person (ugh, that's a sign), and the private office for the doctor. $40/month/each adds up pretty quick.
- ssl-3 2y agoCompetent IT help also adds up pretty quick. And this rental model also allows for hot desking by default. A dentist looking X-rays in their comfortable office can use this system to bring their whole desktop state into the exam room with them to review with a patient without them having to do anything more than simply log in (just as they would do anywhere else).
- znpy 2y agoSo the industry is now rediscovering thin clients? You can most likely get a way cheaper wyse thin client, that comes with all the necessary stuff to run an rdp client.
- pjmlp 2y agoYes, that is what cloud is all about, we are back into timesharing. I see no difference to X Windows, telnet, other than the protocols, and clients.
- fragmede 2y ago...and 40 years of technological advancement. Is there anything different between a 1984's Honda Accord and one from 2024? Yes, but also no.
- pjmlp 2y agoContinuously being throw away by folks on their CLIs and TUIs. It is like being offered the 2024 Honda Accord, and going on a bicycle instead.
- znpy 2y ago> It is like being offered the 2024 Honda Accord, and going on a bicycle instead. As somebody that uses emacs in screen on a remote machine for work... I mean... My "bicycle" keeps getting me where i need to go. Car brands and models come and go. Bicycle stays, and it's dirt cheap. No fuel needed. Easy to fix if/when something breaks. Easy to adapt to new terrains. It's not that one does not like cars, it's that the bicycle is unreasonably effective and reliable.
- pjmlp 2y agoNetwork Computer says hello! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer
- bzmrgonz 2y agoMicrosoft trying to do Guacamole!!! lol!!
- zaggynl 2y agoWhy can't we just do this with every modern mobile phone?
- brokenmachine 2y agoBecause mobile phones don't have permanent or even reliable connectivity outside of the SV bubble. Also it sounds like the absolute lowest tier of hell to be forced to carry a GPS-enabled Windows on the cloud device in your pocket.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wmf 2y agoThe AWS thin client is only $200 which already feels expensive considering it's a relabeled $100 Fire TV box. $350 is way too much.
- Havoc 2y agoI like the port selection. But for that price that’s pretty mediocre overall