Microsoft’s cloud ambitions for Windows could kill off desktop PCs – and sooner than we expected
Microsoft’s cloud ambitions for Windows could kill off desktop PCs – and sooner than we expected
Windows 365 for consumers is imminent? So the rumor mill reckons
This will materialize in the same way that Cloud gaming has taken the market by storm. It's nice when you want/need to game on a phone, but the experience doesn't hold up to native and the laws of physics are immutable, you can't defeat the latency of running your PC in a data center miles from your house. Even running Office apps will be a notably degraded experience.
Microsoft is crazy, but they've not done anything to kill the golden Windows goose in all this time, I can't see them thinking this would fly when they know the costs and downsides from doing xCloud.
It'll probably only appeal to that limited, low-end Chromebook market.
It's kinda built for that market entirely, remember Microsoft's biggest market is licensing. A hundred cheap computers is still 10k in licensing costs. One big bad gaming rig is only a single license.
youre right, the hardware will never go away.... but there are many in the cloud-only corporate space where hardware is almost irrelevant as every single piece of software, including windows, is provisioned from the net. thats today. whats tomorrow going to look like for retail?
I’ve got a cloud gaming machine at Paperspace running Parsec and it works great. Of course, I’m less than 50ms from their data center and have gigabit internet.
I'm a Linux user, but I like having control over my own hardware, and I don't want my next PC to be an underpowered thin client designed only to work with a commercial cloud OS. I hope this doesn't take off any time soon.
Sure, death of the Windows desktop, maybe.
Finally! The Year of Linux on the Desktop!
Yuck, no thanks i'll stick to linux on my hardware!
We already had something similar (not exactly) back in the day with mainframes. You sat at a "dumb" terminal and shared central resources. The industry moved away from that for good reason.
Then we had Unix with remote X. Mix of local and remote resources. Useful for a long time in enterprises but slow connectivity prevented it going mainstream.
Then there was an attempted resurrection with Java. People probably don't remember but the original dream was code running anywhere, either local or central, and we had services that created new "dumb" terminals. Didn't really pan out.
Now we try to build everything with web technologies. Render locally but served remotely. Very much a hack and you see constant pushback and alternatives popping up.
This remote desktop concept only really works for businesses. It simplifies IT management and enforces stronger security controls. Other than that it won't catch on.
Not a single word about environment. It's as if everything he saw in the newspaper about global warming and the lack of resources did not exist. Have you ever seen a cloud system without a cooling system? No? Me neither.
Honestly I’ve been in the beta channel for 11 for awhile now. I’m currently looking into switching back to Linux. I reinstalled Windows for my Daughter to play Minecraft with her friends but meh.
I assume you're talking about the Bedrock version, since the original Java version has a native Linux version. I've heard there are ways to get Bedrock running on Linux. While they might be beyond her knowledge, I imagine you could set it up for her
Yes there is a way that you can. It does however require purchasing the Google Play version and then some other stuff. Most likely what’ll happen is I’ll shrink the W11 install to minimal needed and then a distro for daily driving again.
I doubt this will happen anytime soon. Cloud costs are simply too high.
You also may need to factor in network costs which people don't even think about as much today.
Stuff like this makes me glad I use Linux.
Could be very "useful" for VR hardware I think (for better or for worse)
As the article says, no doubt a snails-pace journey as W11 still needs to expire in 10 years at the very least
An ad revenue based OS is a novel idea.
If I have to constantly see ads on my desktop when I start up the free version of Windows, I will move fully to Linux Mint.
I've already decided that I'm swapping to Linux the next time I upgrade my PC. Windows is starting to become more trouble than it is convenient.
Is this Microsofts chromebook competitor?
Meh. "The Death of the Desktop PC" has been predicted for decades, every time something new comes out.
Imo the difference this time is that it's Microsoft itself that's doing it first.