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Windows Intune Cloud-Based PC Management Utility Hits the Street March 23

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the proprietary-competition-for-established-open-source-software dept.

Roberto123 writes "Microsoft has announced a release date for Windows Intune, its cloud-based solution for PC management for businesses, whether computers are on the corporate network or operated remotely. Intune will be released on March 23 for $11 per PC per month."

10 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. ~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by commodore6502 · · Score: 2

    Versus the $70 I spent to BUY Microsoft Office in 1998. Yeah I think I'll say "no" to this rental deal, just like I said no to Comcast rental

    .

    ABC
    CBS
    FOX
    NBC
    CW
    MyNetTV
    ION
    Univision
    PBS

    --
    Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
    1. Re:~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Aha, but if you squander the money on software you can't spend it at the bar!

    2. Re:~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by commodore6502 · · Score: 2

      >>>God you're always so cheap

      And will be able to retire when I'm 45*, so I can enjoy the rest of my life having fun instead of in the "hell" I call the office. In contrast you'll still be working into your 80s (like my father) because you wasted all your money.

      *
      * Or work part-time because I Want
        to work, not because I "have" to work.

      --
      Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
    3. Re:~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by tgd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rental?

      Its a managed corporate desktop management service. Its like hiring maids instead of going out and buying a bucket, sponges and bleach and spending two hours on your knees every week.

      I'm happy "renting" my maids. If you like cleaning your house, you certainly don't have to.

    4. Re:~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by DrgnDancer · · Score: 2

      Not that I think this is a great idea or anything, but you're looking at it all wrong. This is an enterprise thing, not a home user thing. For one PC, owned and operated by a knowledgeable user, it's clearly inappropriate. Assuming it works however, it's a much better idea at scale:

      For 25 PCs it may save you the cost of a full time systems person. You'll still need to contract people for problems or projects, but saving a full time employee is a big deal for a business that sized. For $3500 a year, not a bad deal.

      For 250 PCs it could save you one or two member of the IT staff. For $35000 a year, not a bad deal.

      For a bigger company, probably the cost is lost in the noise, but they could potentially see a savings too.

      Again, I'm sure as Hell not going to be the first one to run out and sign up. For one thing I can manage my own systems, for another I don't trust Microsoft to release something that actually works first time out. None the less, cost is not the reason that this is a potentially bad idea. You have a strong tendency to look at everything from the point of view of "This costs more than I would spend" rather than looking at the big picture. People have different amounts of money they are willing to spend for different things, and businesses have a completely different cost structure than households. Once a business gets larger than "I can do this all myself", head count becomes one of the biggest if not *the* biggest factor in expenses.

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    5. Re:~$140 a year - $1400 per decade by clifyt · · Score: 2

      I wish I could keep standard builds around to do this...I work in research with no overlap of duties. I keep ghosted images of every users default build, but this needs to be done with a clean build. That means apps that are installed later are not included.

      A lot of apps because of licensing are a pain in the ass to ghost...to reinstall means I have to mess with the old computer to pull it off 'officially' and then put it onto the new. Yeah...I don't get the benefit to choose peoples preferred tools at this level. Lot of stuff that I use that is free is unusable by people that just want to get their work done without being a nerd. I'm happy to run my stats via command line. They aren't.

      Beyond that, I'm not given the budget to buy identical hardware. It is 20% of the machines this year, another 20% next...and that complicated things a lot. I'd actually tried waiting to have a common platform...and the money got removed by central admin because they had a shortfall...even though they had signed off on the plan. Meaning that we got screwed. Welcome to the real world.

  2. On a related note by snookiex · · Score: 2

    I thought Mandriva was dead, but yesterday I discovered its product for IT management (Pulse). I know this is old news, but it came to my mind reading this.

    --
    Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
  3. Re:ORLY by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

    You've obviously never heard of Logmein which BTW is a very successful product. Microsoft is wise to be throwing their hat into the ring.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  4. When the cloud is down or... by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ....deletes all your email, like Google did recently, what then? Or when a physical device doesn't work well enough to work with the cloud?

    I agree that the cloud concept makes a lot of sense, but speaking as a full time SMB IT consultant, your computer, local network, and internet service have to be pretty much working for the cloud concept to work, and I spend most of my time dealing with problems that cause the cloud to stop working altogether.

  5. User productivity hit by lwriemen · · Score: 2

    No. It's like a maid hiring maids to clean someone else's house. The "amplify productivity" might apply to the sysadmins (more likely, it's a prelude to being shown the door), but IME the users are left with more delays, loss of access and loss of data.