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With DaaS Windows Coming, Say Goodbye To Your PC As You Know It (computerworld.com)

Ostracus shares a report from Computerworld, written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you'll "rent" it by the month. Microsoft Managed Desktop is a new take. It avoids the latency problem of the older Windows DaaS offerings by keeping the bulk of the operating system on your PC. But you'll no longer be in charge of your Windows PC. Instead, it will be automatically provisioned and patched for you by Microsoft. Maybe you'll be OK with that.

Microsoft has been getting away from the old-style desktop model for years now. Just look at Office. Microsoft would much rather have you rent Office via Office 365 than buy Microsoft Office and use it for years. Microsoft Managed Desktop is the first move to replacing "your" desktop with a rented desktop. By 2021, I expect the Managed Desktop to be to traditional Windows what Office 365 is to Office today: the wave of the future. Or maybe tsunami, depending on your perspective. I'm not happy with this development. I'm old enough to remember the PC revolution. We went from depending on mainframes and Unix boxes for computing power to having the real power on our desktops. It was liberating. Now Microsoft, which helped lead that revolution, is trying to return us to that old, centralized control model.

3 of 597 comments (clear)

  1. Click bait by darkain · · Score: 5, Informative

    What everyone here seems to fail, and it is tagged as such right at the very top of the article, is that this isn't journalism. This article is one person's opinion piece. That is it.

    This entire thing, this article, something that has gone fucking viral all day in every goddamn tech site that I visit, is nothing more than an oversensationalistic bullshit opinion piece.

    It is a click-bait viral article to drum up views to get advertising dollars, and all you fell for it.

  2. This is not a replacement for Windows 10 by tofus · · Score: 5, Informative

    The title of this article and the ComputerWorld article are misleading. If you read the original ZDNet article that is being linked to, you will find that this is just Microsoft trying to take a piece of the DaaS market. This will be offered as an additional service, primarily intended for enterprise users. Not your desktop at home.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-got-a-new-plan-for-managing-windows-10-devices-for-a-monthly-fee/

  3. Re:Way to make money? Force customers to pay month by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Informative

    That would be ChromeOS, which already has window dragging support coyly tucked away in developer options. Also now runs Android apps and full Linux distros (in a vm in a container, how's that for paranoia).

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.