Windows 365 Link: The New Device That Imprisons Users in Microsofts Cloud
cheapskatesguide.orgThis article is absurd. It's a thin client, or possibly an "extremely" thin client, a dumb terminal.
They have existed in the past. They will exist in the future. The fact that it's locked to one particular server is irrelevant. If you don't want to use that service - don't buy it!
The author of this post seems to think that a) Microsoft is targeting end users with the device (they're not, they're targeting IT departments) and b) that IT departments don't know exactly what they're getting into or have no control over this thing
IT administrators will have plenty of control over this, and the software it runs, and the configuration of it
I'm not sure the author has ever worked in or has any knowledge of corporate IT departments, their priorities, or how any of it works
You're mainly paying for the software on this device, keeping everything in Intune is a big selling point rather than having to fiddle around with third-party thin client management software from the vendor. If this device supported Azure Virtual Desktop it'd be a no-brainer for orgs that lean heavily on it like mine.
Oh, no it's a thin client. Everyone, get the pitchforks.
I don’t think the author (or anyone else) has issues with thin clients. My understanding is that the issue is rather with how this particular thin client is designed.
Conceptually, it’s somewhat not entirely unlike those weird printers that require a subscription to work. No clue who in their sane mind would buy something like that, but turns out some people actually do.
The printers never “required” a subscription. You could choose to buy subscription cartridges or cancel your subscription and use regular cartridges
Citrix has been selling thin clients since the 90's, connecting to a on-prem server operated by an MSP that you pay for an expensive a support contract with.
It just seems like a product that is aimed explicitly at places like call centers, where employees are expected to universally have apps 1-3 only. I find that setup pretty gross, but it makes sense from an IT Management perspective.
I didn't get the impression that this was meant for home, or even most office use. I don't think it would make sense in either setting because each would have more complex user requirements and weird edge cases. Maybe the author is right in the long run? I'm sure MS would love mote control and a monthly subscription fee from every customer...I just don't see MS being nearly so candid, as they are in this video. I'd expect way more cheesy stock footage, mixed in with ominous warnings about "darkweb" and ransomware. The video in question was more like "This makes your job easier" not a "This makes your life better". Heck, they didn't even mention some cheesy AI-gimmick tie-in.
Most office workers only need access to Microsoft Office and a browser. I can definitely see a use case for having these at your desk and some people having a laptop that is not as locked down.
I am a developer and I was using AWS Cloud 9 exclusively for a year until it was deprecated because it was much faster working with a lot of data in a VM hosted on AWS than it was on my local PC even though I did have 1GB symmetrical Fiber at home.
It was definitely a better experience working with a cloud IDE when traveling for business with much slower internet.
Coming full circle from Terminal connected to mainframe, to a PC on every desk, back to a terminal connected to the cloud.
After almost 30 years, the Network Computer[0] is here at last. What a time to be alive.
Like others have said this is just a thin client. The concept has existed since the beginning of modern computers.
This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts.
Besides, “the enterprise” has been “imprisoned” by Microsoft for decades. They were never going to switch over to Linux or anything else en masse.
Even companies that did have Macs were still buying Microsoft Office since before Office was even available for Windows.
Also, IT departments love locked down computers and I’ve seen plenty of places that use Citrix with terminals.
I actually think I agree overall, but...
> This is functionally no different than Chromebooks and Google ”imprisoning” hundreds of school districts.
Chromebooks make it trivial to switch to developer mode and get root, and then even disable write protection and flash arbitrary firmware. Can you do that with these boxes?
That’s not the target audience.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/link
> Windows 365 Link is for organizations that have desk-based workers and are using, or are considering using, Windows 365. Windows 365 Link is well suited for enabling secure productivity in shared workspaces such as hot desks, call centers, reception desks, labs, and more.
And on top of that it’s a desktop computer. There are plenty of mini PC’s for about the same price that are more powerful and not locked down.
I own a decent number of machines that used to be used in businesses or schools before getting replaced and going on the second hand market (often ebay). This works because the hardware can be repurposed, and it significantly reduces ewaste by allowing a device to go through multiple owners. Will these devices be able to do that?
If the devices are only functional dumb terminals, why would they need to be replaced as long as they are still functional?
Going by Microsoft’s previous hardware and OS support, you should expect the hardware to be officially supported for over a decade.
The computers that were sold on eBay, couldn’t run the software the school/business needed. As long as these can connect to the cloud, that won’t be an issue
> I’ve seen plenty of places that use Citrix with terminals.
I doubt very many enterprise level IT departments are running any kind of thin client infra such as Citrix or Horizon or anything else (like, god forbid, Oracle) without maintenance agreements in place on both the software and the hardware side of things so just moving everything left and renting the whole stack instead of having half of it capex and half of it opex isn't that big of a shift in how these things are paid for
Sounds like a good product. Definitely not a fan of free software's monotonous take on proprietary software.
Yes, we get it, it's proprietary, anything else to say?
Is it a product though? What can you do with it after you buy it besides paying Microsoft monthly for the rest of its lifetime to actually do something with it?
I'm pretty sure this is just part of a service.
That's just a semantic game. It's a product. Services are products. Bank loans are products. Devices sold for narrower end goals than general purpose computing are still products. Cable TV boxes are products.
For enterprise IT, it's got some potential. Devices users can't muck with facilitate standard operating environments, hot desks, and similar practices that are already user hostile. In that setting, there's no big deal here. It's even got the chance to be less awfully intrusive than existing SOE software.
It's also, IMO, a bit of a leveraging of a monopoly position to crowd out those SOE vendors. Microsoft's the only one who can make this device; anyone else is stuck at best making a browser-only thin client and hoping 365 works well on it for long enough to recoup R&D costs and make bank on top. Not a fan of SOE vendors, but not a fan of monopoly control either.
Microsoft doesn’t really care about making low margin hardware that won’t move the needle. Microsoft is a high margin software company.
Microsoft knows that no other vendor in the race to the bottom commodity market that is the PC space is going to make anything of any quality.
It’s the same motivation that Google has for the Pixel. Google knows that the Pixel is not going to take the world by storm.
Paradoxically, modern times seem bring more and more pseudo-products that can be purchased but cannot be actually owned (at least without resorting to unreasonable difficulties).
This is for the enterprise. They are paying per seat subscription fees now and have been for decades.
There are also several links in there to previous HN discussions where the author feels this is an "I told you so" moment.
I certainly miss the feeling that home computers were going to be empowering--not merely situationally useful--to individuals. Affordable capital equipment, not just a service for hire.
The next greedy iteration, slowed by the US' lingering anti-trust laws, will probably involve limits on installed software, and websites that might somehow compete with anything offered by Omni Consumer Products.
The thought rattling around in my head is what usages people have got out of 'personal computers' (i.e. not specifically IBM compatible PC) over the decades that they've been available to the general consumer, and what are they doing now. In practical terms it's difficult to see why MS would be motivated now to encourage the hobby side of PC, they don't really need it any more as most things that bring revenue to them aren't specific to being on windows.
In recent news, net neutrality is on the way out as we speak.
For big tech, the future of the Internet is a high-resolution (and possibly portable) version of the French Minitel.
I am the author of this article. The moderators on Hacker News don't let me post here anymore, and they de-emphasize my articles that anyone else posts to prevent them from being viewed by many people. If I recall correctly, they even shadow banned worldofmatthew for a while for posting too many of my articles? So, I am surprised that so many people found this post. Since the moderators still allow me to comment here... As I said in my article, "And, please don't insult my intelligence by comparing this device to a thin client. I have installed OPNSense on a thin client to make it into a very nice home router. Something useful like that will very likely be impossible with this device." So, apparently some commenters here didn't read enough of the article to get that far. I like thin-clients, because they are general-purpose computers. I haven't tried every one, obviously, so some might not be, but I love the one I have. The problem with the Windows 365 Link, as I see it, is that it is as far as it can be from a general-purpose computer--although it isn't out yet, so we can't really know for sure what its capabilities are. My main objection to the Windows 365 Link is that I see it not as merely another locked-down corporate device but as a harbinger of things to come for us all. I am sorry that so few people here seem capable of understanding the long-term corporate goals that this device highlights, and that is the source of my frustration that leads to my hostility in this article. I see all of the freedoms that we once looked forward to from what we once called "the computer revolution" being taken away one by one. And the attitudes of most of the people here on Hacker News are one reason this is happening. Many of you think you are so smart, but either you aren't smart enough see what is coming, or you simply don't care. Either way, I feel sorry for you.
This is a thin client by any reasonable definition targeted at IT departments.
Do you really think that even in the next 20 years that no one will sell a regular computer? We’ve had lockdowned single purpose computers since the coders consoles came out in 1977.
True this has more local processing power than dumb terminals in the past. But only because the cost of compute has gotten a lot cheaper and things that people want today - multiple monitors, good video conferencing (that works locally on these devices) require low latency.
This is no different than the needless panic when Apple introduced the Mac App Store in 2006 and people thought Apple would lock out installing apps outside of the App Store on Macs.
Thin client - no big deal. $30-300 per month per device? LOL. Dead on arrival.
That 30-300 dollars is just the range of virtual machines you are connecting to-- I can't imagine it is very surprising that a personal VM starts at around 30 dollars per month and GPU-enabled machines would be substantially more expensive. A quick spot check suggests this pricing is in line with the same type of offerings available in AWS (~$30-$1000) https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces-family/workspaces/pricing/.
The cost of 30 to 300 is the cost of the cloud pc, with or without this device. The device just provides a secure way to access it.
For context
For 30 you get 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM,64 GB Storage. For 300 you get 16 vCPU,64 GB RAM, 1 TB Storage.
https://www.microsoft.com/en/windows-365/enterprise/all-pric...
Is this similar to Microsoft Xbox’s “Cloud Gaming (beta)” where it just streams you the picture from the server? I see comparisons below to Chromebook but at least a Chromebook boots offline. From my experience with the cloud gaming, the image quality is atrocious and honestly I can’t believe the marketing team features it so prominently on the store page. So all I have to say is, those shots in the youtube video are probably composited.