Microsoft built a PC that can't run local apps | TechCrunch

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SignalButterscotch73@reddit

It's a terminal. It's proof that what they say about fashion is true, everything out of fashion will be fashionable again someday.

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100GbE@reddit

Yep.

Just like we went back to steam trains and horses.

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SignalButterscotch73@reddit

I'd say they never went out of fashion.

Horse racing is still big business as are the other equestrian sports. Plenty of ranches still prefer to use horses for a lot of the work too.

Then thers all the heritage railways around that are proud to run steam and some of those trains have never been retired, working continuously since being built.

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Not like it's new. Ever since the Chromebook became popular it's been clear we're heading back to the days of thin clients, with all the computing done remotely. Just instead of the server being in another room, it's on the other side of the world.

The problem is that $349 + mandatory M365 subscription is way too expensive for that kind of product. You can buy a competent modern laptop and a perpetual license for Office 2023 for not that much more, and actually have hardware on hand that you can use in other ways if need be.

This product may make sense for some companies, but only if the "hardware" is heavily subsidized.

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UGMadness@reddit

The advantage of this device over other off the shelf products that can remote into a cloud PC is that this explicitly uses a stripped down, "hardened" (in Microsoft's terms) version of Windows. They claim it doesn't even have the Win32 API to run regular Windows applications. This means it's far less vulnerable to malware and other security threats, which is a very valuable proposition for corporations.

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peakbuttystuff@reddit

Security is stupid. The only security problem I have are thieves.

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IAmTaka_VG@reddit

Also it’s dirty cheap for companies who already have thousands of MSDN or M365 accounts meaning a full desktop PC is only $350. It’s a steal.

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JaggedMetalOs@reddit

$350 isn't a steal, you could buy an Intel N95 based mini-PC for less than half that. Hell a $40 Android TV box probably has more than enough performance to act as a thin client.

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zacker150@reddit

Hardware is cheap. The real cost is IT staff.

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Shoddy_Bee_7516@reddit

Yaeh $349 is firmly in the cheap laptop territory:

ASUS Vivobook Go 15.6” Laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 7520U, 8GB, 512GB, Windows 11 Home, Cool Silver, E1504FA-AS54

$356

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWJB9ZC6

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Exist50@reddit

"Thin client" was the old term for this. Not a new idea.

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jaaval@reddit

I remember there was a lot of talk about this like 15 years ago and everyone (except the corporations) thought it was a bad idea. I haven’t changed my opinion, I still think it’s a horrible idea.

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MBILC@reddit

Except now you need an always on Inet connection to use it at all, "You will own nothing and be happy"

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thecist@reddit

Not this stupid line again

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Exist50@reddit

Again, nothing new. And plenty of businesses already rely on Internet access to get work done, so that aspect makes no difference.

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U3011@reddit

Correct. Thin clients have their space. You, myself or anyone here aren't the target consumers of this hardware and monthly recurrence service. This is aimed strictly at enterprise customers. It's a good way for Microsoft to focus on their ever expanding enterprise with revenue streams growing.

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U3011@reddit

Microsoft like some other companies has a habit of rehashing old idea, bad or good, as a new feature that's always been around. Sometimes they like to ignore or embrace their user base, too.

Ask me how I know? /s

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Aztaloth@reddit

Tell me you don't understand thin clients without telling me you don't understand thin clients.

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Tonkarz@reddit

The word you’re after is “terminal”.

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cp5184@reddit

The word you're after is teletype.

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deadgirlrevvy@reddit

Fuck that. I wouldn't even allow one in my home. Pure garbage.

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Prince_Uncharming@reddit

It isn’t for your home

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deadgirlrevvy@reddit

Let me rephrase my comment then: I wouldn't allow one in my business either. Thin clients suck, no matter how you slice it. There's ZERO point to another subscription to use a glorified terminal, when I can buy a REAL computer and run everything way faster and locally. Then it doesn't matter if the internet is down AND my data is under my control without someone telling me I can't access it because my subscription ran out.

That better, dick head?

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technanonymous@reddit

Meh. Makes sense for a locked down office setting like a bank or an insurance company. It could reduce support costs and reduce security exposure, but it also has to go out over the internet to work/

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Intelligent-Stone@reddit

The problem for me it's too overpriced, it just sends keyboard&mouse input to the cloud and gets video&audio in real time, then the light CPU in it decodes thd video so you see it in your monitor. This is what exactly a 60$ Raspberry Pi 4GB can do, exactly same as a 349$ Microsoft product.

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autogyrophilia@reddit

Probably uses something a bit more advanced than video streaming.

RDP has the capability of sending the instructions from GUI apps for the client to render it locally, significantly improving latency. On apps that support this framework and aren't electron apps off course.

The end result is that working with tools such as the office suite, dotnet apps is fairly painless, even on high latency links.

Unix is also capable of doing this somewhat, but X11 forwarding is not nearly as simple, perfomant and terribly insecure.

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Darkchamber292@reddit

There are plenty of tools that can do this on Linux including RDP itself. You are comparing RDP with probably the worse example there is, X11

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autogyrophilia@reddit

I don't think you understand.

RDP, when possible, doesn't transmit images but the commands that would write that image. This requires support in both sides so other clients usually fall back into rasterizarion.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/termserv/remote-desktop-protocol

The only other tool that can do that in the Unix world is the X protocol. But, it was designed for the 80s

Wayland has a good chance to actually pick up those characteristics, eventually.

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account312@reddit

Wayland has a good chance to actually pick up those characteristics, eventually.

I've never held my breath for twenty years before, but I guess it's worth a try.

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autogyrophilia@reddit

Me tapping my feet anxiously next to the peach pit I put in the ground waiting for more fruit

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Intelligent-Stone@reddit

You are correct RDP is better here, but I don't think there's many applications supports RDP other than Microsoft apps. So I think only companies that are only using Microsoft products will benefit from this most.

The last time I tried X11 Forwarding it didn't work at all, if I have waited another 10 minutes maybe I could see the app. Wayland has another 10 year to become a thing imo.

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zacker150@reddit

Hardware costs are pocket change compared to IT wages. The main benefit of the $349 Microsoft product is the ability to manage it remotely via Intune.

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technanonymous@reddit

Since it can support multiple 4k monitors and multiple peripherals, it is much more than a Raspberry Pi. A smart hub/docking station could easily cost $300k or more, so when combined with WiFi and peripherals, the price makes more sense.

I would never buy one, but if I had a crew of data entry/knowledge workers who worked in an office with no need for local apps, I might look at it.

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hwglitch@reddit

The future is nigh. Soon you will be billed per-second for every app that you run locally on any of your devices.

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ConsistencyWelder@reddit

It's already coming to gaming. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is running mostly "in the cloud" and only some of the game is installed on your PC. And some aircraft can be rented instead of bought.

It also means most people can't play MSFS 2024 right now though, since servers are overloaded. So we have to take turns to play.

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mito@reddit

Brave new world.

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indiascamcenter@reddit

I bet people will find ways to run Linux on it and use it as a normal PC

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JaggedMetalOs@reddit

$349? What kind of price is that? I bought a new mini PC box that's only a little taller than this that performs better than an i7-9700K and has 500GB of storage and even cost slightly less!

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Rossco1337@reddit

People were making these value comparisons when the Surface line came out as well. The target isn't value-conscious buyers, it's the enterprise whales who will pay any dollar amount for "simplicity".

You can buy a laptop which does everything a Macbook does for half the price but millions of people still buy Macbooks. If you're even taking the time to weigh up the options, it's not designed for you.

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djashjones@reddit

It's not a consumer product.

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atrib@reddit

Only way ill accept a thin client is that i completly control the server hosting it.

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somewhat_moist@reddit

I don’t know what M$ are charging for the cloud subscription but most people are probably better off getting a $599 Mac Mini and breaking even after a year or two

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hampa9@reddit

That’s a completely different product for a completely different use case.

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JaggedMetalOs@reddit

You could buy a ~$120 mini-PC and have better performance than the base tier VM they are offering...

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GenericUser1983@reddit

Pretty sure some tech company tries to push thin clients every 5-10 years or so, only for them to flop simply because they are at best only slightly cheaper than a normal desktop. This continues the trend, with M$ wanting $349 for the thin client; might as well buy a real PC for that price.

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blaktronium@reddit

It's not for local computing, it's for secure computing, or mobile (in a building, like call centers) so that your computing environment and hardware aren't tied together.

The big one is security. Can't steal any data off a machine if there isn't any data on the machine, ever.

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MBILC@reddit

But if a system is compromised, it usually happens due to credentials, so what ever that user / device has access to, could still be compromised / obtained and ex filtrated.

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Tman1677@reddit

Says right in the article that these devices will only support password-less login. It’s definitely a security and simplicity thing for companies. In that regard, I bet there’s some serious savings doing device management through this system instead of “needing” to pay for the whole Microsoft Defender/Intune suite

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Pokiehat@reddit

Its honestly just a streamlined version of my current work PC, which is just a glorified VM client with some i/o for a mouse and keyboard. Nothing is installed locally except some locked up, stripped down Windows installation and Remote Desktop. Thats it. Can't install apps locally, can't do anything.

We remote desktop into a cloud and all the software we actually use is there and its all managed off-site, so gone are the days of some IT guy driving in to our office to replace a dud hard drive.

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amazingmrbrock@reddit

This is the future companies want. $25/moth

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SortOfWanted@reddit

Haha $25, you wish!

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slvrsmth@reddit

That is the advertised pricing. Once you get to a scale where you would truly consider this device, you are no longer paying the advertised price.

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FrenziedFlame42069@reddit

Base config has

2 vCPU 4 GB RAM 128 GB Storage

I really wonder if the performance in that dumb terminal is greater than this base tier vm.

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SortOfWanted@reddit

The thin client comes with 8GB RAM, so yeah... 😂

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ProfessionalPrincipa@reddit

You will own nothing and like it!

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-Suzuka-@reddit

That's the introductory price...

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amazingmrbrock@reddit

And they reserve the right to insert ads

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Shoddy_Bee_7516@reddit

And also they have stripped you of any rights to the maximum extent possible in the T&C

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Vb_33@reddit

And stripped any right to repair.

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el_f3n1x187@reddit

So we sre circling back to the days of mainframes and terminals

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Ettttt@reddit

Edgebook with no screen and inputs

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djashjones@reddit

For that price, it should include a monochrome monitor.

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UndercoverGunther@reddit

It’s not new, but for enterprise, it’s a cool idea.

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ListenBeforeSpeaking@reddit

I bet it can, it just won’t.

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Elegant_Hearing3003@reddit

I'm sure this will be a big success when I can go buy a local mini PC for half the price and no monthly subscription. But then it wouldn't be In tHe ClOuD*

*best read in this voice

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No-Standard-4326@reddit

Or for 500$ you buy an iPad with a better chip than 90% of all the computers including that poop.

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MorgrainX@reddit

Would make sense for 99 bucks, but 349? Wtf? For a glorified usb stick with Internet access? Wtf

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agressiv@reddit

Windows 365 is a premium VDI service offered by Microsoft for virtual desktops.

Its pricing is here and the cost of this device is miniscule compared to how much you'll spend for the actual VDI that is running under the covers. To me, the minimum viable sku is the 4 vCPU/16gb RAM if you are doing a regular office workload at $66/mo.

If you are running one of these skus, it's about $800 a year, so it's not cheap compared to simply buying an enterprise laptop, which will be roughly that cost or a bit higher that you can depreciate over 3-4 years.

Of course, you can purchase any other thin client, and spend time customizing them, or use an older desktop/laptop and burn another Windows license (or create your own linux thin client distro or whatever) - but if you are using Windows 365 - you probably want simplicity. This is the SKU that gives you that while avoiding the security risks of having a local client as well as the added licensing costs, as well as the pain of rolling your own thin client.

Could it be a bit cheaper? Of course, but no hardware Microsoft makes is cheap compared to their competition. This is not something for an average consumer this is something for enterprises who are heavily invested in virtual desktops, specifically Windows 365 to get a great experience without having to mess around with a 3rd party ecosystem. If you have the time/bandwidth to mess around with that, go for it. Most enterprises don't, and they certainly aren't going to mess around with Raspberry Pi's.

If your reponse to this is negative, than clearly this product isn't for you or your business. It's a niche product by design.

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