It is looking increasingly likely that Microsoft’s much anticipated cloud PC-as-a-service is launching this summer in June or July. This service was strongly touted by Microsoft, though recent announcements have been somewhat hard to come by.
The service is powered by Azure and allows customers to use almost any device as a thin client for accessing a Windows 10 environment, allowing them to use Office products and other applications. To quote Microsoft themselves, Cloud PC: “allows all users to be productive from anywhere, on any device with a cloud-powered, secure and always up to date Windows experience.”
Sources indicate that Microsoft are gearing up for its launch within no more than a few months – possibly in time for their annual Inspire conference in mid-July.
Right now, when logging into the cloud PC service (https://cloudpc.microsoft.com/) the only thing that appears is a message saying ‘Cloud PC isn’t available – Your Organization doesn’t support this service’. This has further fanned the flames of speculation as many think this is due to some internal testing in preparation for it’s launch.
Once launched, it’s rumoured to be sold as a flat price by user, though there may be some tiered pricing based on processing power, storage, memory etc.
The service could potentially have major implications for businesses, especially small businesses who may want to cut costs on hardware costs, without sacrificing on the latest Windows applications.
Time will tell when and how the service is eventually released, but all evidence suggests that it will be with us very soon indeed.
What do you think? Will it be a hit or a miss? Let us know in the comments!