• Microsoft launches its Windows 365 Link.
• Low-powered thin client that runs remote desktop.
• Azure Cloud focus will bring back subscription OSes.

Tuesday this week saw the introduction of the Windows 365 Link, a small desktop computer designed to be used to access Microsoft 365 services – a remote desktop. Retailing at $349, the hardware has no local storage, but sports two video outputs capable of driving 4k monitors, four USB ports, plus audio and Ethernet, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6E.

The machine is intended as a ‘thin client’ that will run a Windows desktop instance hosted in a data centre – either a private facility owned by a large organisation, or in the form of Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

There are several advantages to having a ‘thin client, powerful server’ model, which include cyber resilience, a conformant desktop, and the ability for users to work remotely in multiple locations, always getting the same desktop experience wherever they happen to be.

However, the topology relies on users always having good network and/or internet access to be able to work, which in many places is not always a given. Crowded wi-fi networks, poor local infrastructure, or wholesale internet outages could cause problems, ranging from latency making the user experience unpleasant, to the need to down tools until connectivity gets restored.

There is also the downside, for some, that there is no local data storage, which means entrusting all data and applications to the cloud provider (the logical choice being Microsoft) or private data centre. That removes, or at best delays, any requests to change what’s installed on the user’s desktop, and puts the onus on IT teams to create and oversee multiple ‘gold disc’ images or take flack from users who might prefer to work differently from what’s offered by the supplied, virtual desktop.

It also raises the spectre of data ownership if the organisation stops paying its Microsoft 365 bill each month. Unforeseen termination of contract will effectively mean complete loss of access to data until accounts are settled. For the privacy-minded, there’s the issue of Microsoft Azure having complete over an organisation’s data, although anyone who is at all concerned about data privacy wouldn’t be running any Microsoft software to begin with, making the point moot.

Roots of the Microsoft 365 Link

In their earliest iterations, computers were often used in a server+thin clients model: a central mainframe or mini computer would serve multiple terminals for use by staff. Replicating the computing horsepower (of the time) to every desktop just wasn’t financially possible. The personal PC changed that, granting each user autonomy over their workstation. But, with that independence came problems with cybersecurity, exacerbated by the operating system of choice (early incarnations of Windows in the main) being inherently hackable.

Moves to extol the virtues of the ‘thin client, powerful server’ setup come around every few years, and in some cases it’s a topology that works well. Google’s ChromeOS devices are common in primary education, for example, and Amazon’s WorkSpaces Thin Client is another hardware solution cut from the same cloth that’s chasing the same market segment.

The missing ‘big name’ from the roster of big tech proffering a solution along the same lines shows us, indirectly, what is most likely to be behind this latest tranche of low-power hardware: Apple. Unlike Amazon, which has AWS, Microsoft (Azure), and Google (GCP), Tim Cook’s company has no public cloud to shill. It’s taken the opposite course, making hardware that puts ample but expensive compute into the hands of its users.

Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all identified that their financial futures lie in the cloud, and offerings like the Windows 365 Link push users’ data, compute and storage into the cloud. In Microsoft’s case, Microsoft 365 is an offering that allows the company to receive users’ rolling subscriptions to use an operating system, and makes the sale of Azure-based add-ons take one step nearer to the customer.

There may come a time when the sticker price for a Windows computer represents only a down-payment, with a monthly fee then levied to run the OS from an Azure instance. Add to that a subscription to Office, plus a levy for using the Copilot AI, and whatever else the Sales teams can think up, and the fees will soon add up nicely. That’s certainly something Microsoft would like to see. End users and sane IT professionals may not be quite so enthusiastic.