We live in the age of streaming. If you want to watch a movie tonight, it’s more likely that you’ll stream it than you’ll go to the movie theatre to watch one. If you want to play video games, you’re just as likely to stream them through the internet as you are to stick a disc in your games console and play your games the old fashioned way. Microsoft has been watching the way the wind is blowing in the world of technology for some time now and has decided to act on it. A few weeks ago, the company announced its new Microsoft Windows 365 “cloud PC” service. That service has now gone live – and it costs less than you might think.
The idea behind Windows 365 is revolutionary but also strikingly simple. To put the concept in its most basic terms, it’s a cloud-based PC that you can log into using any internet-enabled device from anywhere in the world. We’re not talking about cloud storage here – this is a fully functioning virtual PC that belongs to you and you only. If you logged into Windows 365 from your phone in the morning and opened a browser window before logging off, you’d still find that browser window open the next time you logged in, even if that was in a different country, using a different device. The virtual PC is “on” all the time, can’t be accessed by anyone other than you, and is billed as a safe space to store whatever you might conceivably want to store.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this idea is that it hasn’t been done on a grander scale before now. Companies that offer “virtual PC” services and platforms exist, but they tend to be small companies that most people have never heard of. The technology that drives the platform has existed for years, but the idea will be a new one for most customers. Some might be reluctant to entrust a remote, virtual platform with their important files and documents, but experience tells us that people quickly get used to streaming. You need only look at the sudden dominance of online slots websites over the casino sector for proof of that. There was a suspicion of online slots websites when they first began to appear almost twenty years ago and a general belief that they’d never become a threat to brick-and-mortar casinos. Critics thought that people wouldn’t trust a “machine” to handle their bets fairly. Those critics were wrong. Online slots are now far more popular than physical slots. Virtual PCs might, therefore, one day become more popular than physical ones.
In theory, almost anybody could be a potential customer of Windows 365. There’s an obvious convenience factor for people who move around a lot or sometimes work remotely. There’s the security of knowing that all of your important data is backed up in the cloud rather than saved on a physical drive and at risk in the event of a mechanical failure. Another selling point from Microsoft’s point of view is that buying a Windows 365 subscription might be cheaper than buying a new PC for those on a budget. Old PCs slow down and eventually become unable to run new software efficiently, but that wouldn’t matter with Windows 365. So long as your ageing machine is still capable of opening a browser window and maintaining an internet connection, it will perform just as well as new high-spec hardware. That’s because all the heavy-duty processing is performed remotely, and the results are streamed to your screen through the internet.
Right at the start of this article, we noted that the cost of Windows 365 might surprise some people. Windows 365 is a premium service, but at entry-level, it doesn’t charge premium prices. So long as you already have Windows 10 Professional, a start-up Windows 365 account costs just $20 per month. In return for that price, your virtual machine comes with 64GB storage, 2GB of RAM, 12GB of bandwidth, and one vCPU. That’s a very basic setup, but it’s also a very basic price. From there, prices increase in line with performance. The higher the level of performance you require from your virtual PC, the more you’ll be asked to pay for it. At the other end of the scale is the full-spec package, which offers 512GB of storage with 32GB of RAM, unlimited bandwidth and eight CPUs for a chunky $158 per month. That option is expected to be less popular because very few people need that level of performance, and those that do are likely to purchase a customised PC instead.
Just as the announcement of Windows 365 caught the industry off guard, so has its sudden availability. The product became available on the week commencing 2nd August and can be purchased immediately. While the product is targeted at business users and there were rumours that Microsoft would restrict sales to businesses at first, there are no restrictions on purchases as of the time of writing. If you’re a sole trader or simply like the idea of having a virtual PC to run high-end processing tasks on, you should be able to sign up right now with no problems if you so desire.
With the rollout and launch of Windows 365 out of the way, Microsoft can now turn its attention to the forthcoming launch of Windows 11. After spending years promising us that Windows 10 would be the final incarnation of its flagship OS and that any future updates would be treated as patches for it, Microsoft surprised us earlier this year by announcing the new version of Windows – the first for six years. It includes some major redesigns and adjustments to the user interface and graphical design. The OS is already in beta and is scheduled for release on an as-yet-unannounced date later this year. Windows 10 will then be phased out over the course of the next 2-3 years. It’s expected that Windows 365 will run Windows 11 by default from the moment the new OS goes live, so if you intend to use Windows 365, it might serve you well to get to grips with the new software as quickly as possible.
