the new thinclient

From the «Thin is In» department:
Title: Windows 365 Link: a thin client from Microsoft
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2024 23:24:51 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141166/windows-365-link-a-thin-client-from-microsoft/

One of my favourite devices that never took on in the home is the thin client.
Whenever I look at a fully functional Sun Microsystems thin client setup[1],
with Sun Rays, a Solaris server, and the smartcards instantly loading up your
desktop the moment you slide it in the Ray’s slot, my mind wonders about the
future we could’ve had in our homes – a powerful, expandable, capable server in
the basement, running every family member’s software, and thin clients all
throughout the house where family members can plug their smartcard into to load
up their stuff.

This is the future they took from us.

Well, not entirely. They took this future, made it infinitely worse by
replacing that big server in our basement with massive datacentres far away
from us in the “cloud”, and threw it back in our faces as a shittier
inevitability we all have to deal with. The fact this model relies on
subscriptions is, of course, entirely coincidental and not all the main driving
force behind taking our software away from us and hiding it stronghold
datacentres.

So anyway Microsoft is launching a thin client that connects to a Windows VM
running in the cloud. They took the perfection Sun gave us, shoved it down
their throats, regurgitated it like a cow, and are now presenting it to us as
the new shiny. It’s called the Windows 365 Link, and it connects to, as the
name implies, Windows 365. Here’s part of the enterprise marketing speak:

Today, as users take advantage of virtualization offerings delivered on an
array of devices, they can face complex sign-in processes, peripheral
incompatibility, and latency issues. Windows 365 Link helps address these
issues, particularly in shared workspace scenarios. It’s compact,
lightweight, and designed to maximize productivity with its highly responsive
performance. It takes seconds to boot and instantly wakes from sleep,
allowing users to quickly get started or pick up where they left off on their
Cloud PC. With dual 4K monitor support, four USB ports, an Ethernet port,
Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.3, Windows 365 Link offers seamless connectivity
with both wired and wireless peripherals.
↫ Anthony Smith at the Windows IT Pro Blog[2]

This is just a thin client, but worse, since it seemingly can only connect to
Microsoft’s “cloud”, without the ability to connect to a server on-premises,
which is a very common use case. In fact, you can’t even use another vendor’s
tooling, so if you want to switch from Windows 365 to some other provider later
down the line, you seemingly can’t – unless there’s some BIOS switches or
whatever you can flip. At the very least, Microsoft intends for other vendors
to also make Link devices, so perhaps competition will bring the price down to
a more manageble level than $349.

Unless an enterprise environment is already so deep into the Microsoft
ecosystem that they don’t even rely on things like Citrix or any of the other
countless providers of similar services, why would you buy thousands of these
for your employees, only to lock your entire company into Windows 365? I’m no
IT manager, obviously, so perhaps I’m way off base here, but this thing seems
like a hard sell when there are so, so many alternative services, and so many
thin client devices to choose from that can use any of those services.

Links:
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BW-mbC7Xag&pp=ygUJY2xhYnJldHJv (link)
[2]: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/windows-365-link%E2%80%94the-first-cloud-pc-device-for-windows-365/4302687 (link)