Microsoft announced it will offer its Windows operating system as a cloud-based service, aiming to make it easier to access business apps that need Windows from a range of devices.
Microsoft will roll out Windows 365 services on August 2 and will work somewhat like buying a new Windows PC: A business or school will pick how much computing power, memory and storage they would like for an the new machine.
But instead of waiting for a physical machine to arrive in the mail, the employee or student will access the operating system in the cloud via an existing PC, a Mac, iPhone, Android phone or Chromebook, as long as it has a web browser compatible with HTML 5, a widely used internet standard.
Microsoft created the cloud-based version in response to feedback from clients who wanted employees and students to have quicker and easier PC access regardless of physical location.
“We define that shift to hybrid work as really being flexibility in how, when and where you work. That’s really the pattern that we’re seeing develop all across the world as people are starting to experiment,” said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 software.
Microsoft hopes the Windows 365 technology will be easy enough for small-business owners or smaller schools to introduce without a large IT department, with a predictable monthly bill based on the size of each virtual computer.
Andrew Hewitt, analyst at Forrester Research, said the move would help Microsoft defend its dominant market share in the face of strong competition from operating systems from Apple and Alphabet’s Google that are easier for schools and businesses to manage.
“Windows 365 is going to make a huge difference for organizations that wanted to try virtualization for various reasons but could not – maybe it was too costly, too complex or they didn’t have the expertise in house to do it,” said Wangui McKelvey, general manager of Microsoft 365, who works from a home office in Atlanta, Georgia.
With Windows 365, she added, IT admins can manage and deploy Cloud PCs using the same tools they use today to manage physical PCs.
