Windows 365: Microsoft’s Cloud PC Goes Official, Available This August

It was only a few weeks ago that Microsoft has officially taken the drape off its new Windows 11 operating system but as it turns out, the company is not yet done. Today, the Redmond giant has revealed another Windows-related product in the form of Windows 365.

Now, why we called it a “Windows-related” product? This is because Windows 365 is not a new version of the operating system unlike Windows 11.

Essentially, it is still the same Windows that tons of users throughout the world are very familiar with. As opposed to running on a local machine, users would be able to utilize Windows 10 or Windows 11 once it is available for mass users towards the end of this year, directly from the cloud.

Through Windows 365, users will be able to have a consistent Windows experience regardless of the device they used according to Microsoft. At the time this article is published, we have yet to receive the exact minimum technical requirement needed to access the service but according to Jarod Spataro, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft 365, any HTML5-compliant web browser can be used with Windows 365.

On Windows machines, users can also choose to utilize the Remote Desktop app as well. Jarod also pointed out that if you can stream videos on your device, you should have more than enough bandwidth to run Windows 365.

Before you get too excited and thinking of doing things like running games on Windows 365 in a similar manner as per NVIDIA’s GeForce Now or even Microsoft’s own Xbox Cloud Gaming, you going to be disappointed though.

Jared pointed out that in its current state Windows 365 is not tuned for gaming and stated that the service is currently designed for businesses as well as enterprises. In other words, it is not meant for consumers just yet.

With the introduction of Windows 365, Microsoft believes that this has created a new category for the market which the company calls the Cloud PC. While Windows 365 is built on Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) as its underlying technology, it is not meant to replace AVD and both of them will remain available as separate products.

Furthermore, the pricing model for AVD revolves around Azure consumption while Windows 365 is closer to a traditional subscription model as Microsoft charges its Windows 365 customers according to the number of users that they have. Nevertheless, Windows 365 customers still able to choose the level of computing power that they need with up to 8-core virtual CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB storage.

The new Windows 365 will be made available starting from 2 August 2021 at the moment, we have yet to receive Malaysia-specific details regarding the new service. We will keep you updated once we hear more from Microsoft, so stay tuned.

(Source: Microsoft.)