What Windows 365 Can Do for You

Microsoft’s Windows 365 has now been out for a year and a half. With it, we entered a new era of simplified productivity for the modern hybrid or remote workforce. The connectivity and Cybersecurity demands of Hybrid work, where employees may not only work from home, but in the office and in the field, have always been present in the modern model of doing business, but never more so since the onset of the COVID pandemic.

As a Managed IT Services provider and prominent member of the Charlotte IT Support Community, ITFirm.com has long been a Microsoft partner offering a vast array of services, from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 to the virtual desktop services through Microsoft Azure. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) relieves much of the frustration and tedium of an earthbound local network.

W365 is NOT designed to replace Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, although it does make desktop virtualization an attractive option for many Small and Mid-size Businesses (SMBs) with simpler (yet still necessary) IT support requirements – specifically in terms of the expertise needed to manage and implement a VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), which is in short supply among garden variety ‘IT guys’.

In an interview with CRN, Melissa Grant, the Director of Product Marketing for Microsoft 365, said: “We wanted to make sure that we were creating something simple enough for an endpoint manager to be able to use—so you don’t have to have that Azure expertise or that VDI experience in order to be able to use Windows 365.”

What is the purpose of Windows 365?

At its most basic, Windows 365 is a cloud computer. It is an easy way to implement desktops in the cloud

Until now, if you wanted some kind of a virtual desktop machine, you had to provision it on the server which is resource intensive, or provision it on Microsoft Azure - which is very expensive because it not only requires great knowledge of Azure, but it also requires management overhead - essentially you would need a high level resource IT Support provider, which many small businesses may not be able to afford.

Windows 365 is basically like the Azure virtual machines but already provisioned, removing the complexity and expense.

Microsoft has brought about a truly amazing thing with Windows 365. One can imagine somebody at a brainstorming meeting saying, “Why the heck do we train all those IT support guys to do Azure and the work involved and then cross our fingers and rely on their abilities to get it done right? We have the servers, we have the techs – let’s take this a step further and instead of just providing the cloud platform, let’s create an already existing virtual desktop so the end user’s business can just pay a monthly subscription to obtain this incredible resource with ease?”

You will no longer need to buy a laptop with 4 cores and 8GB and then maintain it, track it, inventory it, protect it, update it, back it up, and re-buy and reinstall everything if it’s lost it or stolen.

You will still need some kind of hardware to run it on, but now you can use any cheap device because the only capability you need from it is to have an internet connection. The VM itself handles all the resources and the load. You get fast local speeds - much faster than any local network you may be using at the moment.

Instead, pay a monthly subscription (see Microsoft’s Plans & Pricing), and you can access it from anywhere on any device – ideal for the new Hybrid work environment.

Why do I need Windows 365?

If you desire enhanced simplicity and ease in conducting business across various locations and need your workers to be able to work, collaborate and share data through any device from desktops, laptops, smart phones, tablets, etc., then you owe it to yourself to at least look at Windows 365 - and don’t be fooled by the age-old Mac vs. PC thinking: Windows 365 works just as well with either a PC or Mac-based system.

Using Windows 365 maintains the famously High Microsoft Cybersecurity standards while streaming content, desktop apps, and settings from the Microsoft cloud to all manner and location of endpoint devices. Make no mistake: Windows 365 is both a physical computer as well as a cloud-based desktop virtualization service. It replaces device-based Operating Systems (OS) with hybrid personalized computing.

Your desktop simply becomes a terminal to access the computing capabilities you need from the cloud where they are now hosted – not from your workstation or local network. However, switching entirely to the cloud does not mean you need NO local computing power.

Think of W 365 Cloud Computing like a futuristic Science Fiction movie: Your brain is removed to a remote location, but it still controls your body, which needs to perform normally: walking, talking etc. Your body still needs the wherewithal to function, even though the thinking is performed far away. The cloud is the brain and the Windows 365 computer is the body (doing all the grunt work).

Once you place all of your computing in the cloud you really don’t need all the power of your old office desktop or laptop – but you do need some of it. All you really need is a terminal to access the applications you use – which are no longer taking up disk space with storage and Random Access Memory (RAM). You still need disk capacity and RAM just to run things at a very basic, local level, but your cloud PC no longer does the heavy lifting. The RAM allows you to juggle windows and tabs on your browser as well as multiple open apps without getting bogged down. You can also make do with a less powerful CPU (Central Processing Unit).

Going 100% to cloud computing does not mean you have to necessarily throw out your Dell and HP workstations right away. A cloud PC will be a better deal when that old hardware reaches ‘end-of-life’. The minimum lifespan is 3 years for most PCs, with a realistic expectation of 5 years and up to 8 years if they are meticulously cared for, depending on the quality of the unit’s capacity for effective upgrades.
BUT: There is a good reason why new cars come with new tires - car dealers don’t expect you to put your old tires on your new car.

The streamlined effect of using Windows 365 eliminates issues that are caused when software incompatibilities cause logjams or temporarily disrupt peripheral connections – such as printers and scanners, tying any type of virtual desktop services to older and slower workstations can keep those issues from disappearing.