They need to lower the price of the hosted desktops then, it’s still way more cost effective over time to buy a laptop/desktop for a 3 years cycle than to rent a monthly virtual desktop. The only business that wants it are opex obsessives that hate any capex.
Comment on Asus and Dell announce new mini PCs for Windows 365 | Goodbye local OS
Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 17 hours agoThey’ve been pushing the thin client for years and it’s never taken off. You and I wouldn’t be the target for this machine and neither would gamers or content creators. This is for business or grandparents.
purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 14 hours ago
CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
They’ve been pushing the thin client for years
I think it’s been decades at this point, and I hope it never takes off.
FireWire400@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
gamers or content creators
I can totally see them targeting those demographics as well, cloud gaming has been kinda popular in the last few years. Content creators could be sucked in with promises of getting pro performance without the price, possibly bundled with creative software.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Self-hosters will be all over these
DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 1 hour ago
Assuming they’re not ridiculously locked down, which they probably are.
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
It’s never taken off because of relatively inexpensive and abundant hardware. But these will be attractive to people who need something now and want something inexpensive.
Grandparents are the immediate target but eventually if they force the hardware supply shortages soon some people will need something.
Imagine students with low budget.
The next 5 years are going to be really interesting.
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
It must me noted that Big Tech is currently engaged in artificially forcing hardware prices upward, along with Microsoft’s constant attempts to deprecate old hardware by forcing new versions of their OS out of compatibility with it.
There are so many ways they’re actively screwing their customers by making things tangibly worse, and then conveniently showing up to “help” by selling us more of their shit.
DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 1 hour ago
Plus laws going after alternative OSes, no doubt lobbied for by MS to eliminate competition for Windows, are starting to creep in now, see Cali and Colorado.
Next step will be mandating SecureBoot and limiting OS selection to a short list of approved options.
And the end game will be thin clients connected to the cloud.
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I would be surprised if this WASN’T a conspiracy among all the billionaires in their secret clubs.
MagicShel@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
Grandparents don’t want to rent shit. They want to buy it and be done. Source: this old fuck right here.
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Fair. But what of they completely eliminate the ability to buy hardware like only selling to the AI fucks? Do grandparents not get phone plans for example?
MagicShel@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
In general, we try to avoid recurring payments, whether debt, rent, or what have you. When we can’t, we can’t. But we’ll buy used, we’ll do whatever we can to avoid this shit — generally. So in my opinion which is undoubtedly a bit self-serving and should be taken with a grain of salt, grandparents aren’t going to just roll over and accept computer as a service. The market for own your own computer will always be there, and so someone will sell it.