SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[...] Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you'll "rent" it by the month.
DaaS for Windows isn't new. Citrix and VMware have made a living from it for years. Microsoft has offered Remote Desktop Services, formerly Terminal Services, for ages.
Microsoft Managed Desktop is a new take. It avoids the latency problem of the older Windows DaaS offerings by keeping the bulk of the operating system on your PC.
But you'll no longer be in charge of your Windows PC. Instead, it will be automatically provisioned and patched for you by Microsoft. Maybe you'll be OK with that.
January 14, 2020 is the last day Microsoft will provide security updates for Windows 7. According to Microsoft's estimates, there are 184 million commercial devices out there (as of April 2018 and excluding China) still on Windows 7. And 64 percent of those devices are more than five years old.
For Microsoft's reseller partners, that's a huge potential opportunity, as they heard repeatedly during Microsoft's Inspire partner show last week. Traditionally, end of Microsoft support for an operating system means more chances for partners to sell customers on migration, provisioning and other services.
At the same time, the way business customers are purchasing PCs is changing. By 2020 -- the same time Windows 7 hits end of support -- 30 percent of all PCs will be acquired via DaaS, or device-as-a-service, plans, Microsoft officials told partners last week.
[...] During the Inspire show, Microsoft execs worked to hammer home the idea that resellers shouldn't simply be selling Windows 7 users a new device running Windows 10. Instead, they should take the DaaS approach and set up a whole platform to lease new Windows 10 PCs to customers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02 2018, @02:31PM (2 children)
Dear Linux Devs and major game developers,
My skills as a software developer are sadly limited. I do not have the skills needed to support high-end games that were written for Windows to run properly on Linux. These are the only types of programs that I still need Window to run.
In the past 20 years I have seen incredible improvements in the usability of Linux as a desktop. There are amazingly reliable and feature rich desktop applications that run as well (or in some cases better than) the Windows alternatives. LibreOffice (and OpenOffice) are excellent alternatives to MS Office for home use. Firefox and Chrome run very well on Linux. I can even watch Netflix through Chrome on Linux. Thank you very much to all the developers that put in the work to make these options available.
There is only one type of software that I care about that I find limited options for on Linux. That is high-end games.
While Steam supports Linux games; the selection is considerably limited.
Wine often works to get games working (particularly older games) but can involve compromises such as limited options for game controllers. New games often don't work with Wine (yet). So, game developers: please work to get your games running properly and completely on Linux. Help add the needed features to Wine and built Wine config files for your games.
Thank you for your time.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Thursday August 02 2018, @03:38PM
Should be easier now that this is out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API) [wikipedia.org]
I've been seeing growing numbers of higher end games coming out for linux over the years. I'm hoping the designers/programmers hop on that shit. Once Microsoft dumps windows 7 I'll be dumping my dualboot for pure linux, with or without the new games.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday August 02 2018, @05:20PM
"high-end" games becoming trashier with each year. From my point of view they can no longer justify existence of Windows. Especially considering that most of them use cross-platform engines like Unreal and Unity.