Microsoft has announced that Windows 365 is now available to business and enterprise customers. The service was announced in July following a year of rumours at its Inspire conference. Currently, Windows 365 offers customers a new way to experience Windows 10 but it will soon offer Windows 11 when it becomes available later in the year.
With this new service, Windows is hosted on Microsoft Cloud and customers can securely stream the full Windows experience, including their apps, data, and settings, to personal and corporate devices. With faster and more ubiquitous internet connections, hosting an operating system in the cloud and streaming it is finally feasible.
Microsoft offers three Windows 365 subscription tiers with slight differences between the Business and Enterprise products. The three tiers are Basic, Standard, and Premium and cost $31.00, $41.00. and $66.00 per user per month respectively. The two main differences between the Business and Enterprise versions are that Business subscriptions are restricted to 300 users while Enterprise subscribers can have unlimited users. The second difference is that Business customers can access Windows 365 through windows365.microsoft.com while Enterprise customers will have it integrated with Microsoft Endpoint Manager.
On the Basic tier, you’ll get 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM, and 128 GB storage; this tier is suitable for light productivity tools and web browsers. The Standard tier gives you 2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM, and 128 GB storage; Microsoft says this tier is suitable for running a full range of productivity tools and line-of-business apps. Finally, the Premium tier gives you 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM, and 128GB storage; this tier is ideal for running high-performance workloads and heavier data processing.
If you’re not content with the defaults for these tiers and want to customise your subscription, Microsoft also offers a full list of tiers with prices ranging from $20.00 per user per month to $162.00 per user per month. To learn more about Windows 365, head over to Microsoft’s product page.