Amazon starts selling desktop software... in the cloud

It's desktop software as a service on the company's VDI platform.

Read the whole story

 

[astropheed]

Unfortunately that price isn't attractive enough for the conveniences it could afford me. I think it's actually a bit ridiculously expensive.

 

[Takur]

I wonder how does this differ with Office 365.

 

[AxMi-24]

Something something about US company, US law and privacy being a bad combination for anyone not actual US citizen...

Edit: I like how this kind of article never mentions the privacy and data security implications of these fancy "new" development towards everything in the cloud. Pay but have no control.

 

[Dadlyedly]

Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

 

[astropheed]

AxMi-24[/url]":38wd5mbd]Something something about US company, US law and privacy being a bad combination for anyone not actual US citizen...

Edit: I like how this kind of article never mentions the privacy and data security implications of these fancy "new" development towards everything in the cloud. Pay but have no control.

I should hope by now it's already well established that this has massive privacy concerns that will inevitably be exploited, and abused, by... persons.

Mentioning it in every article would be exhausting, probably. It'll also desensitize us to it. You mentioning it in passing is probably sufficient to remind people.

 

[Deleted member 32907]

Dadlyedly[/url]":2nkhnjg8]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

There is an RDP client for ChromeOS, and there is also Chrome Remote Desktop (Chromoting). Between those, I'd expect you could access the instances from ChromeOS just fine.

 

[MyForwuk]

Does the computer run 24/7 doubling as a server?

 

[puzzled]

Oh ya Amazon AWS I wonder if this service is hosted only on their east coast server the same one that went down several times for days on end either last yr or the year before.

The prices qouoted seem to be on the high side. Windows 7 Pro OEM is $150 for perpetual licensed DVD. Windows 365 Business for 5 devices for one year is I think also $150. The prices quoted in the story for one computer for one year would work out to be $300 for Win7 and $180 for Office.

 

[irishScott]

So $40 a month just for a basic workstation, plus additional monthly charges for more software? Uh... no. I can buy a dell workstation that'll do everything this can for less than $400 and it'll be good for years. Amazon's Win 7 + MS Office alone will break that in 10 months.

And from what I understand "access anywhere" isn't even relevant because you'd need admin permissions to install their client software.

 

[ethd]

Takur[/url]":2cn572yt]I wonder how does this differ with Office 365.

There doesn't seem to be much point to adding Office to this over getting Office 365 unless you really need the ProPlus features without paying for Office 365 ProPlus. And unless you can name even one feature that's exclusive to ProPlus that you need, you really don't need it.

It differs from Office 365 in that it runs entirely in the cloud (rather than just while you're downloading it) and it can do more than just Office.
That said, a virtualized Win7 desktop is cool, but the price Amazon is charging is ridiculous.

EDIT: Fixed wording and formatting.

 

[Marlor_AU]

I remember one of my first jobs in IT. Maintaining a fleet of X Terminals for use in university labs.

The big selling point was the lower TCO as opposed to full Unix workstations, and ease of maintainability. Configure the application once on the server, and it was instantly deployed across every lab on campus. It was actually a system that ran extraordinarily well for many years. Thin-client computing was the future.

Then it wasn't.

We got more and more demand for Windows desktop machines, and began phasing out the X Terminals in favour of XP machines. Suddenly, the talk from ICT management was all about how much more students could achieve with a full-fledged Windows desktop rather than a thin-client.

They certainly needed that sort of selling-point to justify the extra manpower required (and additional downtime experienced) by the new fat-client architecture.

Now, it seems everything old is new again. I'm just wondering when Amazon is going to launch a line of dedicated "AWS Terminals".

 

[bdnsjjsf]

Server 2008R2? Does it come with Visual Studio 2010 and Office 2007 too?

You'd think if I'm paying premium prices I at least get a current OS.

 

[Marlor_AU]

bdnsjjsf[/url]":1ipzq2ub]Server 2008R2? Does it come with Visual Studio 2010 and Office 2007 too?

You'd think if I'm paying premium prices I at least get a current OS.

It is just driving the guest OS. It really doesn't matter what the host OS is.

The guests are running Windows 7 with Office 2013 Pro Plus. I think that's modern enough for most corporate deployments. Hell, many corporations are still trying to wrap up their XP migrations.

Keep in mind that Amazon must be covering a number of CALs and VDI licenses to deliver this service. VDI isn't cheap to license on Windows, so for corporations looking to offload their unpredictable ICT capex spend to a more predictable opex one, and to improve data security and maintainability via VDI, this isn't a particularly expensive option when compared with a DIY solution.

 

[vmll]

AxMi-24[/url]":3kgv03fs]Edit: I like how this kind of article never mentions the privacy and data security implications of these fancy "new" development towards everything in the cloud. Pay but have no control.

Keep in mind that businesses have different requirements than the general public. You don't want your data on someone else's servers unencrypted, but nothing your company has should be private (in the personal sense). Businesses agreements (not to mention their reputation) will prevent Amazon from stealing company data, so all they really need to worry about are state actors, and how many companies care if the NSA reads their business documents? If they really wanted it they'd have it anyway.

tl;dr great for businesses, personal data should stay encrypted and used locally.

 

[dwaltz]

Dadlyedly[/url]":93d0id5n]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

if you add to a chormebook price, say you go as low as 100$, 2 years of subscription just for the system is 100+25x24=700$ in total: with that you get a pretty decent laptop that should last two years.

On the other side for a company it could turn CAPEX in OPEX, so that might be a reason good enough.

 

[dwaltz]

vmll[/url]":270cxh6m]You don't want your data on someone else's servers unencrypted, but nothing your company has should be private (in the personal sense). Businesses agreements (not to mention their reputation) will prevent Amazon from stealing company data, so all they really need to worry about are state actors, and how many companies care if the NSA reads their business documents?

Well in Europe industrial espionage made with software (os itself, or cloud) to favor US companies is considered a serious threat: http://bit.ly/1HXZbwa.

 

[JPan]

Light clients? That idea seems to be around every decade or so. I remember the small x terminals we had at school. 20 years ago. Stupid idea then. Stupid idea now. Even very cheap computers are much more powerful than they need to be to run the software you need. Operating systems are getting much better at updating and a computer with a desktop works even if Internet or just aws is down. And without the still remaining lag you get when working in a vm.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

irishScott[/url]":2cj10w2u]So $40 a month just for a basic workstation, plus additional monthly charges for more software? Uh... no. I can buy a dell workstation that'll do everything this can for less than $400 and it'll be good for years. Amazon's Win 7 + MS Office alone will break that in 10 months.

And from what I understand "access anywhere" isn't even relevant because you'd need admin permissions to install their client software.

For the 'enterprise' case, there are administrative costs that can add up fast on top of cheap client boxes; but that's also where running your own remote desktop server on cheap server hardware is an option(or doing it on the client; but with user data on fileserver and an imaging setup so you can pave and rebuild any clients that go off the rails).

And then there's latency. It's reasonably impressive how well ICA/RDP/VDI work, even over WAN links; but it sure isn't as good as over LAN, which isn't as good as local.

Amazon makes a hell of an offer if you need flexible web-facing resources; but this looks considerably less aggressively priced; and it has been my painful experience that 'thin client' stuff always introduces a layer of complexity and weirdness that the vendor pitches don't talk about.

 

[Marlor_AU]

JPan[/url]":35lrtl9i]Light clients? That idea seems to be around every decade or so. I remember the small x terminals we had at school. 20 years ago. Stupid idea then. Stupid idea now.

From a user perspective, maybe.

But when you're trying to maintain a massive fleet of computers, the simplicity of a thin-client architecture makes a lot of sense.

There's a reason that most corporate apps are moving towards web-based platforms rather than using actual client applications, despite the usability limitations of that approach. Maintaining installed software across a large batch of (generally heterogeneous) desktop and laptop PCs is a pain in the backside.

Having a unified "master image" that everyone runs off is administrative simplicity by comparison.

I'm a fan of thin clients (based on fond memories of the days of X Terminals). But they're not designed to make the user experience better. They're designed to get the job done, while making administration as simple as possible, protecting data by keeping it on the server at all times, and ensuring that everyone has the same operating platform (vital where SOPs drive your business, and software version differences can cause deviations).

It's just a shame that most Windows-based implementations are so lacking, and Microsoft's VDI licensing is so painful.

 

[Eldorito]

dwaltz[/url]":1jq1tiqh]

Dadlyedly[/url]":1jq1tiqh]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

if you add to a chormebook price, say you go as low as 100$, 2 years of subscription just for the system is 100+25x24=700$ in total: with that you get a pretty decent laptop that should last two years.

On the other side for a company it could turn CAPEX in OPEX, so that might be a reason good enough.

Writing off a laptop is usually 3 years anyway, not a huge difference really.

The lack of needing to support hardware though could be great. I know anytime the discussion on changing laptop vendors comes up there's always a huge push back from IT. I can't get a ssd because images would have to include ssd drivers and reimaging is more of a pain. Being able to walk outside and get literally any old computer has its benefits.

 

[wicker_man]

Isn't this just a direct competition to Citrix and similar providers who have been offering these services for over a decade or even more?

 

[Marlor_AU]

wicker_man[/url]":2fa3981y]Isn't this just a direct competition to Citrix and similar providers who have been offering these services for over a decade or even more?

VDI isn't new. But the "Desktop as a Service" market, where enterprises pay a per-month, per-seat fee for access to cloud-hosted Windows desktop instances is a different story.

I'm not aware that Citrix has any products in this class.

VMware Horizon Air is the big competitor to AWS WorkSpaces. But there are a handful of smaller players in the space as well.

 

[HammoTime]

wicker_man[/url]":36eif7j7]Isn't this just a direct competition to Citrix and similar providers who have been offering these services for over a decade or even more?

This is actually licensed Citrix XenDesktop machines.

Citrix and Amazon have a partnership agreement.

 

[KellenS]

Office I can do without. You know one thing that I would like, XCode running from the cloud. That would make my next laptop purchase a bit more interesting.

 

[DKlimax]

robrob[/url]":1j91q0ji]

dwaltz[/url]":1j91q0ji]

Dadlyedly[/url]":1j91q0ji]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

if you add to a chormebook price, say you go as low as 100$, 2 years of subscription just for the system is 100+25x24=700$ in total: with that you get a pretty decent laptop that should last two years.

On the other side for a company it could turn CAPEX in OPEX, so that might be a reason good enough.

Writing off a laptop is usually 3 years anyway, not a huge difference really.

The lack of needing to support hardware though could be great. I know anytime the discussion on changing laptop vendors comes up there's always a huge push back from IT. I can't get a ssd because images would have to include ssd drivers and reimaging is more of a pain. Being able to walk outside and get literally any old computer has its benefits.

What SSD driver? Unless one is already talking about NVMe drives, then there is no SSD driver.

 

[Feniks]

Just remember that if you lose your internet connection or amazon servers go down you'll lose your productivity by 100%

 

[losergamer04]

astropheed[/url]":26rulw62]Unfortunately that price isn't attractive enough for the conveniences it could afford me. I think it's actually a bit ridiculously expensive.

I don't disagree as a user. I do think there is a case to be made for remote users in a company if you do not already have a solution like this or enough users to justify building your own "cloud." (I HATE the term "cloud!")

 

[Hotdog]

DKlimax[/url]":tkiuf0yx]

robrob[/url]":tkiuf0yx]

dwaltz[/url]":tkiuf0yx]

Dadlyedly[/url]":tkiuf0yx]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

if you add to a chormebook price, say you go as low as 100$, 2 years of subscription just for the system is 100+25x24=700$ in total: with that you get a pretty decent laptop that should last two years.

On the other side for a company it could turn CAPEX in OPEX, so that might be a reason good enough.

Writing off a laptop is usually 3 years anyway, not a huge difference really.

The lack of needing to support hardware though could be great. I know anytime the discussion on changing laptop vendors comes up there's always a huge push back from IT. I can't get a ssd because images would have to include ssd drivers and reimaging is more of a pain. Being able to walk outside and get literally any old computer has its benefits.

What SSD driver? Unless one is already talking about NVMe drives, then there is no SSD driver.

Not a driver issue, per se, but there are issues with changing any sort of hardware platform. SSDs, for example, had a number of "issues" with SCCM, due to timing: They basically started too fast, and the Task Sequence might continue running before the networking stack comes up. A fault of SSDs? Not at all. But it'd require changes to the OS:

https://sccmfaq.wordpress.com/2013/11/2 ... x87d00267/

Which in turn might require validation from a validation team.

And SSDs in the Enterprise desktop arena also cause issues with data recovery; how many techs in Enterprises have tosses hard drives in freezers to retrieve data for a VIP level exec? How is that going to work on SSDs? Not saying having them store data on their local drive is a good thing, but it happens, and it's something large companies need to consider when making an Enterprise decision.

My company is 100% SSDs now, but those are all hurdles we went through; from the OS to the imaging to the support aspect of it all.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

AxMi-24[/url]":1vzfefel]Something something about US company, US law and privacy being a bad combination for anyone not actual US citizen...

Edit: I like how this kind of article never mentions the privacy and data security implications of these fancy "new" development towards everything in the cloud. Pay but have no control.

Unless of course, "the cloud" is hosted by you. Servers, personal or business are pretty affordable.


Anyway slightly disappointed by headline. Was hoping Amazon would do for regular software, the same thing Steam did for games.

 

[Myntan]

Marlor[/url]":1gyvfbfz]
The guests are running Windows 7 with Office 2013 Pro Plus. I think that's modern enough for most corporate deployments. Hell, many corporations are still trying to wrap up their XP migrations.

Most of my coworkers are going they workstations last until windows 10, none of us want windows 8 !


I wonder what the cost-benefit of these computers would be if you could mine bitcoin on them.... Are they giving out quad core?


Anyway, my experience with remote desktop had been less than appealing... Try watching (or creating) a video over remote desktop.. Or using Photoshop... Ugh..

But, I suppose, they are focusing on low end office workers

 

[kray28]

My first thought was, "too expensive". If you are a home user it makes very little sense given the low cost of hardware. Since you need hardware to access anyway, it makes even less sense. The only way this would be worth it is I'd they were allocating you 24 cores and 128GB of RAM or something. A veritable super PC to run your massive R job.

 

[0010110SYN]

We'll see more of this as business people see it as a way to reduce software piracy. Eventually, they'll just stop distributing valuable products to unknown, individual people. It'll be movie theater distribution deals all over again. Protectionism will inflate the profits, reduce the losses, stifle innovation and trample the little guy.

On the plus side, we can grow used to paying monthly for what businesses have come to require constantly: office productivity software use.

Just wait until you have to buy your own to keep or get a job anywhere doing anything.

 

[codejnki]

We were doing this 14 years ago using Citrix and a central data center.

Ran 8 manufacturing facilities off of half a dozen blade servers

Glad to see Amazon catching up to the cutting edge.

 

[kray28]

All you get is some CPU and some RAM in terms of hardware. at the asking price, even running 24/7 I doubt you can run a miner on it and break even.

 

[DKlimax]

Hotdog[/url]":17glstt1]

DKlimax[/url]":17glstt1]

robrob[/url]":17glstt1]

dwaltz[/url]":17glstt1]

Dadlyedly[/url]":17glstt1]Does it work on Chromebooks? That might be a reasonable replacement for a notebook for corporate users if they get a corporate discount.

if you add to a chormebook price, say you go as low as 100$, 2 years of subscription just for the system is 100+25x24=700$ in total: with that you get a pretty decent laptop that should last two years.

On the other side for a company it could turn CAPEX in OPEX, so that might be a reason good enough.

Writing off a laptop is usually 3 years anyway, not a huge difference really.

The lack of needing to support hardware though could be great. I know anytime the discussion on changing laptop vendors comes up there's always a huge push back from IT. I can't get a ssd because images would have to include ssd drivers and reimaging is more of a pain. Being able to walk outside and get literally any old computer has its benefits.

What SSD driver? Unless one is already talking about NVMe drives, then there is no SSD driver.

Not a driver issue, per se, but there are issues with changing any sort of hardware platform. SSDs, for example, had a number of "issues" with SCCM, due to timing: They basically started too fast, and the Task Sequence might continue running before the networking stack comes up. A fault of SSDs? Not at all. But it'd require changes to the OS:

https://sccmfaq.wordpress.com/2013/11/2 ... x87d00267/

Which in turn might require validation from a validation team.

And SSDs in the Enterprise desktop arena also cause issues with data recovery; how many techs in Enterprises have tosses hard drives in freezers to retrieve data for a VIP level exec? How is that going to work on SSDs? Not saying having them store data on their local drive is a good thing, but it happens, and it's something large companies need to consider when making an Enterprise decision.

My company is 100% SSDs now, but those are all hurdles we went through; from the OS to the imaging to the support aspect of it all.

Ok. That makes more sense.

 

[kray28]

Lots of questions though, the more I think about it. Will they offer a Linux VDI for a lesser price? What type of a connection will you need for the latency to not be an issue?

 

[psarhjinian]

astropheed[/url]":1boqcnkg]Unfortunately that price isn't attractive enough for the conveniences it could afford me. I think it's actually a bit ridiculously expensive.

This is the problem with VDI: it's a godsend for IT management and security, but the software vendors are so staggeringly greedy that it's hard to justify the cost.

I get that there's ROI, I really do, but that ROI is pretty tenuous versus the up-front bill: when I already have to buy hardware (twice, in some cases) to support it properly and then have to double-dip on software it gets really, really hard to justify. It's certainly hard if you already have a client-software investment that you cannot leverage (thanks, Microsoft!) into your VDI implementation.

It's like thin clients: I get that they're potentially cheaper to support, but they really shouldn't cost more than a desktop PC that has several times the processing power, memory and storage. They only cost that because of the Enterprise Tax.

 

[Marlor_AU]

Myntyn[/url]":1l7l1l5w]But, I suppose, they are focusing on low end office workers

i.e. 90% of business users.