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Microsoft wants to move Windows fully to the cloud
(www.theverge.com)
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How is this supposed to work in countries that have bandwidth caps, or slow internet connections?
It seems like every company these days wants to move everything to the cloud, but it doesn't mean it's going to happen. While something like this makes sense in some instances (like kiosks or similar maybe?) for the vast majority of use cases this is a non-starter.
When I had a laptop, it's wasn't always connected to the internet and it certainly did not have a mobile internet connection - nor would I pay for another one when I have a perfectly good one in the form of my phone.
Most of the time, believe it or not I didn't need an internet connection - half the time I was sitting at a park or a restaurant and playing singleplayer games or writing code.
I never connected to the restaurants free wifi, as I have trust issues with it. And I used a cable to hotspot when necessary. (Either that or i use the browser in my phone, mainly for stack overflow purposes)
If this happens, and windows goes Cloud ONLY - it would necessitate an always on and active internet connection.
God forbid if you decide to move out of signal range with it - let's say, watch a movie on the laptop while camping in the outback. On top of that, what if your internet goes down - ISPs can and have been a-holes in the past, and this isn't going to stop them in the future.
I have to wonder why anyone on earth would go for this? It's inherently limiting, despite all the AI gimmicks they are touting.
I for one and not switching back to windows any time soon - I mean I wasn't anyway, but I'm definitely not now.
On the other hand, this makes sense, why else would they release a sub par ARM chip in a surface pro 9 for the only 5G model? I always thought that decision made no sense. Now it makes perfect sense.
I live in a third world country. There is no way that this takes off here. Windows will just have to abandoned this country. But maybe they will as there is not a lot of money here. People will often buy laptops second hand at the market and the sellers load it with pirate content or can do it if they are asked. The only people really paying for Microsoft products here are the big corporations and foreigners, like myself, who are working here.
Additionally, most people just use their phones as a hotspot for data while at home. That is good enough for streaming and basic stuff. No one is going to get a fiber connection and pay a microsoft subscription. I honestly do not see this working here and I expect Microsoft will have to pull out or continue to offer offline options.