Microsoft’s cloud ambitions for Windows could kill off desktop PCs – and sooner than we expected

We already had something similar (not exactly) back in the day with mainframes. You sat at a "dumb" terminal and shared central resources. The industry moved away from that for good reason.

Then we had Unix with remote X. Mix of local and remote resources. Useful for a long time in enterprises but slow connectivity prevented it going mainstream.

Then there was an attempted resurrection with Java. People probably don't remember but the original dream was code running anywhere, either local or central, and we had services that created new "dumb" terminals. Didn't really pan out.

Now we try to build everything with web technologies. Render locally but served remotely. Very much a hack and you see constant pushback and alternatives popping up.

This remote desktop concept only really works for businesses. It simplifies IT management and enforces stronger security controls. Other than that it won't catch on.