Almost every cloud based device I've ever owned ended up either putting an increasing number of basic features that were originally free behind a subscription paywall or simply turned itself into a brick when it stopped being supported.
The Link device is designed to be a compact, fanless, and easy-to-use cloud PC for your local monitors and peripherals. It’s meant to be the ideal companion to Microsoft’s Windows 365 service, which lets businesses transition employees over to virtual machines that exist in the cloud and can be streamed securely to multiple devices.
It sounds like it's part of a broader strategy to have companies outsource their IT to Microsoft.
Yeah but it's priced the same as a cheap laptop and/or desktop, which of course doesn't then require you to pay monthly to actually use the stupid thing.
It feels like another 'Microsoft asked Microsoft what Microsoft management would buy, and came up with this' product, and less one that actually has a substantial market, especially when you're trying to sell a $350 box that costs you $x a month to actually use as a 'business solution'.
This would probably be a cool product at $0 with-a-required-contract-with-Azure, but at $350.... meh, I suspect it's a hard sale given the VDI stuff on Azure isn't cheap.
This feels way too expensive for what is a dumbed down device. Maybe $50-$100, but you would still end up paying quite a bit for something that requires a subscription.
For the price they are asking, you could get a desktop with OK performance that will be free forever after that.
I thought this was a mini-pc to compete with the mac mini, until I realized its streaming only. I'd much rather cough up the extra $250 for the insane jump in power that the mac mini gives you.
i think this is the most stupid product i have ever heard of. I can't help but imagine the unholy latency of transferring files from "your computer" to an external storage.