Windows 365 launched this week… and new trial signups have been suspended already. Why? Overwhelming demand, as Microsoft has run out of servers to support it. The company has paused the trial program until it boosts capacity. Interested users can now signup to be notified when capacity becomes available, or to buy it outright.
Which is why I’m going to also cite this data published in CIO Dive
One in five U.S. professionals (22%) say poor performing or broken IT equipment has meant a loss of productivity in the COVID-19 era, according to a study published by IT services company Velocity Smart Technology. The study surveyed 2,000 U.S.-based office workers.
Almost four in 10 U.S. office workers say companies have made them wait longer to solve IT issues while working from home. Around half say they’ve waited at least three hours while an IT issue was sorted out.
Hardware woes also hit workers during the pandemic, with 57% of respondents saying they experienced issues related to hardware replacement.
Why do we care?
Wonder why Windows 365 is going to do well? Think of how it solves the problem outlined in the study.
And for those who are skeptical of the pricing… let me observe they underestimated the trial demand. And maxed out their capacity. One can guess they had a pretty sizeable amount ready. Sure, that’s trials, and sure, that’s not everyone… but it’s a lot.
Those comparing the cost of a PC to this are missing the point. Compare the fully managed cost, plus the implied offset of fixing the problem in the reported data here, and one can see how the value for some customers is totally there.
Edit Aug 6, 2021: Corrected “Microsoft 365” to “Windows 365”