Windows 365

Windows 365 is Microsoft's cloud PC service — a Windows 11 desktop provisioned per user, hosted in Microsoft's datacentres, and streamed to any device via a browser, the Windows 365 app, or Remote Desktop. Each cloud PC has a fixed monthly cost based on vCPU / RAM / storage SKU (2 / 4 / 8 / 16 vCPU options), making budgeting predictable. Comes in two flavours: Windows 365 Enterprise (managed via Intune, joined to Entra ID, integrated with corporate apps and policies) and Windows 365 Business (simpler self-service for SMBs). Sits alongside Azure Virtual Desktop, which offers more flexibility but consumption-based pricing and more configuration.

The core trade-off vs Azure Virtual Desktop

Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) are built on overlapping underlying technology, but they answer different operational questions. Windows 365 gives every user their own dedicated, persistent cloud PC at a fixed monthly per-user cost — predictable to budget, simple to assign (one cloud PC per licensed user, much like assigning a physical laptop), but not elastic: the cost doesn't shrink if the cloud PC sits idle overnight or over a weekend. AVD instead runs on consumption-based Azure infrastructure that an organisation configures and scales itself — session hosts can be pooled (many users sharing a smaller number of virtual machines, cheaper per-user but more complex to size correctly) or personal, and compute can be deallocated automatically outside working hours to actually save money when it's not in use — at the cost of someone needing to own the sizing, scaling, and Azure cost-management work that Windows 365 handles by not offering that flexibility at all.

Worked example

A 50-person consultancy wants every consultant to have a consistent, always-available desktop reachable from any client site or personal laptop, without maintaining physical company laptops for a hybrid, travel-heavy workforce. Windows 365 Enterprise fits well here: each consultant gets a dedicated cloud PC sized to a mid-tier SKU, joined to the firm's Entra ID and enrolled in Intune identically to how a physical corporate laptop would be, with the same Conditional Access and compliance policies applied. The fixed per-seat monthly cost is easy for the firm to budget against client billing, and there's no infrastructure to size or scale — every consultant simply has their cloud PC, used as much or as little as their travel schedule requires, at the same flat cost either way. A different organisation running a call centre with three shifts a day and highly variable seasonal headcount would instead lean toward AVD's pooled, scalable model, where compute cost tracks actual concurrent usage rather than a fixed per-seat rate regardless of shift patterns.

Cloud PC sizing and provisioning policies

A provisioning policy determines which users get a cloud PC (via Entra ID group assignment), which image it's built from (a Microsoft-provided gallery image, or a custom image with corporate apps pre-installed), and which network it joins — either a Microsoft-hosted network (fastest to deploy, less control) or an Azure network connection into the organisation's own virtual network (more setup, but lets the cloud PC reach on-premises resources as if it were on the corporate network). Choosing between the two network models early matters, because moving an already-provisioned fleet from one to the other generally means reprovisioning rather than a simple settings change.

Common pitfalls

The most common early mistake is under-sizing the vCPU/RAM SKU for the actual workload — a cloud PC meant to run a demanding line-of-business or CAD-adjacent app on the lowest available SKU produces a genuinely poor, laggy experience that gets blamed on "the cloud" rather than on the sizing choice. The second is treating Windows 365 Business (aimed at simpler, self-service SMB scenarios) as a lighter version of Enterprise for a larger managed estate — Business intentionally lacks the Intune-based management depth Enterprise provides, and an organisation that needs Conditional Access, compliance policies, or custom images should be on Enterprise from the start rather than migrating later.