Oh man, this blog is currently turning into the ‘I love Azure’ site isn’t it? But WOW, here’s another announcement that is a game changer in my mind.
Microsoft Azure now has Windows 7 and 8 virtual machines as you can see from the above screen shot. Before this I was using Windows Server 2012 as a workstation to have a ‘clean’ machine to test and demo Office 365.
With the availability of these new desktop Windows systems I can create an even more EXACT test/demo installation in the cloud. This is BRILLIANT since I can now dozens of machines in Azure to test all sorts of scenarios. I would have run out of disk space long ago if even attempted this on my workstation.
Here’s another thing to ponder. if Windows desktop systems are now available via Azure how far away can a full blown Virtual Desktop Offering be? How long can it be before this Virtual Desktop becomes an option in Office 365? My guess? Not long.
Enough. I’m off to spin up more Azure demo machines. What can I say? I love Azure more and more every day!
Clarification – I overlooked the fact that these images are currently only available to MSDN subscribers. Also these images are not meant for production just testing. However, none the less, it certain tells me where all this is going.
CIAOPS 