Where is the cheapest and best place to get Microsoft Office?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

10 yrs ago I had almost our entire company of a couple thousand people all using thin clients. We have gotten quite a bit larger now and have a "desktop" team and they convinced the highers up to go back to Windows. I tried to tell them there is no reason to do that when we run VDI but what do I know, I am just a dumb sysadmin turned exec. idiots

Yep.

The most forward-thinking organizations are looking at Chromebooks now. It's like VDI, only without the capital infrastructure. You just buy the service from Google and away you go.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Yep.

The most forward-thinking organizations are looking at Chromebooks now. It's like VDI, only without the capital infrastructure. You just buy the service from Google and away you go.

I actually tested out using ChromeBooks this past year to try do that and we ran into a couple of issues that we couldn't overcome at the time. Don't really remember what they were now but I think remote support was one issue.

With us using VDI I see no reason to spend 1k-1200K for Windows PC with all the software shit you have to put it on it to admin etc when i was doing thin clients for $300-400 each.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

I actually tested out using ChromeBooks this past year to try do that and we ran into a couple of issues that we couldn't overcome at the time. Don't really remember what they were now but I think remote support was one issue.

With us using VDI I see no reason to spend 1k-1200K for Windows PC with all the software shit you have to put it on it to admin etc when i was doing thin clients for $300-400 each.

The overhead on Windows PC's is WAY more than the cost of the PC. Licensing, management and security software, support, etc. Microsoft is literally riding the "they've used Windows so long, they can't change" train. Most companies don't want to risk it.

There's on old saying in the infrastructure business:

"Nobody ever gets fired for selecting Microsoft, IBM, or Cisco."

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

The overhead on Windows PC's is WAY more than the cost of the PC. Licensing, management and security software, support, etc. Microsoft is literally riding the "they've used Windows so long, they can't change" train. Most companies don't want to risk it.

There's on old saying in the infrastructure business:

"Nobody ever gets fired for selecting Microsoft, IBM, or Cisco."

lol I tried to tell them the exact same thing. They just don't get it..whatever

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Yep.

The most forward-thinking organizations are looking at Chromebooks now. It's like VDI, only without the capital infrastructure. You just buy the service from Google and away you go.

Will that model support security that includes RSA tokens?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Will that model support security that includes RSA tokens?

No idea. I've never deployed them, just know of companies that are evaluating them.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

No idea. I've never deployed them, just know of companies that are evaluating them.

Thanks. The way things are today, with China’s active espionage and malicious intrusion threats 24/7 from across the globe, security is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear about computing solutions that access the network remotely.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Thanks. The way things are today, with China’s active espionage and malicious intrusion threats 24/7 from across the globe, security is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear about computing solutions that access the network remotely.

Thin clients are actually a lot more secure in the sense that it's much easier to avoid executing code on them, and in some cases, it's impossible depending on the OS.

Purpose-built devices tend to be much more secure while less tightly-couple hardware and software (e.g. Windows PC's and Android devices) tend to be a lot more vulnerable.

With COVID, I know of companies that have 10's of thousands of remote employees working on PC's, including my own. A lot of them have abandoned hardware tokens in favor of soft tokens on smart phones and things like that.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Thin clients are actually a lot more secure in the sense that it's much easier to avoid executing code on them, and in some cases, it's impossible depending on the OS.

Purpose-built devices tend to be much more secure while less tightly-couple hardware and software (e.g. Windows PC's and Android devices) tend to be a lot more vulnerable.

With COVID, I know of companies that have 10's of thousands of remote employees working on PC's, including my own. A lot of them have abandoned hardware tokens in favor of soft tokens on smart phones and things like that.

I’m not thinking resting data so much as maliciously accessing the network, if that makes sense. As you can tell I’m asking from the end-user perspective. RSA tokens have been on smart devices for some time now. DOD companies use them on laptops, even they have sent many thousands of their workers to work from home, except for those who need to work onsite in a secured facility.