For those who want less bloatware, there's a thread about Microsoft Windows crippling the Pro version.
Someone mentioned buying Windows 10 Enterprise E3 as an alternate, and that anyone could get the pricing. Unless I'm mistaken, you have to use a vendor, a Cloud Solution Provider channel, to get it.
I haven't used Windows 10 Enterprise E3, but I'll make some educated guesses.
For power users wanting more control, running IAAS "infrastructure as a service" is usually in the Enterprise realm, not for home users. Given the lack of customers doing this, the various vendors may be willing to do it for an individual.
From Microsoft blog today:
Here's a snippet from Microsoft's web page, with emphasis added
Today, we are announcing Windows 10 Enterprise E3 in CSP. Starting this fall, businesses can get enterprise-grade security and management capabilities at just $7 a seat per month for the first time through the Cloud Solution Provider channel.
CSP partners will be able to provide a subscription to Windows 10 Enterprise Edition as part of a managed service offering, which is ideal for businesses who do not have dedicated IT resources or limited IT staff, and want their licensing and IT needs managed by a trusted and experienced partner.
As far as "a trusted and experienced partner" in New Zealand, of the three I can identify I don't like any of the vendors as cloud providers. I believe this is Intergen, Exeed and IBM.
According to Exeed profiles I've read, and looking at their website, they have less than 100 employees, seem to be almost exclusively a hardware reseller / distributor. An NBR article implied that in 2015, perhaps 2% of their revenue was from cloud services, and that was in business intelligence, not in IAAS. They were involved in a nasty sounding legal dispute in 2012.
Regarding the next vendor Intergen, in a cruel twist of fate they have been my cross to bear for 14 years. I've supported a number of large Intergen system for a number of their largest customers. Make no mistake, Intergen core business has always been software development. My experience is they always relied on the customers' hardware resources and know barely enough to make requests: "can't you just open up the firewall or something." I'm pretty sure that Intergen employs about 1 system engineer for every 50 programmers.
I'm not going to go into details, but I know one of Intergen's largest customers, perhaps their largest customer, is very unhappy and is dropping them as a preferred vendor within days.
The last vendor IBM is a bit of a mystery. I get the impression IBM NZ is desperate for a cash flow. IBM has built massive data centres, but they are mostly empty.
My friend works for one of the largest District Health Board, "DHB", as a senior engineer. By his accounts the DHB is one of only a few firms using the IBM data centre.
The DHB used IBM as their IAAS cloud provider, however the promised savings have evaporated as IBM "nickel and dimed" them to death. Their role has been substantially reduced to the point where they only runs some of their security. For DHB's they seem to be in disfavour and on the outs.
In this press release, you'll notice IBM emphasizes "less outages" rather than "cheaper."
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/nz/en/pressrelease/46101.wss
Other smaller DHB's have apparently gotten wind of the larger DHB's experience with IBM, and are reluctant to follow suit.
However the political winds may change, as IBM is lobbies the DIA and health minister heavily, so the politicians may give various IT departments no choice.
(On a personal note I dislike IBM for their years of massive layoffs of older experienced IT professionals, and hiring of cheap inexperienced recent graduates overseas. IBM lost a case for US $1.5 million in 2014 for age discrimination.)
Here's a more balanced article than Microsoft announcement called "Microsoft amps up Windows-as-a-subscription effort"
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3094832/windows/microsoft-amps-up-windows-as-a-subscription-effort.html
As I said, all this is just my opinion, and I haven't used Windows 10 Enterprise E3.
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