Hi,
We are currently evaluating Amazon Workspaces and I was wondering if Microsoft is planning a similar DaaS offering anytime soon?
We're a small company therefore we love the idea of simplicity as well as ease/speed of deployment of Amazon Workspaces. No need to configure servers and invest in layers and layers of technology -- as in the case with VMWare. We don't want to be in the business of managing servers/desktops, we just want to use them.
I'm aware of some articles that cover how to set up terminal services on virtual machines on Azure. That would take us back to managing servers. We love the fact that in Workspaces, we can just go to the portal and provision a new desktop. However, that's the extent of what we love about Workspaces. We've found lots of limitations about Workspaces e.g. no AD integration yet so no single sign-on, no group policies so if we create a new Workspace, we'd have to install all the apps manually, and the list goes on.
Would love to see an Azure based solution where we could just log into the portal and select an image from the catalog just the way we do with servers and within minutes provision desktops -- preferrably both Windows 7 and Windows 8 -- that we can join to our domain/AD.
Is this something we can expect from Microsoft or should we keep praying that Amazon comes through?
Thanks, Sam