After announcing the cloud-based Windows 365 service last month, Microsoft this week opened general access to the subscription service – and it seems to be quite popular. So much so, in fact: Microsoft has already had to halt free trials because of soaring demand for the service.
The cloud-based setup lets users stream Windows 10 (and, soon, Windows 11) across work and personal devices through the cloud. However, that now all seems in jeopardy as demand for the service exceeds Microsoft's ability to cope with it.
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Explaining the situation via Twitter, Microsoft’s Scott Manchester said: "We have seen an unbelievable response to #Windows365 and need to pause our free trial program while we provision additional capacity."
While no one can predict how popular a service will be upon its launch, it does seem that Microsoft has been unwittingly overrun with signups to its Windows 365 trial, unable to cope with early demand. Hitting max capacity after only a single day of signups probably doesn't fill users with confidence over the future utility of the cloud-based service.
Things come to a standstill
Before Microsoft slammed on the proverbial brakes to its trial, users could grab access to the Windows 365 Business and Enterprise Cloud plans, which start at $31 per user per month. The Windows 365 pricing page shows several setups that users can choose from, including a top-end package costing $158, which provides a setup of eight vCPUs and 512GB of storage, amongst other top-end specs. Fingers crossed that Microsoft can get the service back up and running once again soon, so it can resume normal business and cater for more signups.
All of this is occurring during a hyper-busy period for Microsoft, as it gives Windows 11 a beta test release during a period of time where the firm could be making things slightly more difficult for Windows 11 than it presently needs to.
