The internal presentation states: "Move Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud: Build on Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device. Use the power of the cloud and client to enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people’s digital experience."

Why would someone want to stream Windows from the cloud?

Wouldn't it make more sense to stream the data or offer a website or client application that uses cloud APIs to interact with the application running on a server?

Streaming a desktop operating system seems like a form factor mismatch. If I have a smartphone or tablet, I want a native application or mobile website that will work well with that form factor. If I am on a laptop or desktop, I have a local operating system, so why would I want to stream Windows from the cloud?

For enterprises it should be obvious: the company has much fuller control and management of all the VM images. It's easier to "reset" machines without needing users to bring physical hardware to an IT person when the "machines" themselves that are running most of the applications are "just" VMs in a cloud.

The consumer question is certainly more interesting and harder. Consumers often have some of the same "management" concerns but fewer ways to address them. How many people do you know need a "smart neighborhood friend" or a "tech savvy grandkid" to sometimes fix their systems or reset things they accidentally "broke"? I can see Microsoft saying "let us make it so your smart or tech savvy friend/relative can live anywhere" and getting at least some interest. Maybe even Microsoft has some ability to more directly say "let us be your smart/tech savvy friend" in some cases, that would get some interest too. That said, even if the interest is there to market to, I'm not sure Microsoft is actually capable of marketing it or getting a lot of buy-in, but I'm very curious to see what they are planning.

Also, I think that Microsoft is counting on the advantage that they can blur the lines between "local operating system" and "streaming from the Cloud" in ways that consumers might not even notice. For Power Users they've already started blending those lines: cloud machines can appear as alternate desktops in the existing Task View. (The ease of switching desktops on Linux, only now some of those desktops might be entire remote machines.) There are also enterprise app tools in Windows that let applications running on a remote machine appear in your taskbar like it was running locally and mostly interactable like any other local window.

I imagine consumer offerings would include a lot more blurred lines.