Initially, Microsoft was only touting Windows 10 S for the education market. A locked down version for Windows 10 Pro streamlined for security and performance that will help IT administrators quickly and easily setup school devices.
However, the company is now also planning to bring Windows 10 S to business customers through the Microsoft 365 program. During the Ignite 2017 conference, the company revealed a number of devices starting as low as $275 from Lenovo, HP, and Fujitsu running Windows 10 S.
And according to Microsoft, organizations will benefit from self-service deployment and easy management while reducing the total cost of ownership.
Thus far we’ve seen only a handful of affordable devices from a number of Microsoft partners and the Surface Laptop that are aimed to the education market running Windows 10 S.
Now, it’ll be interesting to see if businesses will find the value they need, as this new variant is limited to run only apps from the Store and Microsoft Edge as the default web browser, when usually, organizations run custom traditional and older apps.
Alongside the new devices, Microsoft announced that sometime next year there will be a new variant of Windows 10 Enterprise, which will be known as Windows 10 Enterprise in S mode. Basically, it’ll be a version of Windows 10 S but with Enterprise features, similar to the original Windows 10 S that includes Windows 10 Pro features.