What a Cloud PC is
Windows 365 is Microsoft's software-as-a-service desktop: assign a licence to a user and the service automatically provisions a Windows virtual machine — a Cloud PC — that the user reaches from a browser, the Windows app or Remote Desktop on any device. In the Business and Enterprise editions each user has a 1:1 Cloud PC that keeps its apps, data and settings between sessions. Billing is a fixed per-user per-month fee rather than metered compute, which Microsoft Learn contrasts directly with 'the variability of compute and storage costs of a traditional hosted desktop model'. Australian tenants provision into the Australia East region, with Australia Southeast available as the alternate for cross-region disaster recovery (checked September 2026).
The three editions and their AU prices
Windows 365 Business is the small-business edition: no licensing prerequisites, purchasable through a CSP or web direct, capped at 300 users per tenant, with simplified provisioning and no Intune policy management. Australian list prices ex GST are AU$52.40 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB), AU$67.30 (2 vCPU, 8 GB, 128 GB) and AU$104.80 (4 vCPU, 16 GB, 128 GB) per user per month, and Microsoft is advertising 20 per cent off select Business plans for new customers for a limited time (checked September 2026). Windows 365 Enterprise adds full Intune management, custom images and virtual-network options at AU$58.00, AU$76.70 and AU$123.50 for the same sizes, with a GPU-enabled Standard tier at AU$579.90; each user must also be licensed for Windows E3, Intune and Entra ID P1. Windows 365 Flex — the new name for Frontline — lists at AU$78.60 per licence per month for a 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 64 GB Cloud PC.
Flex, formerly Frontline, explained
Flex is the edition for people who do not need a desktop all day. Microsoft Learn describes two modes under one licence type (checked September 2026). In dedicated mode a single licence lets you provision up to three Cloud PCs, each assigned to a named user, with one concurrent session — ten licences means thirty personal Cloud PCs of which ten can be active at once, managed automatically as users sign off. In shared mode one licence provides one Cloud PC that a group of users takes turns on, with user data wiped at sign-out, and it can also publish individual Cloud Apps rather than a full desktop. Flex carries the Enterprise prerequisites — Windows E3, Intune and Entra ID P1 — and is managed only through Intune. For shift-based sites it is where the per-seat maths usually lands.
When a regional or remote-site business should use it
Cloud PCs fit Australian regional and remote-site operations in four recurring cases: sites where replacing ageing PCs means a long freight run and an IT visit, so a browser-based desktop on whatever hardware is there is the fastest fix; contractors and seasonal staff who should never hold company data on their own machine; shift-based crews on a mine, in a depot or at a clinic who can share Flex Cloud PCs; and Windows 10 fleets that cannot take Windows 11, because Microsoft grants Windows 10 endpoints connecting to a Cloud PC up to three years of Extended Security Updates with an active Windows 365 licence. Two constraints to check first: a reliable path to the Australia East region, and the outbound-data allowance — Business plans include 20 GB a month for the 4 GB and 8 GB sizes and 40 GB for the 16 GB size, after which bandwidth may be throttled.
Versus Azure Virtual Desktop
Azure Virtual Desktop is the other way to run Windows in Azure, and the difference is who carries the engineering. AVD is infrastructure you design: host pools, images, scaling rules, storage and networking, all billed as Azure consumption on top of the user's Windows licensing, with multi-session hosts that can be very cheap per user when densely packed and well managed. Windows 365 is a product you subscribe to: fixed price, 1:1 machines, provisioning and updates handled by the service, and management through the same Intune console as physical laptops. Frontrow's rule of thumb for an SMB is that Windows 365 wins under a few hundred seats or wherever there is no one to run AVD, and AVD wins where a specialist team can exploit multi-session density or needs custom infrastructure. Both let a Windows 10 endpoint keep receiving security updates as a thin client.