Windows 10: Windows As A Service Changes the IT Experience

Windows 10 is a paradox — an operating system that is ushering in the post-operating-system computing environment.That's not through any special feature in Windows 10, but rather, through the very model of the operating system itself. Microsoft has positioned the operating system as "Windows as a Service." So instead of the operating system being the bedrock platform upon which a computing environment is based — and having that bedrock shift and recon gure with updates and revisions every few years — this new model is based on smaller, more frequent semi-annual updates.

The shift to Windows as a Service (WaaS) is a response to the realities of modern computing: new security, management, and deployment challenges pop up all the time, and so they have to be addressed more often than once every few years.

It's also an acknowledgment that the computing landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said repeatedly, we live in a mobile- rst, cloud- rst world.

And WaaS reflects a new reality: IT jobs have shifted from skill-based positionsto service providers  As a result, the nature of the IT job has shifted from mastering and expanding several different forms of technical expertise to introducing and supporting IT services as a way to advance business processes.

This report outlines the fundamental shift in how IT professionals will do their job, and the new skills they’ll bring to bear in their roles as they work to implement Windows 10 before the January 2020 cutoff date for Windows 7 support.