Effective July 10, 2023, Microsoft Dev Box is generally available and comparable to Windows 365 but tailored for developers.
What is Microsoft Dev Box?
Microsoft Dev Box is used to design, develop, and test applications. It is a virtualized solution empowering developers to create self-service workstations with centralized management for security and compliance. Organizations can quickly set up cloud-based workstations, tailor them to projects, and control costs effectively. A new feature allows developers to hibernate Dev Boxes instead of shutting them down entirely, picking up where they left off later.
Microsoft Dev Box: Licensing
To use Microsoft Dev Box, each user must be licensed for Windows 11 Enterprise/Windows 10 Enterprise, Microsoft Endpoint Manager, and Microsoft Entra Plan 1 (formerly Azure Active Directory P1).
In addition to being available independently, these licenses are included in Microsoft 365 F3, Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 A3, Microsoft 365 A5, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and Microsoft 365 Education Student Use Benefit subscriptions.
Microsoft Dev Box: Pricing
Customers pay a monthly storage fee and hourly compute fee, but the aggregated cost is at the most the maximum monthly price. These three pricing components depend on the chosen Dev Box configuration.
1) Monthly storage fee: You pay a flat monthly storage fee.
2) Hourly compute fee: You pay an hourly compute fee for each hour of active usage during the month.
3) Maximum monthly price: For each Dev Box type there is a maximum monthly price and when a Dev Box’s total cost (including its monthly storage and hourly compute) reaches the level of the maximum monthly price, billing will automatically stop for that Dev Box.
More information
For the announcement of Microsoft Dev Box, please visit: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/microsoft-dev-box-is-now-generally-available/.
For pricing details of Microsoft Dev Box, please visit: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/dev-box/.
For a full article from Microsoft on Microsoft Dev Box, please visit: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/dev-optimized-cloud-based-workstations-microsoft-dev-box-is-now-generally-available/.
For useful software licensing information on Microsoft licensing programs, please visit: https://www.schneider.im/software/microsoft/.
Please contact us for expert services on your specific Microsoft agreements and to request a quote.