Microsoft Windows Desktop as a Service: Coming on Azure Cloud?

Rumor on the interweb suggests that Microsoft is currently developing a desktop-as-a-service offering on Windows Azure. If the word of mouth is to be believed, the new DaaS offering has been dubbed Mohoro after an island in the Indian Ocean — and it’s quite possible that the Microsoft India Development Center is heading up the project.

These are only early rumors, and according to reports, Mohoro is in the very early stages of development. Don’t expect to see this launch this year. If it really is in development, then it probably wouldn’t make it onto to Azure until sometime in 2014 — and likely later in the year, should it be true that development has only just begun.

Not that it’s proof of development of a DaaS or anything, but Microsoft does own both the mohoro.com and mohoro.net domains. Cybersquatting for the sake of it is so 1990s, so it reasons that Microsoft has some product or service in mind named Mohoro.

A Windows Azure-based DaaS from the company that helped to build the desktop market makes sense, though. And one could say Microsoft is a little late in getting such a thing to the market. The IT giant that put Redmond on the map has yet to shift Remote Desktop and Remote App capabilities to the cloud, and it’s also been rather unfriendly to channel partners that aim to provide hosted Windows 7. In fact, partners have found that hosted Windows 7 is verboten.

Does all of this point to a DaaS from Microsoft? We’ll have to wait and see for sure, but the rumors seem legit enough to warrant speculation. After all, the licensing involved in Microsoft Remote Desktop is complex, and a full-on cloud-based DaaS could play well with the Surface tablet.

Keep an eye on Talkin’ Cloud and our sister sites for further details as they arise. And maybe — just maybe — think about whether there might be channel opportunities for a Microsoft-branded DaaS next year.