Microsoft Dev Box is a cloud-powered developer workstation

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft put PCs in the cloud last year, and now it wants developers to use a cloud-powered developer workstation. Microsoft has launched a new cloud service called Microsoft Dev Box that has apps and services for developers.

It's easy to spin up a new virtual machine with Microsoft's Dev Box because it's built on top of Windows365. The machines support any integrated development environment (IDE), software development kit (SDK), or tools that run on top of Windows.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is trying to get developers who work on projects with software conflicts and dependencies to use this. The company says that it's well-suited for desktop, mobile, internet of things, and gaming developers, and can be built using the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Anthony Cangialosi, principal group PM at Microsoft, says that with Microsoft's Dev Box, developers can create and maintain images with all the tools and dependencies they need to build and run their applications.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft has created a portal that allows developers to parallelize their work across multiple machines. To recreate a customer environment, developers are free to maintain their Dev Boxes for older versions of their apps. The ability to use start and stop schedules to automatically hibernate machines when devs log off for the day is available in local azure regions.

IT admins can use Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Intune to manage Microsoft Dev Boxes. In the next few months, a public preview of Microsoft Dev Box will be available.