Amazon WorkSpaces Update – Value Bundle, Hardware Upgrade, and Office 2013

I’ve got some good news for Amazon WorkSpaces administrators and users. We are introducing new Value bundles, upgrading the existing Standard bundles, and making Office 2013 available in the Plus bundles. This is the most recent in a series of feature releases for WorkSpaces that includes Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), zero client support, and the ability to create golden images.

Value Bundle
The new Value bundle was designed to meet the needs of casual users, including those who run a browser and a productivity program or two. The Value bundle includes 1 vCPU, 2 GB of memory, and 10 GB of user storage and costs $25 per month per user. The Value Plus bundle has the same hardware specs and also includes Microsoft Office Professional; it costs $40 per month per user (these prices are for the US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon) Regions; see the WorkSpaces Pricing page for pricing in other Regions.

Standard Bundle Upgrade
We are upgrading the Standard bundle with additional hardware resources at no extra charge. All existing WorkSpaces that are running this bundle will be upgraded from 1 vCPU to 2 and from 3.75 to 4 GB of memory before the end of 2014. The upgrade will take place during the defined maintenance window for the AWS Region in which the WorkSpace is located (you’ll be notified 5 days ahead of time). The doubled CPU capacity and the extra memory should result in a meaningful and perceptible performance improvement.

The update will not affect any user data on the C: or D: drives of the WorkSpace. Users will sign in on the Monday morning following the maintenance window for this desktop to find that their WorkSpace has been rebooted and now delivers better performance.

Office 2013
All three of the “Plus” bundles (Value, Standard, and Performance) include Microsoft Office. You can now choose either Office 2010 or Office 2013 when you create a new WorkSpace.

Availability
The new bundles are available today in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Sydney) Regions.

— Jeff;