[cartoonfoxes]

> Most of those are products that are not expected run over night in batching mode.

I'll be sure to let them know that long-running computations deskside are now only an experimental feature /s

In all seriousness though, we've managed over a decade without the need for dedicated compute nodes along with the costs that would entail. The only case I can make for that right now is that current Windows now ships with unpredictable uptime.

[rhodysurf]

The good part of this is that I prefer using Linux for these things anyways and the instability of windows has forced both our government clients and our office to focus half our efforts into supporting Linux correctly.

[glenneroo]

Good luck if you're in a branch which has Windows-only software, such as 2D/3D graphics. Blender is definitely offering some good competition, but as I hear it from CG artists, it's still not quite there yet for most projects. If your pipeline is dependent on Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator or After Effects, then you are also stuck with Windows. Rendering (2D or 3D) jobs can often take days if not weeks to finish.