New
#31
Well ... yes and no.
IF we're talking about the smartphone market, Windows phone barely even registers as a very small portion. IF we're talking about the tablet market, Windows numbers are a little better, but not much.
But ... in BOTH cases, you do not go out and buy a phone or tablet and THEN install Chrome, iOS, or Windows; instead, you buy a device that already has the OS installed. So, in these markets, making Windows free is not going to have any impact.
As to the desktop market, Windows STILL has nearly all of it -- 90% or more. And while the trade pundits go on and on about how MS only got 15% of the new desktop market shipments in recent years, that's because few people have more than one Windows desktop that they bought. I have one that is several years old, and through hardware upgrades, I've been able to keep up with the performance of more recent desktops. See no reason to spend hundreds of dollars to get something marginally faster.
MS has already said they would make upgrades FREE; but for clean installs, it's certainly reasonable for them to charge a small fee. I paid $40 for Windows 8, and something along similar lines for Win10 would make sense to me. And, once I have one ISO file, I can install using it over and over on all my PCs. So, if I spread that cost across 4 PCs, it comes out to $10 each. Very little to spend to get a new OS. I don't think fees that small are going to drive LOTS of folks out of Windows into Macs, or Android PCs.