That’s some great testing with activation, Kari. My hat off to you, sir!
As my personal subjective opinion from a business point of view to help answer some questions is that I think MS has deliberately chosen a lenient activation policy as one of the reasons is to get 10 on as many machines/devices ASAP. “Get it free” is another. One indication is the push to get gwx upgrade program (gwx.exe/ Get Windows 10' (GWX) icon in system tray) on all 7/8/8.1 machines that when the icon is pushed one is offered “Get 10 free”. They recently reintroduced another optional update, but with a severity rating of important, of which we have to thwart off our 7/8/8.1 systems if we so desire not to have or see it. Quite pushy IMO.
Why such the push with gwx.exe and “free”? One is to attract the pirates with “free” to get them on the legally activated side. I’m sure there are a certain percentage of “pure pirates” that simply hack their way along without paying a red cent on products. Another percentage that have legit 7 keys that hacked their way with 8 and/or 8.1. And yet another is to get the legit users upgraded to 10. “Free” along with the liberated activation is pretty attractive to say the least.
OK, so why the big push for 10? Why would MS give up all that revenue instead of selling the OS? I think they’re simply mimicking the Apple and Google business models. A combination of the two really. “If you can’t beat them, then join them” type approach. Who takes tech and makes it better than what MS can? They’ve proven that over and over through the years.
Apple’s main mainstay revenue is the sale of devices. Good quality at high prices, no doubt. They also make good revenue on sales of apps, music, movies, and the like. Nothing on the OS, although it’s included in the high price of devices. In light of MS’s device event last week, they are proving they can be a “device” type company or at least a division within. IMO performing it better than Apple due to the fact that their mainstream is software products. All that they showed at the event is great, but that new Pro Book is a great piece of tech to include hardware, software, and services combined.
Google’s mainstay revenue is a search engine integrated in free Android included in cheap devices for the purpose of advertising. Their “Billions Dollar Baby”. Cortana powered by Bing is integrated into 10, although it doesn’t need to be accepted upon 10 install. Most will accept it, therefore ad revenue for MS. Well aware that, along with ads in apps, this is controversial, but if we want free apps and OS then we must accept all the pieces of the pie, otherwise we need to look elsewhere. I think the “one year free” trial period is a “wait to see how it goes for revenue” period. If MS generates enough revenue from 10 overall, then I think we can expect to see the OS continually offered for free. “Free” as in Android, OSX, and Linux free, BTW.
Just to let you know, Kari > I’m navigating the Start menu configured full screen much better now.
