Microsoft: Windows 10 will not be sold as a subscription

Slartybart said:

These folks know what they're doing.

Offer the upgrade free: people think about it
they just got a Win8 machine
or
they just bought Win7 (XP users)

Business are conservative when it comes to upgrades.
let's say that 20% take advantage of the offer, and that's probably being generous.

The year length is interesting - they must have some analysis.
It might all be to overcome the stigma of Win8 - some people might take a wait and see approach or MS figured out that is the optimal purchasing period (not all people are early adopters)

That leaves them 80% of their market who will pay for the upgrade after the year offer expires.

Other revenue streams
Sell branded services: OneDrive cloud storage, Skype credits/plans,
Ad revenue: Bing (~96% of Google revenue is ad based)
Hardware: Surface, Phone, HoloLens ....
Store Revenue: % of app$

MS knows what is at stake and they're going all in.

And on top of that, Bill, Office for iPad and Office for Android are out there for free . . . once people on Android see how good Office is, they may get a subscription.

Windows would cost an annual fee?

This question always seems to come up very often around Window beta/RTM releases for some weird reason or another

Why anyone would want to pay every month(s) or so just to use their machine is mind-boggling... "A fatal error has occurred. Please enter your Credit card to continue."

Slartybart said:

The year length is interesting - they must have some analysis.
It might all be to overcome the stigma of Win8 - some people might take a wait and see approach or MS figured out that is the optimal purchasing period (not all people are early adopters)

This didn't start with Windows 8 and dates back to pre-2000 and issues introduced by new Windows releases and/or Service Packs - It used to be standard policy for the majority of users and companies wait at minimum 12 months before even trying out those updates or newer systems as to allow time for any major bugs or other major issues to get sorted out - It would be more of an enticement to get some of those people or companies to jump on Win10 as early as possible without waiting (?)

dmex said:

.....

Slartybart said:

The year length is interesting - they must have some analysis.
It might all be to overcome the stigma of Win8 - some people might take a wait and see approach
or MS figured out that is the optimal purchasing period (not all people are early adopters)

This didn't start with Windows 8 and dates back to pre-2000 and issues introduced by new Windows releases and/or Service Packs - It used to be standard policy for the majority of users and companies wait at minimum 12 months before even trying out those updates or newer systems as to allow time for any major bugs or other major issues to get sorted out - It would be more of an enticement to get some of those people or companies to jump on Win10 as early as possible without waiting (?)

It didn't even start with anything Windows or PC related. Banks duplicated data entry on paper. It took large corporations 6 months to sign off on a plan - not to implement the plan - just to get everyone having some authority to sign off on it. Getting them to actually implement the change - well you know....

One client was all set and I was on-site when things didn't work - we went over the plan and the client "realized" that they needed a minor system update. Of course they couldn't just apply the update... I went back a year later.

Maybe a year is enough time to entice some to move - the question they'll have to ask is how does the update benefit the company. Free is good, training costs more.

My experience with large organizations is that they buy new systems. Smaller organizations without much training consideration probably fit the upgrade mold better. That is a large percent of businesses, but it's also a segment that doesn't necessarily view technology as a priority.

No argument here, really. All I intended to say was "someone at Microsoft must had figured out the best threshold"
I probably should have just said that, then :)

Bill
.

What if 10 fails?

I was just thinking back to Windows 3.0,95,98,XP,ME, etc. and I used to have a policy, I never even considered upgrading or changing my OS, unless, I had waited at least two years until after it's release. My reasoning was, "that after that amount of time...most of the bugs would have been taken care of, and it would be stable".

Gee, if I do that now, I may run the risk of it being obsolete.

dmex said:

This question always seems to come up very often around Window beta/RTM releases for some weird reason or another

Why anyone would want to pay every month(s) or so just to use their machine is mind-boggling... "A fatal error has occurred. Please enter your Credit card to continue."

That would actually be a fantastic strategy for Microsoft...

if they were trying to get people to use Linux instead of Windows. :)

Hi there.

Actually Ms are taking a leaf out of Amazons business model here -- they offer kindles now at almost below cost but make up the profit on the e-books they sell.

Services like SKY offer basically FREE Broadband for a decent period or very cheap -- but then recoup the money on people paying for services like SKY SPORTS / SKY MOVIES etc.

While W10 is NOT itself (yet) slated for subscription, Ms probably has ear marked all sorts of possible pay subscription type of content to become available. Office 365 is the most well known but I'm sure others will come along.

Offering a free upgrade is a master stroke for Ms -- a lot of people when doing an upgrade often buy other things as well. Many people upgrading from W7 (especially in a business area) might well go for Office 365 at the same time as they upgrade from W7 - especially if they are still running Office 2003 or even Office 2007.

I'm sure there will be some way of performing a clean install --if people cast their minds back to W7 days there were all sorts of tricks to ensure you managed to get a clean install even from the copy which was an "Update" version for VISTA users.

Cheers
jimbo

Superfly said:

Absolutely...
All the fancy features demonstrated will most likely not be included in the "upgrade" version.

Stuff likeolo will come at a premium ( like having to pay for Pro-pack for Core and then pay again for WMC add-on for Win 8.1 pro etc.) - at least we have options though.

So, what features will be available? How are they going to support the hardware requirements?