The Future Of Microsoft Depends On Windows Being Free

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Here we go again with the Windows should be free argument. Despite the fact that there have been free operating systems out there for years, Microsoft has been able to sell Windows at a premium and rake in a ton of money. I don't see a "free" version of Windows coming for a long time. Do you?

Microsoft has remained quiet on what its plans for Windows pricing in future, but did make it free for users to upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1 and we know the upgrade from 8 to 10 will be free, but will this continue? The company recently unveiled Windows 10 but didn’t detail whether it would be another free upgrade or not; however, it almost certainly must be a free upgrade for most Windows users.
Click to expand...
 
If Windows ever becomes free I see it tracking user activity. They'd have to make up the loss somewhere.
 
Free but if you want updates, patches and add-on's those will cost you.
 
I keep imagining annoying ads like most free Android apps have.
I don't mind paying for something new/better as long as it's justified. Especially something as important as my OS.
 
If we want privacy and local user accounts into the future we need to be willing to PAY for the product.

MS is already doing "nearly free" licenses for small screen devices and frankly that's no solution. They're hurting my business by making disposable appliance Windows device price competitive against low end PCs with $100 licenses. That doesn't help, it just makes stores not want to sell PCs with the full licenses.

I can see them providing, specifically, the phone version OS free... they might have to in order to play catch up but just because Google has a model, doesn't make it the RIGHT model forevermore. Someday we're going to wake up and wonder where data privacy went. And by that I mean ANY data privacy.
 
The article doesn't address too many issues with this:

- How would MS monetize the operating system? Apple's is subsidized by their hardware premiums and Android's is subsidized by the advertising revenue. Linux is free because it isn't a business and doesn't have shareholders or employees to pay.

- Would the EU even allow MS to offer their operating system for free? The MS competitors would almost certainly sue them for anti-competitive practices if they offered it for free. And a free OS with a dominant market position would look anti-competitive

- Could MS offer the same level of service with a free OS or would it become like a F2P game? It is free but if you don't pay money then you can't really do much.
 
It shouldn't be free but charging $50 for a new OS would be reasonable. Office is another product that is much too expensive. Sure home and student can be affordable but Office Pro is way too pricey.
 
I don't see the big deal. It's not like there's a new version of Windows every year, and it's not like the asking price is some horseshit like Adobe software.
 
kbrickley said:
The article doesn't address too many issues with this:

- How would MS monetize the operating system? Apple's is subsidized by their hardware premiums and Android's is subsidized by the advertising revenue. Linux is free because it isn't a business and doesn't have shareholders or employees to pay.
Click to expand...

Linux is free because it isn't a business and doesn't have shareholders or employees to pay
Click to expand...

SHAREHOLDERS
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
If it's made free, the main reason this would happen is due to the massive amount of money flowing into Microsoft from the NSA and other government spook agencies for more expansive data mining and greater spying capabilities.
 
MS is moving to a subscription model like Office.

And there´s already bingdows 8 for tablets, that's the market I can see a free version of windows.
 
Damn right. This is 'merica after all. I want what I want and I want it now; and it damn well better be free.

:rolleyes:
 
I don't get why people feel so entitled to a free OS. If it's free, extra bonus. I don't expect it to be free.

People have to get paid. Microsoft is a corporation that needs income to please shareholders and their employees. They aren't open source where changes can be made by hobbyists.
 
"Being Free" is such a bad description. Free to use, perhaps, and have it become UNSAFE to use? Because we all do know that "security" is an "issue" that requires on-going payments, like paying the mob.

Thinking Windows could be "free" including updates is short-sighted to me. Someone has to pay. Hmm, maybe make the install free and just have poor or unwilling people be "unsafe". Sounds like the ticket.
 
i support an al a cart subscription model for windows
 
bundle windows, office, and give it a competitive price with some sort of family sharing plan and i'm down
 
Steve said:
Here we go again with the Windows should be free argument. Despite the fact that there have been free operating systems out there for years, Microsoft has been able to sell Windows at a premium and rake in a ton of money. I don't see a "free" version of Windows coming for a long time. Do you?
Click to expand...

I agree, and I have no problem paying a company a fair price for a fair product.

Still, MS does some things that challenge my concepts of fairness now and then :D
 
People need to stop asking things to be free. How did we get to this point? Are we all just entitled f**ks now?
 
I think consumer Windows upgrades will become free, that's not a big business anyway and it's possible that more money could be made buy getting more consumers to buy apps in the Windows Store. OEM licensing is a bigger financial concern from Microsoft's standpoint but even here we're seeing much lower licensing fees and even free versions of Windows.
 
kbrickley said:
The article doesn't address too many issues with this:

- How would MS monetize the operating system?
Click to expand...
Here we go again with the let's shed tears for MS's monopoly routine. It makes me want to vomit.

I would never claim MS or any company should give its flagship product away free of charge, but I've asked this question three or four times now on this site and nobody has offered an answer yet: Can you please explain why MS is justified in licensing Windows per machine, when OEM licensing legally absolves them from any support or other expense liabilities associated with that licensing? After 12 years of asking the only responses I've gotten have been "because they can" and "because they're greedy".
 
I don't mind paying for windows and I don't think being free would do the operating system justice. I do feel a couple hundred bucks per machine (retail) is money grubbing. I think $40-$50 bucks per machine, or a $200 install-as-many-times-as-you'd-like version would be best. And by best, I mean "making people part with their money."
 
JeffDC said:
Can you please explain why MS is justified in licensing Windows per machine, when OEM licensing legally absolves them from any support or other expense liabilities associated with that licensing? After 12 years of asking the only responses I've gotten have been "because they can" and "because they're greedy".
Click to expand...
Sounds like you got your question answered but just didn't like what you got. It's business, they made the rules, and people purchase it under those rules. There is always Linux.
 
xJ321x said:
Sounds like you got your question answered but just didn't like what you got. It's business, they made the rules, and people purchase it under those rules. There is always Linux.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The price of almost anything is based on what the market will bear. And it's not like Microsoft simply sends OEMs a Windows disc and then expects to paid for every install and that's that. Microsoft does provide a lot of support to its OEMs in technical support, product development and marketing.
 
Free means Microsoft has to go to Google levels of creepdom and privacy invasion by doing stuff like recording every keystroke you make, site you visit, and all the sound + video the microphone and cam pickup in order to earn monies to continue development. I'd like to not see that kind of Microsoft exist so I'm all for them asking for moolahs. If I want free, I'll download a copy of Mint, Ubuntu, Puppy, or whatever.
 
JeffDC said:
Here we go again with the let's shed tears for MS's monopoly routine. It makes me want to vomit.

I would never claim MS or any company should give its flagship product away free of charge, but I've asked this question three or four times now on this site and nobody has offered an answer yet: Can you please explain why MS is justified in licensing Windows per machine, when OEM licensing legally absolves them from any support or other expense liabilities associated with that licensing? After 12 years of asking the only responses I've gotten have been "because they can" and "because they're greedy".
Click to expand...


Because they're in business to make money. As an aside, there's really nothing wrong with a business charging what the market will bear.

Buy the "Full" license for $20 more if it meets your needs better. It comes with at least 8 mobo upgrades and is not tied to a processor. It's what I had to do to get what I want. Such is the nature of Justification...;)
 
All these years and people still say "But that's the way Apple does it." You mean charge a premium on a system you can only buy from them and are unlikely to ever want or need to move that OS license to a different system because it also came with the OS?

There's marketing wish-land and then there's the reality that software and operating systems don't write themselves, so someone's going to pay for at least part of it.
 
Even if they did it would be some bastardized home sku anyway. Premium/domain joined/techies will probably have to shell out of the ultimate version...
 
tazeat said:
Even if they did it would be some bastardized home sku anyway. Premium/domain joined/techies will probably have to shell out of the ultimate version...
Click to expand...

I never did get why people who don't have a domain controller want a version of Windows that can join a domain. *hides Windows 7 Professional*

Seriously, I've used the various flavors of Windows 7 and there's really nothing that Ultimate adds that I even miss if I'm using the for home version.
 
snowcrash said:
People need to stop asking things to be free. How did we get to this point? Are we all just entitled f**ks now?
Click to expand...

people want everything free, especially digital products. but of course they want to get paid for whatever shitty and redundant task they do all day at work.
 
Ya this argument doesn't make any sense. Here is why, the future of windows has NOTHING to do with windows. It has everything to do with mobile. Its not even remotely complicated whom ever wins the mobile race will use that to leverage their way up into bigger devices. And let me say mobile means phones, not tablets, not anything else it means phones. Tablets are never going to be able to separate from phones who ever is winning with phones will see similar results with tablets.

So the point is MS needs to take the money they are making on the windows OS and POUR that into breaking into the phone market. If that means paying off sprint, Verizon and ATT to put giant windows phone displays up like apple has so be it, if it means developing or paying developers to copy or make windows phone versions of the all the top apps then they have to do it. If it means selling phones at a loss to break in then then it must be done. They need to put pressure on every angle to get windows phone out there. If it doesn't happen it will just be a long slow painful death. And most importantly they need to top end phones shipping with a windows phone option on release day. They need a windows phone galaxy note 4 on OCT 17th.

If I was MS I would actually try to design something like Ubuntu has where you can install windows on many if not all phones with an easy step through the process installer. Since they are giving the OS away anyway wont harm them any.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I never did get why people who don't have a domain controller want a version of Windows that can join a domain. *hides Windows 7 Professional*

Seriously, I've used the various flavors of Windows 7 and there's really nothing that Ultimate adds that I even miss if I'm using the for home version.
Click to expand...

There are other issues like remote desktop, extran languages etc.... throughout the years MS has taken this in a bad direction because the confusion the multiple products cause and lack of certain features IMO has harmed their OS brand and forced people to external solutions.
Take remote desktop for instance. No one in the normal public even freaking knows what the deal with this shit is because they change sides on how they will treat it all the time and which OS it is included. It should have been free in every OS all the time. Because the advantages of RDP would have resulted in better support for MS products. If everyone knew about it and could use it then 10 year olds could fix grandmas computer remotely.

Extra languages was another issue. who the hell cares what language you want MS? You want everyone in every language using your OS.
 
JeffDC said:
Here we go again with the let's shed tears for MS's monopoly routine. It makes me want to vomit.

I would never claim MS or any company should give its flagship product away free of charge, but I've asked this question three or four times now on this site and nobody has offered an answer yet: Can you please explain why MS is justified in licensing Windows per machine, when OEM licensing legally absolves them from any support or other expense liabilities associated with that licensing? After 12 years of asking the only responses I've gotten have been "because they can" and "because they're greedy".
Click to expand...

How else would you license the OS? In all the times you have ranted about this you have never offered a better solution.

Oh and before you say as subscription everyone here seems to hate that as seen by their reactions to office 365.
 
Matthew Kane said:
Windows becoming free?

hmmm...lets see and think about it...

hmm never.
Click to expand...

It's already free in some situations for OEMs. The next logical step would be free upgrades for consumers. I don't see how much choice Microsoft has in the matter and it's not like it's a big hit to them as consumers generally don't upgrade versions of Windows anyway on existing hardware. At least with free consumer upgrades there's a possibility of making some money via the Windows Store that wouldn't other wise be the case.
 
Don't care about OEM's, only care about us; the consumers. Which is what my previous post meant.
 
Any "free" version of Windows would be slow bloated with advertising or completely void of features I wouldn't want to use it anyways.

I'd rather pay $120 once every few years and have a normal OS.
 
bigdogchris said:
Any "free" version of Windows would be slow bloated with advertising or completely void of features I wouldn't want to use it anyways.
Click to expand...

But that's not the case today with free OEM versions which tend to be very clean installs as they are typically for resource constrained devices.
 
I agree that MSFT needs to make money. The company answers to the shareholders. If they do not charge for their software, they would need another business model such as ads, premium upgrades, etc.
I always buy the OEM versions. It would be nice to get a "family plan" - but I supposed most people buy computers already built with the OS installed. (Referring to your Dells, HP's, etc.)

Apple's model involves selling you Apple computers. Do we want Microsoft computers (and a locked down OS to go with it?) I don't think we do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top