The Free Windows 10 Upgrade Offer Doesn’t Extend to Enterprise

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
There’s always a small catch to good news from Microsoft. This is definitely a good news/bad news topic, unfortunately bad news for Enterprise customers. End users are still going to get the new Windows 10 upgrade free of charge, that’s the good news. The bad news is that free offer doesn't extend to Enterprise business customers.

Bummer. But if you’re using Windows 10 for Enterprise, you probably shouldn't be too surprised. Microsoft is in the business of making money off businesses.
Click to expand...
 
MajorDomo said:
There’s always a small catch to good news from Microsoft. This is definitely a good news/bad news topic, unfortunately bad news for Enterprise customers. End users are still going to get the new Windows 10 upgrade free of charge, that’s the good news. The bad news is that free offer doesn't extend to Enterprise business customers.
Click to expand...

Slight thing to catch there, the upgrade doesn't apply to Windows 7 or 8 Enterprise edition. Which is a little different from saying it doesn't apply to an enterprise. If said enterprise used the normal Professional version then they would still get it. However if they are using the enterprise edition (which means that they pay for software assurance and get all software upgrades as part of their plan already) they would not get out of paying for software assurance. Which they still get the upgrade because they are paying for it, they just have to keep paying their fees that they are paying today.
 
thelead said:
This was expected. It's a good strategy too.
Click to expand...

I agree. They have a strong hold on enterprise, and it where most of their money is coming from. It's the consumer market where they are weak, and have to give away their OS to retain customers.
 
I am hearing that KMS Servers will be obsoleted by Win10 and higher by a Microsoft hosted key management system. Anyone confirm this?
 
c0mad0r said:
I am hearing that KMS Servers will be obsoleted by Win10 and higher by a Microsoft hosted key management system. Anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...

Too soon to tell. Given that Windows Server 10 has been pushed out to early 2016, I wouldn't expect to see anything about next generation KMS until they say more about WinSrv10.

Even so my guess is that KMS functionality is likely to end up as part of a System Center SKU.
 
Well of course. Give it to all the consumer segment consumers free and now MSFT has a lot of Windows/Xbox Store potential customers. Not something that is going to be a revenue stream from Enterprise segments.
 
c0mad0r said:
I am hearing that KMS Servers will be obsoleted by Win10 and higher by a Microsoft hosted key management system. Anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...

That's hard to imagine. That could suck for machines that don't have direct Internet access.
 
If you're legally paying for Windows 7 Enterprise then you can upgrade to 10 Enterprise for the same cost. So this is completely irrelevant.
 
bigdogchris said:
If you're legally paying for Windows 7 Enterprise then you can upgrade to 10 Enterprise for the same cost. So this is completely irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Exactly, they don't get to stop paying for their software but they still get to upgrade. The point is that they don't get to stop paying for the software and get to upgrade. they are the only one still paying. But in the end they still get the software.
 
BladeVenom said:
I agree. They have a strong hold on enterprise, and it where most of their money is coming from. It's the consumer market where they are weak, and have to give away their OS to retain customers.
Click to expand...

But it's not like anyone else is selling consumer OSes these days. This has been in the making for many years as it has long been understood that at least at the consumer level, Microsoft's at cost OS model wasn't going to be sustainable as everyone else started to give away their OSes, especially at the lower end of price scale.

Consumers don't really buy OSes, they bay devices and then get free OS upgrades and Microsoft didn't really have a choice but to go with the mainstream consumer market. Which is why I doubt we'll ever see a Windows subscription, not for the host OS. Consumers aren't going to pay a reoccurring fee simply to be able to turn on their devices. However virtualized Windows subscription that can run on any device, sure I can see Microsoft getting more into that at the consumer level.
 
I'm confused, what about businesses that use Windows 7 Professional, will that qualify for the free upgrade?
 
ashman said:
I'm confused, what about businesses that use Windows 7 Professional, will that qualify for the free upgrade?
Click to expand...

Are you under a volume license? If so, then you pay. If not you are likely eligible.
 
No VL, just OEM versions of Windows 7 that came with Dell or HP systems.
 
tech net are tied to your technet / dev account if you close your tech net account those licenses deactivate. But if you still have a tech net account you should have access to the tech net build... I'm still thinking it is cool since I get one for my win 7 pro, one for my win 8 pro, and one for my win 8 laptop pos.
 
ashman said:
I'm confused, what about businesses that use Windows 7 Professional, will that qualify for the free upgrade?
Click to expand...

Since you are using Windows 7 Professional, I would expect that you will get the upgrade without any issue. The wording of the announcement here was Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 8.1 Enterprise. That is a version of windows just like Home or Professional. That is the version that would be limited, Professional should be Professional, it shouldn't care if it is OEM, Retail or VL as all are going to be licensed and not have anything special about the OS.

ghostyclaw said:
That sucks for my company hahah! Atleast it isn't my money
Click to expand...

If your company is using the Enterprise version of windows they currently are paying $X amount per month, they will continue to pay $X amount per month. Nothing changes for them.
 
drakken said:
tech net are tied to your technet / dev account if you close your tech net account those licenses deactivate. But if you still have a tech net account you should have access to the tech net build... I'm still thinking it is cool since I get one for my win 7 pro, one for my win 8 pro, and one for my win 8 laptop pos.
Click to expand...

No they don't deactivate after the service expires. But they no long offer technet so it doesn't matter anyway. That was a very dumb decision on MS part, and was how I kept myself up to date with their products so I could make recommendations at work.
 
Biznatch said:
No they don't deactivate after the service expires. But they no long offer technet so it doesn't matter anyway. That was a very dumb decision on MS part, and was how I kept myself up to date with their products so I could make recommendations at work.
Click to expand...

The problem is that people were not using the program as they intended. It was meant to be used by people to test out a configuration or to have access to it for training. However people instead used it to get themselves copies of all the software. You can still sign up for a demo version of stuff to see what it is like. But you can't get a use me forever version of everything like people were doing. It isn't stupid on their part, it is a way to close a way that people were not paying for legit copies of software.
 
Exavior said:
The problem is that people were not using the program as they intended. It was meant to be used by people to test out a configuration or to have access to it for training. However people instead used it to get themselves copies of all the software. You can still sign up for a demo version of stuff to see what it is like. But you can't get a use me forever version of everything like people were doing. It isn't stupid on their part, it is a way to close a way that people were not paying for legit copies of software.
Click to expand...

Yup, punish everyone for the abuse of a few. I'm aware people were abusing it, but to shut it all down instead of going after the abusers was stupid.

Trial versions are useless. Some problems only show up after using the product steady for a couple months, or when integrated with other systems. Plus this is my hobby at home, so I can maybe work on it once a week. So it can easily take many weeks weeks to learn/setup new software/suites. Now it's all setup but the trial license expired... What a great way to test software...
 
I'm just crossing my fingers Microsoft will allow Win 10 users to change to a Win 7 interface instead of that blocky Win 8 look. Those square boxes look so extremely unpleasant to me I'd be very hesitant to use Win 10 unless you could change the way it looks.
 
coolpurplefan said:
I'm just crossing my fingers Microsoft will allow Win 10 users to change to a Win 7 interface instead of that blocky Win 8 look. Those square boxes look so extremely unpleasant to me I'd be very hesitant to use Win 10 unless you could change the way it looks.
Click to expand...

Or you can use the open-ness of windows and install one of the MANY 3rd party apps to do just that. I don't understand how people can complain about locked down OS's that don't allow this kind of customization, but cry that MS isn't spoon feeding them the GUI they want. It's on thing if you are stuck with no options to fix. It's another to have the option to fix and just whine because you want it fixed for you.
 
Biznatch said:
Yup, punish everyone for the abuse of a few. I'm aware people were abusing it, but to shut it all down instead of going after the abusers was stupid.

Trial versions are useless. Some problems only show up after using the product steady for a couple months, or when integrated with other systems. Plus this is my hobby at home, so I can maybe work on it once a week. So it can easily take many weeks weeks to learn/setup new software/suites. Now it's all setup but the trial license expired... What a great way to test software...
Click to expand...

It was more than a few, for a moment there a good amount of the copies of things like windows on eBay was technet copies. It was probably starting to become a PR nightmare as people called Microsoft for support. It was similar reasons why they eventually moved to putting keys inside the BIOS for OEM machines, people were selling stickers scraped from old machines online, or going into stores writing down keys off of machines, and then calling in to complain when they started to make call in's mandatory for those type of keys.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top