Microsoft Offering Windows For Free

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It looks as though Microsoft is giving away Windows for free to hardware makers to use on phones and tablets with screens under nine inches.

The company has announced that Windows will be free for hardware makers to use on phones, tablets with screens under nine inches and Internet of Things devices. Suffice it to say that this is a huge move for a tech giant whose operating system licensing is arguably its bread and butter. Microsoft is obviously willing to take a financial hit to compete against Android, Chrome OS and other freely available platforms.
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What about all the people with more than 9 inches? This is the worst kind of discrimination
 
Well, Netscape and Sun are no more, thankfully, and Google and Apple aren't likely to complain, are they?..;) (Well, who knows *what* trips Apple's trigger.)

@dgz
I'll have you know I have way more than nine inches, thank you!
 
Statistically most are less than 9". I'm probably the exception at 12.2".
 
Great move, from my understanding anyone running android has to pay fees to MS for the patients. If they don't want to pay fee's they can just use windows OS on the phone.

Smart move.
 
I bought my wife a Note 3. It's the most I've ever seen her satisfied with 5.7 inches.
 
Finally MS fires back at Google. Google has refused to make any apps for WP or RT but MS has never been able to fire back. Now if this takes away a lot of share from Android (and it should), Google may have no other option but to capitulate.
 
Staples said:
Finally MS fires back at Google. Google has refused to make any apps for WP or RT but MS has never been able to fire back. Now if this takes away a lot of share from Android (and it should), Google may have no other option but to capitulate.
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LMAO
 
Doe this mean windows tablets will be the same price as Android version tablets?
 
wtourist said:
Doe this mean windows tablets will be the same price as Android version tablets?
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The price difference between Bay Trail and Android tablets is small already, sometimes Windows tablets are even cheaper. Indeed I'm thinking that Microsoft was very close to giving 8 away on Bay Trail devices already. Core i3/i5/i7 will never be as cheap but that's almost all about the cost of those CPUs which Android can't do much with anyway. The 8.1 Update reduces the baseline requirements of 8 tablets to 1 GB RAM/16 GB of storage. There are of course cheap Android tablets with lower hardware requirements than this, but a lot of those are throw away crap.

$150 Windows tablets are a reality now, the question will be if they are any good. 1 GB RAM/16 GB of storage does seem very low and I doubt these things will be much good for running desktop apps. But $150 Android tablets don't natively run desktop apps at all.
 
Hopefully this will bring some more Wintel Tablets to the market. I don't like Windows RT and 8.1 is looking quite nice in the new build.
 
13593597335_a5dae76e45_o.png


:D
 
If you can't compete, dump product. Unlike their application competition in the 90's, the difference this time is the competition has the money to survive being taken to the mat.
 
jpm100 said:
If you can't compete, dump product. Unlike their application competition in the 90's, the difference this time is the competition has the money to survive being taken to the mat.
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But this is very different from the 90's from the perspective of the revenue model. Where would Google be with Android if it hadn't offered it for free? But Google never made any more from selling software. At any rate, Google no longer has a price advantage with OEMs and ironically with the licensing fees that Microsoft is getting from so many Android device makers Windows Phones and Tablets could now be cheaper than Android versions.
 
jpm100 said:
If you can't compete, dump product. Unlike their application competition in the 90's, the difference this time is the competition has the money to survive being taken to the mat.
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If your competition is giving it away free then how is it "not" competing to return the favor? Maybe you think it would be more fair if they raise the prices instead?

On a side note, anti trust suit incoming in the 3..2...1....
 
rudy said:
On a side note, anti trust suit incoming in the 3..2...1....
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Against a player with a 5% market share? That's just silly.

This is a desperation move. Microsoft had big plans of increasing Windows Phone market share to 15%. Instead, it's stayed completely flat at 5% for a year now. Complete and utter failure.
 
evilsofa said:
Against a player with a 5% market share? That's just silly.

This is a desperation move. Microsoft had big plans of increasing Windows Phone market share to 15%. Instead, it's stayed completely flat at 5% for a year now. Complete and utter failure.
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I always love have Windows phones and tablets are considered a complete failure but many of those same people see a bright future for Linux on the desktop that would love to see 5% market share after almost 2 decades.

It's going to be tough but I think the major pieces are coming into place. I don't expect miracles but getting a unified platform out across Windows based PCs, tablets, phones and Xbox is going to give Microsoft and developers some decent leverage across a lot of different devices, especially now that the barrier to entry is now on par with Android on the mobile side.
 
evilsofa said:
Against a player with a 5% market share? That's just silly.

This is a desperation move. Microsoft had big plans of increasing Windows Phone market share to 15%. Instead, it's stayed completely flat at 5% for a year now. Complete and utter failure.
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I don't think it matters what their market share is in the phone market they have hit MS for more ridiculous things. For instance everyone out there ships a free browser with their OS WITHOUT any special choice during install. Yet MS was forced to make the browser lottery. The rules that everyone else is allowed to go by never work out for MS.
 
Only the small matter of the operating system itself. If MS done this earlier they could have saved their own business when they announced surface they screwed over many other OEM.

To pretend that this is a good step needs a time travel machine because no one is going to ever produce anything with MS on it unless they pay for it. Despite Intel hardware running Android which also shows that MS missed this call by years. MS just clearly admitted that they are totally clueless about business.
 
rudy said:
I don't think it matters what their market share is in the phone market they have hit MS for more ridiculous things. For instance everyone out there ships a free browser with their OS WITHOUT any special choice during install. Yet MS was forced to make the browser lottery. The rules that everyone else is allowed to go by never work out for MS.
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Yep MS downfall is browser option. clearly that is the bread and butter of the software industry.
 
heatlesssun said:
But this is very different from the 90's from the perspective of the revenue model. Where would Google be with Android if it hadn't offered it for free? But Google never made any more from selling software. At any rate, Google no longer has a price advantage with OEMs and ironically with the licensing fees that Microsoft is getting from so many Android device makers Windows Phones and Tablets could now be cheaper than Android versions.
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But Android is built on Linux. Do you think Google invested anywhere near the resources and effort into making Android that Microsoft did Windows?
Do you think Android could make a fully functional Desktop OS and maybe its hobbled on phones but RT tablets, metro aside, could be desktops with a docking station. So from that perspective I think they are far apart. But I guess in that space if your competition is doing free, you have to as well.
 
heatlesssun said:
I always love have Windows phones and tablets are considered a complete failure but many of those same people see a bright future for Linux on the desktop that would love to see 5% market share after almost 2 decades.
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Considering the resources MS has available and that they came out with tablets a decade before Apple/Google/etc, one can easily criticize (if not the product itself, then the approach to entering the market). :p
 
rudy said:
I don't think it matters what their market share is in the phone market they have hit MS for more ridiculous things. For instance everyone out there ships a free browser with their OS WITHOUT any special choice during install. Yet MS was forced to make the browser lottery. The rules that everyone else is allowed to go by never work out for MS.
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At time Microsoft had ~ 90 market share in both browser and OS..... So I'm pretty sure that market share does matter

Freebo said:
Great move, from my understanding anyone running android has to pay fees to MS for the patients. If they don't want to pay fee's they can just use windows OS on the phone.

Smart move.
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I sure hope you don't think that it's the android users have to pay MS.....
 
MarineCorps said:
At time Microsoft had ~ 90 market share in both browser and OS..... So I'm pretty sure that market share does matter



I sure hope you don't think that it's the android users have to pay MS.....
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By the time MS as asked to implement the lottery firefox had already got way more than 10% market share and it was probably the best they had done since. The lottery was a ridiculous demand yet it was pushed through anyway as well as being late to the party. If market share had mattered the EU would have seen the clear trend of IE market share shrinking yet they didn't.
 
RealityCrunch said:
Considering the resources MS has available and that they came out with tablets a decade before Apple/Google/etc, one can easily criticize (if not the product itself, then the approach to entering the market). :p
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They have failed completely on that point. Everything they have brought to the market is late to the party trying to play catch up. They have been entirely to slow to respond to changing markets. When they do the products are great, but its always an uphill battle.
 
This stinks of desperation from a "monopoly" company that from past history gouges its customers for all they can.
 
jpm100 said:
But Android is built on Linux. Do you think Google invested anywhere near the resources and effort into making Android that Microsoft did Windows?
Do you think Android could make a fully functional Desktop OS and maybe its hobbled on phones but RT tablets, metro aside, could be desktops with a docking station. So from that perspective I think they are far apart. But I guess in that space if your competition is doing free, you have to as well.
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Well they bought android in beginning. I wonder if they put nearly as much resources towards their OS as they do supporting their services on iOS.
 
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