Windows 10 Will Be Free for Personal Users‏

[White Stripes]

http://news.filehippo.com/2014/10/windows-10-will-free-personal-users%e2%80%8f/

Windows 10 Will Be Free for Personal Users‏

It looks like Microsoft will take a note from Apple’s book and make Windows 10 (also Windows 9) free for all consumers. Notice the last bit? Yep, Microsoft will still offer paid features and upgrades for enterprise, the one market they can count on.

Enterprise has been stuck in this time-lapse where Windows XP is still acceptable, but throughout the past half decade, we have seen a steady move to the new age-old option: Windows 7, which will probably last longer than Windows XP if Microsoft doesn’t hit a home-run with Windows 10.

the technical preview is a fast os just ugly as sin... but this free stuff? um... im taking this one with a large grain of salt... theres gonna be a catch to it no matter how you slice it....

[silicon_toad2000]

microsoft and google walk into a bar.
microsoft demands to see everyones license and sue's everyone who doesn't have one
google gives everyone a free cookie and tracks them forever...

maybe microsofts learnt how the software ecosystem is working these days, free os wins consumers over from apple and gives them skype, windows live, internet explorer, bing search...
people use windows at work, a lot are resistant to learning a new os for their home machines so microsoft has a captive market.
they have a lot of ground to get back from apple, but they might make a dent in some pirate incomes.
it will be interesting to see the fine print, it's not april is it?

[Pri]

The way Microsoft hopes to make money is by taking a 30% cut of all software sold for the Windows platform. Their intention is clear, give the OS away for free so it has a large install base and then make the money back by having those customers use the built in "Windows Store" which sells 3rd party software at a 70/30 split.

This is the same way Apple has done it on the Mac. Mavericks last year was free, Yosemite this year was also free. Apple is making money hand over fist from the Mac App Store which has been included in the last 5 major releases of OS X and in iOS since 2008.

It's a smart strategy really. It will get more people to upgrade. And I have to hand it to them the Windows Store is a good idea because a single application installed within it can also run on the Windows Phone and a Tablet with a touch screen. Gives value to consumers by stopping developers from double or triple dipping for the same software.

I've personally tried the Windows 10 Preview and the Windows Server 10 Preview. Both are marked improvements over Windows 8 and Windows 2012 R2 which I use in my home at the moment. I'm looking forward to upgrading next year.