Η ιστορία αυτή έχει ξεκινήσει πριν την κυκλοφορία των Windows 10, από τότε που η Microsoft ανακοίνωσε για πρώτη φορά, ότι το νέο λειτουργικό της σύστημα θα διανέμεται as a service (σαν υπηρεσία) και θα είναι δωρεάν για τους users των Windows 7, 8 και 8.1.
Does Microsoft Mummies Us? Others are still confident that the Redmond company will begin sending invoices immediately after the end of the annual offer to all those who have installed Windows 10.
Is it really good to be true?
Skeptics using the above phrase are now convinced that Microsoft's free Windows 10 is a trap. Their argument usually states:
Windows as a service, for me, means that they will charge for a subscription or similar, so you can use them on your computer. Microsoft will do a very basic functionality for free, but if you want to do more, you will have to pay for the subscription. This is the master plan.
Sounds reasonable.
But what is wrong with this argument? Windows upgrades have never been a major source of revenue for Microsoft, and turning the company to the cloud has made the event even more apparent. The chart below shows the percentage earned by the company from Windows retail licenses.
If you do not find it is the tiny orange line at the top of the smaller bar. It's how much Microsoft earns from Windows retail licenses and upgrades.
Microsoft had $93.600.000.000 in revenue in fiscal year 2015. Almost half of that total came from large companies paying for commercial licensing of server products, the Microsoft Office, and upgrades to the Windows Enterprise edition.
Other very high revenue came from cloud services (Office 365, Azure) but also devices like Surface and mobile phones.
Unlike what you have heard, Microsoft does not have Windows 10 for free. In the six months ended December 31, 2015, OEMs paid Microsoft over 6,2 $ 2 billion to install Windows 10 on new computers.
Meanwhile, in the last year for which we have data, for Windows licenses sold through retail channels. Includes upgrades, and academic editions, and 8 / 10 1 percent of total Microsoft revenue for 2015. A drop in the ocean.
Historically, those who are more likely to upgrade are likely to do so in the first few months of a new version of Windows (there are of course those waiting for the product to stabilize). This is why Microsoft has from time to time offered great discounts for instant installation of the operating system. These prices fall sharply over time for each new operating system released. The chart below shows the upgrade prices offered on the day of release for the last four major versions of Windows.
Prices for Windows upgrades, from 2006 to 2015
Windows Vista Home Premium and Business cost from 159 to 259 dollars on the day of their release. The upgrade quotes for the Vista successor, Windows 7, were launched from 50 and reached the 100 dollars for the Home and Pro versions, respectively.
For Windows 8 Pro, the upgrade upgrade was 40 dollars. Windows 8.1 was free. Now Windows 10 comes as a free upgrade for a very large number of users, which is probably measured in hundreds of millions.
Can it be true?
Microsoft is not the first to make this move. Let's talk a little about Apple.
For OS X Tiger (2005) and Leopard (2007), Apple charged 129 dollars for upgrades. The company headed 2009 when it dropped the Snow Leopard upgrade price to 29 dollars per machine.
From 2013, and the functional Mavericks, OS X upgrades are free.
All this time, we did not hear someone say that the free upgrade is Apple's trap and that it will later start charging with subscriptions.
Let's start from the beggining. Microsoft does not lose an important source of revenue. For consumers and small businesses, upgrades will be delivered free of charge in the same way that other updates are delivered.
Businesses now wanting advanced features like BitLocker Drive Encryption, the ability to connect computers to a Windows domain, and Hyper-V virtualization capabilities, pay an average of about $ 50 extra for a Windows Pro license, usually with a new PC. But this one-time cost is not a subscription.
Εν τω μεταξύ, οι μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των εταιρικών πελατών και των κυβερνητικών οργανισμών, πληρώνουν πράγματι για συνδρομές των Windows για πολλά χρόνια, χάρη σε ένα program παραχώρησης πολλαπλών αδειών χρήσης που ονομάζεται Software Assurance. Η ετήσια συνδρομή τους δίνει πάρα πολλά χαρακτηριστικά για επιχειρήσεις και δικαιωμάτων χρήσης που οι καταναλωτές και οι μικρές επιχειρήσεις δεν χρειάζονται και σίγουρα δεν θα τα πληρώσουν.
On the other hand, Microsoft with fewer versions to support it will have lower costs for technicians or developers as well as testers.
Of course, there is a subscription product that is very successful for Microsoft. The company is firmly committed to consumers and business clients beyond traditional Office licenses and Office 365. At $ 99 a year it is an extremely lucrative market.
Different from Windows, Office applications are designed to be installed on multiple devices. So that they can be productive in traditional computers, laptops and tablets. An operating system like Windows, on the other hand, is designed to run on a single device.
Yes, the cloud is Microsoft's first business model and provides many subscription software opportunities. However, Windows 10 will not be on this list.
ZDNet
