Windows 10

Since when does a company known for making a profit start giving an item away for free at the loss of major revenue..........

Something hasn't been sitting well with me at all with these commercials about Microsoft giving away "Windows 10" to anyone with Vista, Win 7 & Win 8........At my age, I have used ever version of Windows since the beginning(even fought and stomped my feet on the first version, no way am i giving up my DOS prompt).......And not once have I ever seen Microsoft give an upgrade away for free, let alone on this level.....even when they knew there was a screwed up prior product.

Okay........So if 50 million upgrades of WIN 10 were purchased at 100 bucks(normalized cost), that would be 5 billion in lost revenue, just for the U.S. customer base.........

This is a huge loss, this wouldn't just be done out of the goodness of their heart. Big Business and Microsoft specifically aren't known for this type of action. It effectively gives everyone with a current Windows operating system a free upgrade, world wide........WHAT?.......

So if it isn't money, and it isn't a defective product.....What is the motivation?.........What is in that operating system that they want EVERYONE to have......?

Is it tied to the privatization of the NSA spying program? Ensuring that there is a back door into everyone's system.....Because if Microsoft gets say $1,000 per client......now that would be a Huge Motivational factor......

Regardless......something stinks about this Free Upgrade Offer......

Anyone in the tech business have some insight?

Hereis a good article on the topic.

They're giving up on short term profits to go for the long term profits.

Windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade, yes. If you upgrade within a year of the update.

The thing about it is, this is going to be the last Windows version you can purchase, and it is going to have mandatory, automatic updates.

After Windows 10, comes Windows. Windows is going to be a subscription service.

This is where Microsoft is going to see their profit. Remember what I said about Windows 10 have automatic, mandatory updates? One of those updates is going to be switching a user from Windows 10 to Windows. Which means you're going from a product that was either free or you paid a 1 time fee for, to a service that you have to pay monthly/yearly for, and you're not going to have any say in it.

Major online games have and do give away the core experience for free and make their profit off of micro-transactions.
User expectations have changed due to Linux or other OS's being free.
I have no issues at all with Microsoft finally giving an OS away for free, for the first year and I find nothing nefarious about it.
It just means that their business model has been forced to change.

I agree with the OP however, I believe since I don't trust Microsoft or our government, I would have to believe Microsoft has build in back doors for the NSA to spy on all of us. They can keep their free windows, I will not upgrade.

The core MS operating system won't have any backdoors as they have to pretty much turn over the source to any national government upon request so the real place where they want to get info is in the middle so when you send a message to someone else its decrypted and read by the relevant spook agencies and then reencrypted for the final end of the trip

Try using office 365 where there is no internet. It's as useless as a cromebook with no internet. Now I need to go learn Raspberry Pi or something.

They are basically giving away the next OSes as with Windows 8 the new APP Store is the way to make money.

I've used pirated versions of all the Windows turned "genuine" ever since the introduction of XP. I welcome this free upgrade, it saves me some hassle this time around.

a reply to: pointr97

It bothered me too but then Ill give you some reasons why I think they have to. Chromebooks are starting to fill a gap....tablets using ios and android are filling gaps....hell look at Dells website right now under laptops. They are selling a computer with Linux preinstalled for under 300 bucks that has pretty dang good specs. I have never seen a mainstream company put linux on one of their computers. That is telling right there. Windows just isn't that important. Chrome books do everything 90% of the population needs a computer for...tablets fill a role...and linux is free. There is just less and less need for a power house Windows computer anymore with all the other choices and phones becoming so powerful they are mini computers themselves. I only use Windows cause im a huge gamer and that provides me the best platform however with Steam and Linux becoming more popular I think Windows will soon be done for me within 5 years. They have to give this away for free after how bad 8 was.


And just to add...even the microsoft suite can be replaced by Libre Office in Linux or the free Open Office in Windows. If you don't game you dont need Windows.

a reply to: rockpaperhammock
The latest articles I've read say it is actually to get people to be more willing to use a windows phone. I think that goes back to what you said about the app stores. The only time most people see windows os anymore would be on Xbox.

a reply to: Iamthatbish

Open office and Office libre work fine on win x, personally I just use notepad mostly.

They very much would like to have a mac like eco system, and that's basically what they are shooting for.

With all the nay saying aside this is probably the best microsoft OS I have seen in a long time....and I've been around since the DOS days. Spartan...errr...edge actually clocks in faster then chrome and is a lot less bloated.

The mail and weather apps generally work pretty good. I don't really use the store to often but it seems comparable to apples store.

If security is your biggest concern, you need to just go linux and install/unistall the stuff you want.

a reply to: sirChill
I used to have an open office that ran off the flash drive. I never worried about what would be available where I was. It was the greatest. There should be more of that.

a reply to: rockpaperhammock

I believe it's definitely in response to Android. I'm running Android x86 KitKat on a VM with a Quadro passed through and it's rock solid, always responsive & fast. New game consoles will be running Android (Nvidia & rumored Nintendo). And most of us just happen to be used to it with the phones. If you give the resources even XP needs to an Android, it FLIES. I have no idea why the Android x86 proponents are forced to re-compile the source Google releases for x86, I would think Google would recognize what they have here - like I suspect M$ does.

a reply to: Iamthatbish

You can run linux directly from flash if you want to Ubuntu Link,

Or you could also just run a vm-ware os on top of your installed os and use that, don't save anything on the parent OS and run everything inside the VM client. Clone, Delete, create more vm's at your leasure whenever you want, save anything important on flash or disc.

Your sort of using your primary os as a proxy at that point with the abilty to trash and make a new fresh os whenever you want.

Those are the best ways on the top of my head to stay invisible.

a reply to: SolRozenberg

They need different meta and header info because its a different linux distro.

a reply to: sirChill
That's good info thank you. I needed the open office at the time because I don't like carrying things, I needed to bring my software with me due to a few omg moments at peoples houses or libraries. It made getting homework done so much easier.

Do some research. It's free for the first year.

After reading all of the comments, I gotta say, I'm glad I switched to Debian 8 Linux distro.

originally posted by: babybunnies
Do some research. It's free for the first year.

link please