Okay, so we know that Microsoft is filthy rich from selling operating systems and applications (e.g. Office) to much of the world in the past. Now they give away Windows 10 as a "free" "upgrade" to Win 7 and newer. Clearly there's no profit in THAT. But being free, it allows them to be hyper-aggressive about it.
We've seen that they've built ad carrying capacity into the Metro/Modern/Universal/XAML/Bullshit environment; there are ad spaces between components in the Weather App and others, and even the lock screen could ultimately carry ads, but... From what I gather (I don't run these things myself) there are none actually appearing yet.
I doubt the App Store is actually selling enough copies of toy Apps to be remotely profitable yet (am I off base here?)
In short, I am not seeing a way they're making any money with Windows 10 yet.
The inevitable question looms:
When is the shoe going to drop?
Once NNN,NNN,NNN users are running Windows 10? After XX% of Windows 7 users upgrade?
If you think Windows 10 sucks NOW, just wait until Microsoft starts aggressively trying to drain profits from it.
Interestingly, we don't see this discussed much.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Actually, that's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, since if they were to no longer offer it for free, then they would not be able to be nearly as aggressive about pushing "updates" to bring it into existing users' systems.
What that says to me is that toward the end of the first year Microsoft will undoubtedly, "out of the goodness of their hearts", extend the "free upgrade" offer. They will not be able to back down from their current stance, which simply cannot support pay-for upgrades.
Microsoft will encourage bundle deals like Office 365 subscriptions that bring income for Microsoft. They will also bring additional services to the product.
"Windows accounts for only 25 percent of Microsoft's business, which makes it only the third most important product in its portfolio. Office continues to be the number one cash cow with 32 percent, while Server & Tools comes second with 26 percent.
As far as customers are concerned, enterprises get no less than 55 percent of this business, while consumers account for only 20 percent.
Microsoft has said on several occasions that enterprises are the ones bringing in the cash, so consumers aren't exactly the number one source of profit for the Redmond-based software giant.
Selling Windows licenses to consumers is clearly less important than selling them to enterprises, and it's easy to see why.
Organizations and companies usually purchase many more licenses, in most of the cases for the top products and versions, and are willing to spend more for support and additional services.
And here's the secret behind the free Windows 10 offer. Consumers will be indeed allowed to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge, but this isn't the industry that brings Microsoft the bacon.
Exactly! I would be shocked if Microsoft actually extended the free upgrade period. Instead, I fully expect them to do exactly what they said they would do: Make Windows 10 a recommended update this spring that would install automatically along with the security updates on systems configured to update automatically. Then, mid-summer after the push "has worked its magic", the free upgrade offer will expire as announced a year ago. If they're good about it, GWX will be uninstalled too. We'll see on that one!
That's why it is important for people who don't want their systems upgraded to opt out of the upgrade the correct way (or disable updates entirely). Microsoft didn't make everybody's computers download Windows 10 for nothing. They fully plan to launch that downloaded, but dormant installer on people's PCs sometime early 2016, and hope that most people can't figure out how to stop it soon enough to cancel installation.
Last Edit: Dec 7, 2015 21:36:18 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
So what, do you think then they'll push stuff into the older systems to make them more and more unstable? Anyone who hasn't upgraded for "free" by then sure as hell isn't going to buy Win 10 without a reason.
At the rate the abomination is being adopted, it looks like they'll have only about 20% of the people duped into it by the end of July, 2016.
I hope not. At least with Windows 7 and 8 it's not like we can't uninstall such malicious updates should the come in the future.
Regarding Windows 10 marketshare come August 2016, I am thinking that it may be in the 25-40% range. Yes, we have a pretty steady rate right now, but Microsoft hasn't unleashed the floodgates yet with their last trick: Automatic installation on all eligible, non-opted out PCs with automatic updates enabled.
Last Edit: Dec 7, 2015 21:41:38 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
<Rick> Good video. It's almost hard to believe that at one time Windows 98 was the resource hog, but even then, it still ran circles around what Windows 10 can do on today's modern hardware and look a heck of alot better doing it.
May 25, 2021 22:55:12 GMT -6
<Rick> As stated elsewhere, So much for the launch of Windows 11, "The Great Crash." Myself, I had a hard time getting into the site listed above, when I did get in, the video was partly done and then it crashed. There has been many other reports of crashing.
Jun 24, 2021 9:52:33 GMT -6
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<Rick> I see Microsoft has been very quick to pull down reports of site crashing regarding the Launch of Windows 11 on the Microsoft Insiders forum.
Jun 24, 2021 9:57:31 GMT -6
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<Rick> The rebroadcast is working okay.
Jun 24, 2021 11:00:25 GMT -6
<Rick> With reports of people being able to install the dev-edition of Windows 11 on machines not meeting spec, I thought I would give it a what-the-heck try. Lucky me, I'm caught in the downloading, doesn't meet spec, clearing, re-downloading loop on my machine!
Jul 2, 2021 7:08:46 GMT -6
<Rick> I've recently purchased a license for ArcaOS from www.arcanoae.com/ to play with. First impressions, it's still OS/2, but it now has a Linux twist to it.
Jul 2, 2021 7:32:53 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> laptop shit out and am stuck buying a new one. os win11 as fucked as win10 was?
Oct 2, 2021 12:56:10 GMT -6
<Rick> Let's see ..., my impression of Windows 11 is that it is a spruced up version of Windows 10 requiring a 64-bit processor plus a piece of security hardware that is less than 4 years old in order for it to run.
Oct 4, 2021 18:25:49 GMT -6
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<Rick> On the plus side, Microsoft is supposed to be supporting Windows 10 for some time to come for those of us still using systems with I7 or older processors.
Oct 4, 2021 18:44:35 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> i tried installing win10 om the 'shitout' pc this morning usung media creation. EPIC FAIL! went into an endless bootloop. win7 reinstalled just fine
Oct 21, 2021 11:23:38 GMT -6
<dozrguy> STILL so much bullshit and so little time for the kiddie ideas from the hill. My new laptop (MSI GE 11-UH461) would be an awesome "10" machine but because of Winblows I can only give it a "2"......wasted $3500
Oct 27, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -6
<Rick> Hello. Just checking in.
Mar 17, 2022 10:46:54 GMT -6
<isidroco> Each new w10 update adds >100000 useless files to \Windows\Servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix... folders. Even in a SSD takes time to delete that stuff. In each version they manage to worsen stuff.
Mar 27, 2022 16:14:51 GMT -6
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<dozerguy> still traffic here?
Oct 9, 2022 17:32:44 GMT -6
<Rick> No, there does not seem to be very much traffic these days. I still check in from time to time.
Oct 9, 2022 20:08:58 GMT -6