Ph30nix, on 29 July 2015 - 07:17 PM, said:
a completely new product coming out that you can choose to buy or not buy is not a subcription service. THere is a reason people are still using and doing just fine with XP, Vista and such.
With Windows 10 once you upgrade you are at their mercy, they have stated that you will get "free" upgrades for the life of the device. They have yet to make any BINDING statement as to what that means. While some people are think it will be for however long you can keep your PC running the majority of people in the industry have said it will more than likely only be 2 years, at most 4. After that you will be forced to pay to continue getting updates. Even if its an update to fix a critical flaw that was in the product from day 1.
they have also said anyone who doesnt keep upto date on their updates (either of their own choice or because they didnt pay for them) will not be able to get future updates. Also they will lose access to many windows features. Which again they have NOT stated what features they mean.
Mark my words the other shoe is going to drop within a year or so once they have enough people switched over.
While a move to a subscription service operating system makes sense from a business model standpoint, there is a limit to what the market will bear, and Microsoft's primary source of revenue is in business and government contracts.
If I had to guess, Microsoft will probably do something along the lines of role Xbox Live, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Windows into a 'all for one' package where you pay monthly, quarterly, twice-annually, or annually for all included services at the same rates that Xbox Live currently functions at.
I could be incorrect, there, and they keep those lines of service billing separate, but in either case, the market will not bear $200/year for an OS. $50/year would be pushing it, and that is going to be felt considerably hard in midwestern areas with both lower costs of living and smaller incomes.
Ultimately, the cost to Microsoft to produce updates and services to their operating system doesn't change regardless of how many people are subscribed to it or not. If 20% of the market is subscribed at $80 then it's inferior to 80% of the market being subscribed at $25.
Further, they would have to ultimately allow for re-subscription after falling out of subscription. They might have some kind of 'additional service fee' or something, but if they allow new subscriptions, then they have to allow re-subscriptions to some extent.
I'm not saying that what you suggest is impossible... but it would be the same kind of market maliciousness that cost them with Xbox One and Window 8. They had to do some serious backpedaling and were told by the market to take their strong-arm marketing and stuff it.
If they didn't learn from it - then they deserve to do something stupid and get hemmed in by it.
I just don't see them having an unreasonable marketing approach to it.
And, as has been said, the main attraction, here, is to business owners. Changing over to a new operating system is a huge business hassle that gets caught up in years of "should we?" "do we need to?" - and a subscription model fixes that. "We use Windows 10, and even when upgrading hardware, we don't have to get wound up over any changes to the operating system."
From that aspect, looking at the OS as a subscription service is a blessing.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the smaller license packages intended for home users and small businesses are something like 1 license for 6 years for $120 - which would not be unlike a current OS purchase. Or 3 licenses for 2 years for $120.
This is not unlike what Antivirus companies do, already. You get updates through the length of your subscription and then have to re-subscribe to get updates.
Perhaps I'm still too naive to be appropriately cynical, yet.
7
