Microsoft Windows 10 will be available from 29th July 2015

[Bluecube]

Not to bust any bubbles, but this, along with Win 8/8.1, is the cheapest any release of Windows has been since Win 98.


There are no subsidies for Windows retail versions, period. And Win10 is in no way, shape nor form more expensive than any other release of Windows since 1998. And a $20 increase after 17 years isn't exactly through the roof.

Big whoop. The point is that it's still too expensive! The home market for new purchases of Windows is tiny compared to the OEM/ commercial sector. Windows 10 should be subsidised to the point that it's free. The money isn't in OS anymore, a fact that Microsoft tacitly admits by saying there will be no more releases of Windows, but in the services they sell such as Office 365, the server backend, etc. By charging such a high amount for Windows, Microsoft are holding back the adoption of Windows amongst the evangelists that sell Windows to everyone - us - the geeks, the family IT support person. This is a major marketing boo boo...

[ZaO]

I don't have a proper answer for that, but my intent is to make sure I have both an x86 and an x64 ISO of the latest/last preview, and hope that if they don't release an RTM ISO, that with the registered account and the last preview, it will patch over to the full version. But I honestly don't see them NOT releasing the RTM on ISO when the time comes.

I hope they do those free ISO's like 7 had (and that a W7 key can activate one). But if 10 is like 8 with all the Bios/machine locking activation type stuff, they might not :/

[Saracen]

It's still a damn sight cheaper than £150. Microsoft have really blown it with this price point which was the point I was making. If they want Windows 10 to succeed and get everyone of their pirate copies of Windows 7/8 then charging £150 won't do the job at all.

The problem is, does cutting price to "get everyone off pirate copies" make economic sense? If it would have to be "a damn sight cheaper", then I'd suggest, no, it doesn't.

If they cut that £150 down to £100, then the first thing they KNOW will happen is a 33% reduction in revenue received from all those copies that otherwise would have sold at £150. What you don't know us how many that pirate at £150 would buy it at £100. I'd suggest that if they'll pirate at £150, the vast majority will pirate at £100.

So, if they cut it to £50, how many pirates will buy? Some, no doubt, but again, I'd bet the comparison a LOT will make is between £50 and £0, will look at what 'benefit' they get from going legit, consider whether that benefit's worth £50, and considering they're currently content to pirate, probably conclude it isn't.

So, now MS have sacrificed 67% of revenue from each copy they sold, and gained .... what?

Then, consider that each new OS release costs a LOT to produce, market and maintain. All that cost has to be recovered from sales revenue (including, yes, enterprise licences, etc) but inevitably, there's going to be a cost which, out simplisticly, amounts to a cost per unit sold, depending on how many are sold.

My bet is that MS have done the type of analysis that predicts expected sales at varying price levels, including how many pirates they may 'convert'. They know what their development (etc) costs are, can feed that into best-guess piracy conversion expectations and work out what price gets them the most profit. Which is, after all, the point of the whole exercise.

And if they cut price to £50, that's £100 less revenue per copy, so all those £100s list have to be made up from profit (not sake orice, but profit margin) on extra sales achieved before they even recover the revenue lost from the price cut. There would have to be one absolutely HUGE level of piracy conversion to justify any significant price cut, and common sense suggests the price cut would have to be dramatic to get any significant level if 'conversion'.

IMHO, that model just doesn't make sense. If it did, MS and many other companies, would have done it years ago.

[shaithis]

But if 10 is like 8 with all the Bios/machine locking activation type stuff, they might not :/

It will most certainly use the new activation stuff or something based off of it. The old way was just way too easy to hack...

[GuidoLS]

Big whoop. The point is that it's still too expensive! The home market for new purchases of Windows is tiny compared to the OEM/ commercial sector. Windows 10 should be subsidised to the point that it's free. The money isn't in OS anymore, a fact that Microsoft tacitly admits by saying there will be no more releases of Windows, but in the services they sell such as Office 365, the server backend, etc. By charging such a high amount for Windows, Microsoft are holding back the adoption of Windows amongst the evangelists that sell Windows to everyone - us - the geeks, the family IT support person. This is a major marketing boo boo...

Serious question - subsidize with what? Crank up the cost of the XBox? Charge 200% more for the Surface line? Thousands for the phones?

The point is, it's still the same price, or less, than it's been for essentially the last 2 decades. The point is, pirates aren't going to drive the price point. The reality is that the home user doesn't drive the market for Windows, and hasn't since Windows 3.11.

Oh, and that thing about being free? It is - until July 29 of 2016. Certain conditions may apply - like having a valid copy of the older OS. What a crime to have the nerve to ask for that.

[Bluecube]

Serious question - subsidize with what? Crank up the cost of the XBox? Charge 200% more for the Surface line? Thousands for the phones?

The multi billions Microsoft receives from server, Office and cloud divisions maybe? OS revenues count for a relatively insignificant part of MS profits. The money is in selling services such as Office 365 and this is why MS are shooting themselves in the foot by charging too much. Windows is the perfect sales window (ahem) to get paying customers onboard for such subscription services.

[GuidoLS]

The multi billions Microsoft receives from server, Office and cloud divisions maybe? OS revenues count for a relatively insignificant part of MS profits. The money is in selling services such as Office 365 and this is why MS are shooting themselves in the foot by charging too much. Windows is the perfect sales window (ahem) to get paying customers onboard for such subscription services.

My question is this - is this discussion meant to imply that, somewhere, somehow, if Microsoft drops their prices, that they might do better in getting pirates to pay for it? If so, excuse me while I burst into gales of laughter.

Ok - better now. MS has offered discounted offers on their current OS's multiple times, including, most recently, an upgrade option from ANY prior OS to Windows 8.1 for $40. I'm sure it worked to reduce the piracy by .01%. What you are suggesting is socialized welfare, flat out. I've pointed it out multiple times before - it's free until July 29 of next year. If you don't have a legal upgrade path, then I don't know why anyone should expect that to continue. Unless it's organized crime, it's generally frowned upon to reward bad behavior.

Sorry, but it's going to be nigh impossible for that particular argument to sway anyone - at least anyone that wants to keep a straight face in general conversation.

Or, to use your own original argument - Windows 10 is as free as OS X is - free with conditions. Deal with the conditions, or do without (legally)

[aidanjt]

My question is this - is this discussion meant to imply that, somewhere, somehow, if Microsoft drops their prices, that they might do better in getting pirates to pay for it?

It's no coincidence that Windows, being the most expensive OS on the market, is also the most pirated.

I'm sure it worked to reduce the piracy by .01%.

And I'm sure that statement has solid statistics backing it up, and wasn't just pulled clean out of your hiney.

What you are suggesting is socialized welfare, flat out.

What? No it isn't, it isn't anything of the kind, it's not even in the ballpark of socialism and welfare. It's called supply and demand, feel free to look it up. Intellectual property is a fascist policy, it applies a government granted monopoly, and thus artificial scarcity to what is naturally a limitless supply that has virtually zero reproduction cost.

Microsoft had the opportunity to live up to the affordable legal Win10 upgrade hype they built up with all the ambiguous language they spent the better part of a year spouting, and the fell flat on their faces. They also had the opportunity to fix the start menu they screwed up with 8, and fell flat on their faces there as well, throwing out a cynical menu version of the win8 start screen, on top of jamming in a privacy bum raping web search agent that chews up a large chunk of taskbar space unnecessarily.

[GuidoLS]

It's no coincidence that Windows, being the most expensive OS on the market, is also the most pirated.

So this makes it acceptable?

And I'm sure that statement has solid statistics backing it up, and wasn't just pulled clean out of your hiney.

I pointed out, rightly, that Microsoft regularly has reduced offerings and incentives to purchase a legal license. The fact that people advocate piracy because it's too expensive, knowing that there are severely discounted versions available, tells me that the price is not the excuse. People pirate because they CAN. And what gripes me isn't that they're pirating - what gripes me is that they won't admit it. Every excuse but the truth. I'm old school - if you do something, you own it, and you don't make excuses.

And I didn't offer that .01% as a solid fact, but as a sarcastic piece of conjecture. I'm personally willing to bet that it lowered the rate even lower.

What? No it isn't, it isn't anything of the kind, it's not even in the ballpark of socialism and welfare. It's called supply and demand, feel free to look it up. Intellectual property is a fascist policy, it applies a government granted monopoly, and thus artificial scarcity to what is naturally a limitless supply that has virtually zero reproduction cost.

Microsoft had the opportunity to live up to the affordable legal Win10 upgrade hype they built up with all the ambiguous language they spent the better part of a year spouting, and the fell flat on their faces. They also had the opportunity to fix the start menu they screwed up with 8, and fell flat on their faces there as well, throwing out a cynical menu version of the win8 start screen, on top of jamming in a privacy bum raping web search agent that chews up a large chunk of taskbar space unnecessarily.

1) He wants something for nothing, paid for by someone else. I don't know what you call it, but here we call it welfare, and if multiple someones are paying for it, it's socialized. Definition fits.
2) The start menu is fine. They aren't going to return to the Windows 7 days. I'm pretty sure now is a good time to simply get over it.
3) The icons on the start bar are resizable, like they've always been. You can actually remove the search function from the computer. Cortana can be disabled and/or removed. Next strawman, please.
4) Windows 10 is free, for all current retail users and the majority of oem* users, for the first year. What ball did they drop? That it isn't free forever, or that those that have NEVER paid for the prior product also don't get it for free?

As I've said before, I have no real use for pirates. People that whine about Windows being too expensive, while watching their text flow across high res monitors powered by the latest video cards, are to me, pure hypocrites. It's not a recurring cost. It's not even a frequent cost. It's a one time cost, occurring perhaps once every 5 years, although considering the length of support offered, at no charge, for the older OS's, it can be argued that it's more like a once every 10 year cost. Multiple machines? The hypocrisy only gets larger and larger.

And for system builders, paying for a new OS has always been part of the price of doing business. So that argument doesn't even come into play.

(*Certain HP/Dell Enterprise machines have OEM Windows 7 stickers on them - they won't upgrade, but they're Enterprise, so most businesses will already have a subscription, and aren't affected)

[Bluecube]

I don't understand your eagerness to bring in the piracy argument. That's moving the goalposts. The point I'm making is that Windows 10 is expensive to purchase and it shouldn't be. Microsoft can easily afford to give Windows 10 away via "socialised welfare" as you put it. If Apple can do it then so can Microsoft but obviously Apple has communist anti American leanings.

In this competitive environment where Microsoft is absolutely desperate to get everyone onto Windows 10 why the hell are they charging £150 for it?!? And the argument DOES apply to those that home build their PCs as it is they (us) that are forced to pay the price!

[Hicks12]

I dont get it... move to linux if you want something completely free, I use ubuntu and windows at work depending on certain use cases but I like both . Microsoft's consumer licensing division counted for 18% of their total revenue and is the second largest department (based on revenue) so its hard to see how the whole OS is insignificant revenue, you cant subsidise all of this unfortunately to be profitable as Microsoft make a good chunk from sales, they provide the most robust user friendly OS and give you commercial level support if needed which is why there is a cost involved in owning a license.

The office division isnt making enough to cover the cost of an OS (it costs more to get the OS!) so really you're expecting Microsoft to throw money away, the only change I can see happening is a subscription license model where you get updates if you continue subscribing but I cant see them giving it away for free. Microsoft has been an extreme amount of effort in Windows 10 and it shows, personally I think its the best damn OS they have ever created and the technical preview is my daily driver at home, but they know older version of windows will always cause issues and they're willing to invest money to give a 'clean' slate for the majority of Windows users, give them a free upgrade to windows 10 so they can concentrate on windows 10 as the new OS base, it took too long for XP to die off so they're making the first move which is great for consumers!

Free upgrade if you own windows 7 or 8/8.1, great if you have invested already so I dont see why many can screw their faces at this . Another point is the fact that as a whole Microsoft have the majority share of the OS market at around 90% of it... im pretty sure we can all agree they clearly have a clue regarding their pricing/marketing strategies, cant we ? If they were doing it wrong we would see others gaining ground but linux cant make a dent in it other than the server market. Its apparent that they aren't struggling to gain market share so it is the right to be charging for this, I know one person who exclusively uses linux (ubuntu specifically) but everyone else owns windows licenses in some form so I find it hard to believe Microsoft is holding back adoption as they have a solid hold on the market .


Will say it, I love Windows 10... I even liked Windows 8 but it certainly had quirks and issues with it, 8.1 fixed a lot but it still wasnt right however Windows 10 I can safely say fixes everything wrong with 8 and improves upon every other feature. Windows 10 is super fast, great new UI and finally has workspaces (feature I miss when I switch from ubuntu ha), cant fault it but I know my opinion is not the only one , the start menu has always been a controversial thing for Windows 8 and personally I got over it within a day and it was fine for me but others couldnt live with it, windows 10 has the best of both as it is a nice graphical menu with the core menu system of previous windows, you can make the start menu full screen if you want or leave it to expand to whatever you desire.

Cant fault windows 10... its hard, I am ready for the finalised version , my work will be upgrading to windows 10 on launch as well which is nice! Would be stuck with Windows 7 indefinitely otherwise so thanks microsoft!



edit: Just saw your new post bluecube and I think I can answer it a bit for you

Apple can 'give' away their OS for free because they bundle it in with hardware, its actually not 'free' when you think about it as a Mac spec equivalent hardware is like 50% different in the end cost so its bundled in with the whole unit so you cant get the exact price of the license, also they charge for upgrades equivalent to microsoft service packs (MS dont charge..), only in the last year or two did they introduce a free upgrade to mavericks if you had a Mac os above a certain point just like Microsoft is doing now, only windows 7 and up will get the 'free' upgrade. Microsoft doesnt have the ability to give you the software for free when its not selling you hardware as well, else it would be 'free' as in not included in a cost breakdown on the whole unit you buy.

You can still buy windows 8 licenses so just buy that and get a free upgrade to windows 10, Microsoft is trying to stop businesses and consumers from staying on an old OS for too long (and windows 7 has like 45% market share so is the focus), look at how long businesses forced others to support stupid IE 6 from all those years ago because they refused to upgrade to a newer OS or simply a different browser, they are trying to avoid it this time by being the ones to incentive the upgrade.

Its also not £150 for the OEM disk... its $150 and that is for the PRO version, a quick look on newegg (as these are the people with the 'leaked' price which is not confirmed as final!) shows windows 8.1 pro OEM is $139... oh no its only $10 difference, this is nothing to cry over as its clear pricing will change on release as with anything pricing changes over the lifetime but for one seller to have only a $10 price difference from a current OS key to a brand new OS key is pretty neglible and if you could afford $139.99 for a windows license before then $10 will not stop you (if it does then you need to check priorities and go linux ).

[GuidoLS]

I don't understand your eagerness to bring in the piracy argument. That's moving the goalposts. The point I'm making is that Windows 10 is expensive to purchase and it shouldn't be. Microsoft can easily afford to give Windows 10 away via "socialised welfare" as you put it. If Apple can do it then so can Microsoft but obviously Apple has communist anti American leanings.

In this competitive environment where Microsoft is absolutely desperate to get everyone onto Windows 10 why the hell are they charging £150 for it?!? And the argument DOES apply to those that home build their PCs as it is they (us) that are forced to pay the price!

You've moved the goalposts all by yourself - you started by comparing it to Apple, and once that was debunked, you complained about how expensive it is, compared to past version, and once that was debunked, you've taken to using the high end, pro retail price for your example.

Piracy? Other than Vista users, give me one legitimate example of someone that would be upset that a free upgrade doesn't apply to them. You can't. And you were the one that originally brought the term into play, when saying that £150 was too much to get pirates on board.

And I'll say it again - the cost of the OS has ALWAYS been part of the price of doing business for builders. You either give up the license on another machine, or you buy a new (or additional) one. Or use Linux.

[Saracen]

2) The start menu is fine. They aren't going to return to the Windows 7 days. I'm pretty sure now is a good time to simply get over it.
3) The icons on the start bar are resizable, like they've always been. You can actually remove the search function from the computer. Cortana can be disabled and/or removed. Next strawman, please.

...

The Start menu might be fine for you, but UNLESS it provides W7 functionality, it is NOT fine for me, and it's not a matter of getting over it. And, I agree, it probably won't. And if that's the case, my Win7 machines are staying Win7.

Nor is Cortana disabling a "straw man".

Remember how MS said Kinect on XBone could be "turned off"? Yet, you could turn it on by talking to it. Was it like hell turned off. It simply stopped giving responses the user was aware of, but at an absolute minimum, the mic was active and it was monitoring for 'turn on' commands. Problem is, WE don't know what else it was doing with audio, while supposedly "off".

And ditto Cortana, in the absence of complete removal, as opposed to "turned off", or a clear, unambiguous official MS guarantee that "off" means utterly off, not working away silently in the background.

The thing is, MS have done enough things recently that, for me at least, goodwill is absolutely exhausted. There is NONE left towards them, and I don't trust them at all. An example would be their dishonest and cynical statements about Start menu in Win 8, that aidanjt referred to. They treated us like idiots over that, and I haven't forgiven them their incredibly arrogant attitude. I probably never will. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I can only answer for what I will do, but for me, whether I EVER upgrade to another MS OS is very much up in the air. In the absence of acceptable answers, I will go Linux. I am ready, rignt now, to switch. And doing so will take me sbout 60 seconds .... as long as it takes to power down, take out one drive from a removable drive bay, insert the Ubuntu boot drive, and power back up.

I haven't decided yet whether to upgrade, stay on W7 or switch to Ubuntu, but I'm ready for either, when I do decide .... when answers are forthcoming ftom MS. Or not.

[GuidoLS]

The Start menu might be fine for you, but UNLESS it provides W7 functionality, it is NOT fine for me, and it's not a matter of getting over it. And, I agree, it probably won't. And if that's the case, my Win7 machines are staying Win7.

Nor is Cortana disabling a "straw man".

Remember how MS said Kinect on XBone could be "turned off"? Yet, you could turn it on by talking to it. Was it like hell turned off. It simply stopped giving responses the user was aware of, but at an absolute minimum, the mic was active and it was monitoring for 'turn on' commands. Problem is, WE don't know what else it was doing with audio, while supposedly "off".

And ditto Cortana, in the absence of complete removal, as opposed to "turned off", or a clear, unambiguous official MS guarantee that "off" means utterly off, not working away silently in the background.

The thing is, MS have done enough things recently that, for me at least, goodwill is absolutely exhausted. There is NONE left towards them, and I don't trust them at all. An example would be their dishonest and cynical statements about Start menu in Win 8, that aidanjt referred to. They treated us like idiots over that, and I haven't forgiven them their incredibly arrogant attitude. I probably never will. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I can only answer for what I will do, but for me, whether I EVER upgrade to another MS OS is very much up in the air. In the absence of acceptable answers, I will go Linux. I am ready, rignt now, to switch. And doing so will take me sbout 60 seconds .... as long as it takes to power down, take out one drive from a removable drive bay, insert the Ubuntu boot drive, and power back up.

I haven't decided yet whether to upgrade, stay on W7 or switch to Ubuntu, but I'm ready for either, when I do decide .... when answers are forthcoming ftom MS. Or not.

Strawman was in response to the huge search icon crapping up the task bar. It's not only resizable, it's removable. And switching from MS to Canonical? Isn't that a bit like swapping from Satan to Beelzebub? Or do they get a pass for putting in their own version of spyware, which is STILL installed as the default? Are you going to go into the kernel and remove any possibility that just turning off the search feature is totally disabled, and they're not still pumping your info out to Amazon? See, Canonical has done things that, for me, are just as unforgivable, especially with being part of the open source community, and a supposed leader.

Personally, I prefer the classic battleship gray taskbar and start menu. I don't like the start menu all that much in Win10. But considering it's been 3 years since 8 was released, and 8.1 didn't take us back to the old days, and the fact that 10 does at least provide something of a middle ground, it's fine for the vast majority of people that don't micromanage their systems to death. You like to micromanage your system to death, so as is, it probably won't be fine for you. But like it or not, you're not the vast majority of people. I'm not sure I'd count you as a part of any large minority. I don't discount your opinion based on that, nor do I disrespect your opinion. But I wasn't addressing you, or your situation. I was addressing someone that's trying to argue that intellectual property is fascism - not to mention the privacy bum raping search block. That was far from the epitome of good conversation to me. And I responded accordingly. A lot more 'accordingly' than I am prone to, actually. It's all context. As we've determined before, we (as in you and I) have no issues. Please don't seek to find them in commentary with someone else. I don't work that way.

As for Cortana/Search does disabled really mean disabled? Yes, they screwed up with the Kinect. 2 years ago. I would like to think they wouldn't do it again. I can't verify it, other than to say that after hooking up a microphone, installing a trial of Dragon, and making sure Cortana/search were disabled, there was nothing in the system processes that showed any activity other than Dragon when I used the mic. If I thought MS were so 'evil' as to go out of their way to find a way to hide any search/Cortana related processes, we wouldn't be having this conversation (that, and it would be in every tech pub on Earth the second it was found - and we both know there are people out there looking for just that sort of thing).

But enough of this - the greatest martial arts movie of all time is on, and I'm not going to miss any of it. (Kung Fu Hustle, if interested. Think Monty Python meets Benny Hill meets Bruce Lee, and you're in the ballpark.)

[spacein_vader]

It's no coincidence that Windows, being the most expensive OS on the market, is also the most pirated.

It's no coincidence that Windows, being the market leader, is also the most pirated.

And I'm sure that statement has solid statistics backing it up, and wasn't just pulled clean out of your hiney.

Whereas obviously you have solid proof that dropping the price to $50 would more than make up in extra sales what was lost on existing sales?

It's called supply and demand, feel free to look it up.

As an expert on this you will know that supply & demand will reach an equilibrium. The fact that the price has been stable for 15 years and Windows is still the market leader suggests the current price is seen as fair by the market no?

Microsoft had the opportunity to live up to the affordable legal Win10 upgrade hype they built up with all the ambiguous language they spent the better part of a year spouting, and the fell flat on their faces.

Eh? How much more affordable do you want than free? They didn't make any promises about affordable illegal upgrades. Also, illegal copies WILL be able to upgrade, they just won't be eligible for support or receive Windows updates.

Your arguments seem flawed, and your language unnecessarily aggressive and insulting.

[Saracen]

...., it's fine for the vast majority of people that don't micromanage their systems to death. You like to micromanage your system to death, so as is, it probably won't be fine for you. But like it or not, you're not the vast majority of people. I'm not sure I'd count you as a part of any large minority. I don't discount your opinion based on that, nor do I disrespect your opinion. But I wasn't addressing you, or your situation. I was addressing someone that's trying to argue that intellectual property is fascism - not to mention the privacy bum raping search block. That was far from the epitome of good conversation to me. And I responded accordingly. A lot more 'accordingly' than I am prone to, actually. It's all context. As we've determined before, we (as in you and I) have no issues. Please don't seek to find them in commentary with someone else. I don't work that way.

As for Cortana/Search does disabled really mean disabled? Yes, they screwed up with the Kinect. 2 years ago. I would like to think they wouldn't do it again. ....

Actually, I don't like or want to micromanage my system. I simply want to be able to use my system the way I've been using it for about 20 years or more, which is hierarchical start menu items. So all MS had to do was leave the OPTION to continue doing it. But they've decided to block that, and the way they've gone about it has been duplicitous, deceitful and has cost them any goodwill on my part. And destroyed any trust. Why is WHY I don't trust them over cortana, etc - they've demonstrated hiw deceitful they can be.

I'm fully aware I'm not likely to be in any sort of majority, which is why I said, several times, that I was saying what I, personally, would do or not not, in relation to Win10.