With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
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Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#2As the article mentions, Windows revenues have been important to Microsoft's business for quite some time. It's hard to imagine how positively shareholders would react to this type of business decision.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#3"Google offers free OSes to computer and phone makers as a way of driving the use of its search engine and countless other web services, and now, Microsoft is at least experimenting with the idea of doing much the same thing. According to the report, its free operating system is known as Windows 8.1 With Bing. As the name implies, the OS is meant to feed the use of Microsoft’s own search engine, as well as other Microsoft cloud services and software applications."
That's not even the start of the problem with Microsoft OSes, from my perspective. I bought a Dell machine this month with great specs and Windows 8.1 on it. I Clonezilla'd the drives with Windows on them and paved over with Mint 16 because (1) it's less painful to maintain and (2) I can script the installation of software I need to develop with. I've done battle with UEFI once and now I have a system I like.
So Microsoft OSes are too expensive even if they were free. And I used MS DOS and Windows for 20 years before moving to Linux. No, something huge would have to happen before I go back, and free is not enough.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#4"Google offers free OSes to computer and phone makers as a way of driving the use of its search engine and countless other web services, and now, Microsoft is at least experimenting with the idea of doing much the same thing. According to the report, its free operating system is known as Windows 8.1 With Bing. As the name implies, the OS is meant to feed the use of Microsoft’s own search engine, as well as other Micr…
Ok, but you hardly represent a majority of the Windows user base. Few people care about scripting installations.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#5Windows for many years has given out hundreds of millions of copies for free by intentionally limiting the strength of their DRM and licensing enforcement. This makes perfect competitive sense.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#6"Google offers free OSes to computer and phone makers as a way of driving the use of its search engine and countless other web services, and now, Microsoft is at least experimenting with the idea of doing much the same thing. According to the report, its free operating system is known as Windows 8.1 With Bing. As the name implies, the OS is meant to feed the use of Microsoft’s own search engine, as well as other Micr…
You can script the OS and application install with WDS, SCCM, and AD. Just because you can't or won't do it doesn't mean it can't be done.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#7And I'll bet part of the license will say, "Can't be run in a virtual machine", to prevent people from using it in combination with VirtualBox to run Windows Apps for free.
Because I'd sure as heck do that and replace hundreds of licensing seats worth of RDP as well as old XP VM's.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#8Windows for many years has given out hundreds of millions of copies for free by intentionally limiting the strength of their DRM and licensing enforcement. This makes perfect competitive sense.
I believe they recognized piracy was actually an early form of the freemium model. Rather than forcing every consumer to pay up, they concentrated for many years on extracting money from users with deep pockets -- i.e., enterprises and OEM partners.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#9Free today, tomorrow it will be subscription based SaaS. What else do you expect from a former VP of MS's Online Services Division?
edit: subscription, not prescription. yet.
Re: With Free Version of Windows, Microsoft Gives In to the Google Way
#10"Google offers free OSes to computer and phone makers as a way of driving the use of its search engine and countless other web services, and now, Microsoft is at least experimenting with the idea of doing much the same thing. According to the report, its free operating system is known as Windows 8.1 With Bing. As the name implies, the OS is meant to feed the use of Microsoft’s own search engine, as well as other Micr…
You can script the OS and application install with WDS, SCCM, and AD. Just because you can't or won't do it doesn't mean it can't be done.
Can you script all those common installers that are (a) not an msi, (b) don't have a /SILENT switch or other unattended installation, (c) require license input, or any combination thereof?
I guess you could use AutoHotkey to simulate mouse clicks, or attempt to repackage the software yourself. But when comparing the ability to script installations in general, linux has a major, major advantage.