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Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#11

Post by 7952 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #7
MrGuyUser wrote: post #6

Windows 10 looks pretty awesome. And if you like me down graded to an android phone from a pretty good old windows 7.8 phone you'll realize that the voice recognition stuff on android hardly works. I use a nexus 4 which is too new to change again, but I hate that I can't reply to texts with the headset. Yeah I know there is probably an app out there and probably a mode. I didn't figure it out. Win 7.8 phone did it au…

Supposedly the big money has never been in Windows licenses. For example, Office is a big money-maker for them. So it is in their interests to have everyone run Windows, even if they don't get license revenue. Hearsay though.

They should just merge the consumer versions of windows and office together. Cut the subscription plan and make it reasonably expensive even for OEMs. This would let them differentiate themselves from Chrome OS and retain all their old Office customers.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#12

Post by epochwolf »

jedberg wrote: post #2

It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8. It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are minimal. Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

I would have upgraded several of my machines to Windows 8 if it wasn't for the price. I already have a bunch of Windows 7 licenses.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#13

Post by kyriakos »

Narishma wrote: post #8

Does it mean that if you do the free upgrade, once the year is over you'll have to pay to continue using it? Or does it mean instead that the upgrade will be free for the first year, and if you want to upgrade after that it'll cost you?

From what I understood from the video it means you get the chance to upgrade within a year of release. They also said you'll be receiving automated updates for the supported life time of the device (whatever that means)

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#14

Post by cwyers »

jedberg wrote: post #2

It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8. It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are minimal. Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

Microsoft has always had seperate enterprise and consumer pricing for Windows. This is an announcement about consumer pricing. So... consumer pricing won't affect enterprise adoption. We already knew that, though.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#16

Post by bad_user »

jedberg wrote: post #2

It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8. It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are minimal. Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

Users in general don't upgrade unless forced, because non-technical folks are conservative. All of Microsoft's competition have encouraged (free) updates in one way or another, with much less regard towards backwards compatibility. This also creates expectations for developers, assuming that a majority will upgrade in a timely manner, therefore users feel compelled to upgrade otherwise their favorite apps may stop being supported for their current OS.

Microsoft's biggest enemy is the old Microsoft that took years to update Windows XP and IExplorer 6. And then Vista happened, which brought no improvements, except a flawed and annoying security model, bloat and instability. And do I even need to rant on 8.0? So it's no wonder that users lost their appetite for updates.

However, I believe there is serious room for improvement in how we use our computers, especially our PCs. However that line on a single OS for all devices doesn't sound good to me, because there are fundamental differences between the devices in question and I hope that Microsoft will do more than marketing gimmicks and interfaces meant for tablets being shown on large screens that have keyboards.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#17

Post by moskie »

jedberg wrote: post #2

It's not the price of Windows that was keeping people from adopting Windows 8. It's the irrelevancy and the fact that corporations don't see the ROI. The time it would take to upgrade their company isn't worth the gains, which are minimal. Unless Windows 10 proves to be a massive improvement in performance or usability, I suspect it's uptake will be just as anemic, free or not.

Even if price wasn't the main problem that prevented adoption, it's the problem with the easiest and most obvious solution: make it free. So it's a good thing they addressed it.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#18

Post by mmebane »

kemayo wrote: post #3

I wonder if they'll let the (vast number of) pirated versions of Windows 7/8 participate in the free upgrade program. It'd be an interesting change to the dynamic of Windows.

I would be a bit surprised if they did. The $14.99 Win7 -> Win8 upgrade they offered for a while required validation of your old product key. Still, MS has changed quite a bit in the last few years, so it's hard to say.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#19

Post by BigChiefSmokem »

kyriakos wrote: post #13
Narishma wrote: post #8

Does it mean that if you do the free upgrade, once the year is over you'll have to pay to continue using it? Or does it mean instead that the upgrade will be free for the first year, and if you want to upgrade after that it'll cost you?

From what I understood from the video it means you get the chance to upgrade within a year of release. They also said you'll be receiving automated updates for the supported life time of the device (whatever that means)

Sounds more like a year long trial period as you never seem to quite own the "free" copy.

Not exactly what loyal Windows 7 and 8 users would have wanted (a real free lifetime copy), but a genuine step in the right direction.

Re: Windows 10 upgrade to be 'free' for one year

#20

Post by Someone1234 »

kyriakos wrote: post #13
Narishma wrote: post #8

Does it mean that if you do the free upgrade, once the year is over you'll have to pay to continue using it? Or does it mean instead that the upgrade will be free for the first year, and if you want to upgrade after that it'll cost you?

From what I understood from the video it means you get the chance to upgrade within a year of release. They also said you'll be receiving automated updates for the supported life time of the device (whatever that means)

They've done a really poor job of communicating that.

The free upgrade for one year thing is fairly cut and dry. However what they meant by that "we'll support updates for the lifetime of the device" is completely meaningless and confusing. As opposed to what they've been doing until now..?

Also they keep on talking about "Windows as a service" with zero clarification on what that means. Is Windows becoming a paid subscription? Is that just meaningless marketing speak?

I'll say this, Microsoft has a bad track record of making these events 50% longer than they should be and filing in the gaps with marketing department nonsense that doesn't mean anything. There were some bits of that that were simply cringe and or a huge time waster.

Some fruit-named company do these presentations better. They're still better than Google however...

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