Will Windows 10 be free or freemium?
Very likely, neither. Before diving in, I do want to point out that Microsoft has not made public all of its plans around pricing for the launch of Windows 10, or if, in the long run we'll see other models (like subscription based). So, partly this is speculation.
But the wide response on the net has been around people reading far too much into the wording of what little information we do have on pricing and Microsoft's unfortunate decision to brand it as "Windows as a Service" (WaaS for short hereon out).
I think the confusion largely stems from the fact that everyone knows Microsoft is a for profit company and that the only pricing they have announced is around under what conditions people can get it for free. Obviously, the two ideas are at odds. Free OS and profit don't go hand in hand very well. But! Windows 10 IS NOT free. The upgrade will be for many. In some scenarios OEM licenses will likely be free or free with caveats as they are today with Windows 8.1. Retail copies will almost definitely not be free. And in many cases OEM's will still pay a price for it as well.
In other words... stop looking at the word "free" in the limited context we have it today. The OS almost certainly won't be free.
As far as the free upgrades are concerned, there is a very good reason for it. Firstly, they are losing next to no revenue. The average consumer does not pay to upgrade Windows versions. Period. So, they sacrifice an insignificant amount of potential revenue. On the flip side, with a free OS, they are far more likely to get users to move forward. And that is what they NEED. Specifically "need" and not "want".
Microsoft is losing relevance across the board on all form factors that they support. At the moment, their platforms don't have a large enough influx of new users to attract the developers that matter. Between Universal Apps, a merging of eco-systems and free upgrades for their largest user bases the hope is that enough people will be running Windows 10 to get app developers (specifically the popular ones) to write (or port using Islandwood or Astoria) a Universal App. Also, with delivery and payment via the Windows Store and sandboxing for Win32 apps, there is finally an argument to get legacy apps into the store.
That last paragraph is a profit generation mechanism in and of itself. They monetize the app store, supply ads for free apps, and more titles means potentially more users. I'm really not sure how people don't understand that the OS is only a small piece in the revenue generation model.
So, will Windows be free? No.
How about Freemium? Well, long term plans around pricing aren't released yet. But based on the announced editions it seems unlikely it is in the works any time soon. And if I'm wrong, would that actually be bad? The lowest SKU is Windows 10 Home. Which is what the vast majority of PC's would ship with anyway. If you could get a retail copy, or burn an ISO online for free and only need to pay to get features from higher editions, how would that possibly be a bad thing? It would be the same as today, except instead of needing to pay for Home edition and pay to upgrade you would now just need to pay to upgrade.
The last one to discuss is subscription based billing for Windows. Again, people are really only talking about this because of the WaaS talk. Anything that ends in "aaS" in the tech world is generally subscription or usage based. But, as I've said in the past, this really isn't WaaS. If WaaS were a thing the OS wouldn't be installed on your computer. IT JUST REFERS TO THE FACT THAT YOU ARE FORCED TO RECEIVE THE LATEST UPDATES! Just as in a SaaS or PaaS offering, you get updates when the service owner decides to push them, in Windows 10 most users will receive updates more or less as they are released.
But is a subscription possible? Technically, yeah. In fact technically, there is already WaaS today. In Azure. You can get hosted Windows environments today. Have been able to for some time now.
Logically however, on a consumer device, I don't think it is as feasible. Firstly, OEM's would abandon wholesale. No vendor would want to deal with the flood of enraged customers when their complimentary subscription that came with the device expired. No consumer would pay for such an OS either. Secondly, what do you do with the OS when the subscription ends?
Microsoft actually tends to handle expired subscriptions VERY well. But, an OS is a trickier beast. You need to do enough to incentivize people to buy a perpetual license or renew, while at the same point not diminishing functionality to a point where the users device and data could be seen as being held ransom. Given that everyone uses their computers differently, this is a hard balance to strike.
Still... I could see a TRUE Windows as a Service being successful. For IT and other professionals. VM's can be costly to get the initial hardware and for IT staff to maintain it. Not to mention the OS's still require licenses and VM clusters don't really scale well. If there were an option to use cheap hardware or even a browser as a terminal into a WaaS server where you paid based on usage or a subscription it could serve as a great way to stand up test environments for IT or development environments for programmers.
There are actually a ton of legitimate uses for a true SaaS based OS. Most of them are business related. If the performance and functionality were there, and the cost was right I would wager many organizations would be willing to move off their own hardware and IT to transition that to a cloud based offering. So, while I mock it from a consumer stand point... I actually don't see this as a completely infeasible model elsewhere.
But the last thing I'll say is this. If Microsoft did go with a subscription model (or whatever model infuriates you the most), who cares? Vote with your money and buy a Chromebook or Apple product. Microsoft isn't dumb and their plan isn't to drive customers away. If they feel like they are, they will adapt. Or perish. But most likely adapt.
But the wide response on the net has been around people reading far too much into the wording of what little information we do have on pricing and Microsoft's unfortunate decision to brand it as "Windows as a Service" (WaaS for short hereon out).
I think the confusion largely stems from the fact that everyone knows Microsoft is a for profit company and that the only pricing they have announced is around under what conditions people can get it for free. Obviously, the two ideas are at odds. Free OS and profit don't go hand in hand very well. But! Windows 10 IS NOT free. The upgrade will be for many. In some scenarios OEM licenses will likely be free or free with caveats as they are today with Windows 8.1. Retail copies will almost definitely not be free. And in many cases OEM's will still pay a price for it as well.
In other words... stop looking at the word "free" in the limited context we have it today. The OS almost certainly won't be free.
As far as the free upgrades are concerned, there is a very good reason for it. Firstly, they are losing next to no revenue. The average consumer does not pay to upgrade Windows versions. Period. So, they sacrifice an insignificant amount of potential revenue. On the flip side, with a free OS, they are far more likely to get users to move forward. And that is what they NEED. Specifically "need" and not "want".
Microsoft is losing relevance across the board on all form factors that they support. At the moment, their platforms don't have a large enough influx of new users to attract the developers that matter. Between Universal Apps, a merging of eco-systems and free upgrades for their largest user bases the hope is that enough people will be running Windows 10 to get app developers (specifically the popular ones) to write (or port using Islandwood or Astoria) a Universal App. Also, with delivery and payment via the Windows Store and sandboxing for Win32 apps, there is finally an argument to get legacy apps into the store.
That last paragraph is a profit generation mechanism in and of itself. They monetize the app store, supply ads for free apps, and more titles means potentially more users. I'm really not sure how people don't understand that the OS is only a small piece in the revenue generation model.
So, will Windows be free? No.
How about Freemium? Well, long term plans around pricing aren't released yet. But based on the announced editions it seems unlikely it is in the works any time soon. And if I'm wrong, would that actually be bad? The lowest SKU is Windows 10 Home. Which is what the vast majority of PC's would ship with anyway. If you could get a retail copy, or burn an ISO online for free and only need to pay to get features from higher editions, how would that possibly be a bad thing? It would be the same as today, except instead of needing to pay for Home edition and pay to upgrade you would now just need to pay to upgrade.
The last one to discuss is subscription based billing for Windows. Again, people are really only talking about this because of the WaaS talk. Anything that ends in "aaS" in the tech world is generally subscription or usage based. But, as I've said in the past, this really isn't WaaS. If WaaS were a thing the OS wouldn't be installed on your computer. IT JUST REFERS TO THE FACT THAT YOU ARE FORCED TO RECEIVE THE LATEST UPDATES! Just as in a SaaS or PaaS offering, you get updates when the service owner decides to push them, in Windows 10 most users will receive updates more or less as they are released.
But is a subscription possible? Technically, yeah. In fact technically, there is already WaaS today. In Azure. You can get hosted Windows environments today. Have been able to for some time now.
Logically however, on a consumer device, I don't think it is as feasible. Firstly, OEM's would abandon wholesale. No vendor would want to deal with the flood of enraged customers when their complimentary subscription that came with the device expired. No consumer would pay for such an OS either. Secondly, what do you do with the OS when the subscription ends?
Microsoft actually tends to handle expired subscriptions VERY well. But, an OS is a trickier beast. You need to do enough to incentivize people to buy a perpetual license or renew, while at the same point not diminishing functionality to a point where the users device and data could be seen as being held ransom. Given that everyone uses their computers differently, this is a hard balance to strike.
Still... I could see a TRUE Windows as a Service being successful. For IT and other professionals. VM's can be costly to get the initial hardware and for IT staff to maintain it. Not to mention the OS's still require licenses and VM clusters don't really scale well. If there were an option to use cheap hardware or even a browser as a terminal into a WaaS server where you paid based on usage or a subscription it could serve as a great way to stand up test environments for IT or development environments for programmers.
There are actually a ton of legitimate uses for a true SaaS based OS. Most of them are business related. If the performance and functionality were there, and the cost was right I would wager many organizations would be willing to move off their own hardware and IT to transition that to a cloud based offering. So, while I mock it from a consumer stand point... I actually don't see this as a completely infeasible model elsewhere.
But the last thing I'll say is this. If Microsoft did go with a subscription model (or whatever model infuriates you the most), who cares? Vote with your money and buy a Chromebook or Apple product. Microsoft isn't dumb and their plan isn't to drive customers away. If they feel like they are, they will adapt. Or perish. But most likely adapt.
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