Windows 10 Leak Exposes Microsoft's New Monthly Charge | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10 Leak Exposes Microsoft's New Monthly Charge

forbes.com

40 pointsdustinmoris13 comments

Reading Microsoft stories on Forbes.com is like reading about Slenderman on a site run by 9 yo girls. All rumors are true and the end is coming in 45 minutes unless we freak out about it enough.

The Windows 10 situation is no different to that for 7/8 - No chance that it'll overnight transition to being 'as a service' for a charge.

Instead what'll most likely happen is the next releast of Windows desktop after 10 will be set up from the start as a service offering, and at the point where people sign up for it the ongoing charge aspects will be spelled out very clearly, including in the Ts and Cs. It'll be similar to how Office switched to the Online version - Superficially little change in the product, but clearly delineated with a separate deployment, branding, and versioning.

It can only be this way, because aside from the 'stealth' upgrades' that some 7/8 users encountered, a significant number of people bought windows 10 licensing, at retail. It would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft to attempt to invalidate ongoing OS usage rights for their Windows 10 user base, and they're not ignorant of that fact.

The whole thing is crazy. You aren't going to have to sign up for a windows subscription when buying a new laptop. This would absolutely kill the home windows market. The low end consumer would delay upgrading as long as possible. The high end consumer would go to Apple. More people would adopt Linux.

> You aren't going to have to sign up for a windows subscription when buying a new laptop.

I think the majority of the consumers in the West will accept this and MS will continue to make a shit ton of money. It's just another subscription you add to the list along with netflix, spotify, mobile carrier subscription etc.

> More people would adopt Linux.

I hope this could be true, unfortunately they probably will buy a Chromebook if they don't like the hassle of a Windows subscription.

> the next release of Windows desktop after 10

Which will no doubt be called Windows One.

Yes. I'm amazed that the writer or this article didn't realize this.

That's because they're neither a writer not is it an article. Take Forbes with a grain of salt, their authors are mostly half-literate unemployed students writing "blitz articles" for about 50p/100 words.

This article is short on details, here's a much better one: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-got-a-new-plan-for-...

Its more like a cloud replacement for Active Directory and WSUS, complete with on-demand windows licenses.

Wonder what the legality of this will be for the Win7/8 users upgraded to Win 10 without their consent?

Hopefully the EU has a very, very, strong negative opinion on this. :)

Even if this happens after Windows 10, it will still be a problem since you still need upgrades and access to latest applications. I hope PC manufacturers start pushing Ubuntu extremely hard

Second that. Windows is pretty much at the limit of obnoxiousness for me now. I'm locked to it by things like drivers for my fancy photo inkjet, but any kind of regular charge would be the last straw - I'd just swap to Linux and possibly buy a cheapo Mac for the inkjet type situation.

This is nothing new businesses already have the option to buy a Windows Subscription including Features like Update and Configuration Management (and if bundled with Office 365 this is called Microsoft 365).

The only new thing about this is that Microsoft adding a bundled subscription that includes their software services and the hardware that runs it.

This is enterprise-only, yet the article makes it out to be otherwise. Sloppy reporting.

That said, I'm curious if doing this in the enterprise environment could be testing the waters for doing it on consumer PCs, but I think that is unlikely.

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