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Comment by anindyabd | Hacker News Reader

Free upgrades for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users -- wow, that's different from the Microsoft of old. Clearly they've decided that they've got enough in the coffers to be not as concerned about losing money in the short term to get some good PR.

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I think they're making their steady profits from corporate clients and big business solutions, (Azure etc). They have given up on selling Windows to remain relevant in the consumer side, it may be a smart move to keep consumers on the Windows platform as they explore alternative consumer strategies.

Especially after introducing Office 365.

These days you don't get a Office copy to use, you get 1 year free...

I don't think this is a PR move. This looks like a new business model that finally acknowledges the facts on the ground. OS version upgrades for consumers are either free and mostly automatic or they don't happen.

It's not just a Windows phenomenon. I'm sure 90% of Android users would never pay for and actively install an Android version upgrade. Even OS X upgrades are now free, supposedly for the same reason.

So if Microsoft makes very little money on consumer version upgrades anyway, they could just as well let everyone use the latest version for free and make life a lot easier for themselves and for millions of developers.

It's a very welcome move that is long overdue.

When they say "free for the first year" is that "free to upgrade" during the first year it's available, or "free for one year" then you'll pay a subscription to continue using the operating system after that year?

Here is the slide from the Verge livecast [0]. It's followed with this quotation

"Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime for the device."

I'm not sure what they mean by "lifetime for the device", but I think it means you have a year to decide to upgrade to Windows 8, and then it'll be supported for as long as your device is working.

[0] http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/191...

That was my interpretation as well, however, people who build their own computers should probably look in detail what the license entails as it may be like Windows 8 System Builder Edition. AFAIK, the System Builder Edition is bound to your computer's motherboard and any changes will make Windows unusable.

At this point I would consider it in line with what they did for Windows 8. For the first while after release it was possible to upgrade from Windows 7 for $15.

This looks to be an embrace and extend :) of their own idea.... Now free for a whole year.

Obviously more details once it is closer to release but sounds great so far.

It seems that MS is coming around to the idea that charging consumers for the OS is no longer terribly good business, even though they have less skin in the hardware game than Apple does.

Or it's just a desperate attempt to try to make people want to get the latest Windows version again, after the Windows 8 fiasco. You could see it either way, I guess.

So when Apple does it everyone cheers, when Microsoft does it it is a "desperate attempt?" Ok.

Since Apple's core product is hardware, and Microsoft's core product is an OS (at least in this case), it makes sense they would each want to commoditize the other.

So "Yes, for good reason" is the answer to your question.

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