Introducing Windows 10 Editions | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Windows 10 Editions

blogs.windows.com

116 pointsrufus42116 comments

Dear Microsoft,

Windows 10.

Just release Windows 10.

No one knows the difference between Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Extreme and Windows 10 Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Supreme. Your customers actually don't care.

And as long as you keep selling a baffling array of variations on the same product, no one will believe you've turned over a new leaf.

Windows 10.

With love,

Guy on the Internet

PS: There should be no "it's even more secure" version. They should all be "even more secure."

This is information for IT people, and you're treating it like it's for consumers. Consumers will only ever know about Windows 10 Home. The other options are important because:

Windows 10 Enterprise costs roughly ten times as much.

Windows 10 Education is the discounted version that they sell to schools (Apple has a similar program, they just don't tell you about it.)

Windows 10 Mobile because, well...

Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise because, again, they want to make money.

Windows is one of the top 5 most profitable software products in the world. Trust that they know how to make money.

You might be right, but does Windows 10 Pro include any features that have previously been exclusive to Windows 8/8.1 Pro, such as Bitlocker and Remote Desktop? The wording of the blog post is intentionally obfuscated to not name the technologies that are added to Windows 10 Pro, but I think it's clear they are keeping Bitlocker and Remote Desktop exclusive to the Pro edition from the following:

> Windows 10 Pro helps to effectively and efficiently manage their devices and apps, protect their sensitive business data, support remote and mobile productivity scenarios...

I use Bitlocker and frequently remote from any of my Windows PCs to any of the others. So I have Windows 8.1 Pro installed on (nearly) all of them, at non-trivial cost to me.

I agree with the grandparent that for any home user, there should be one edition, and that one edition should include Bitlocker and Remote Desktop. And any other feature that home enthusiasts and evangelists are likely to want. Microsoft desperately needs to stop punishing its evangelists. Evangelists should be courted and treated well.

> Windows is one of the top 5 most profitable software products in the world. Trust that they know how to make money.

Monopolization of the markets. I do trust it, but only when I do it. ;)

I'm fairly sure many consumers will know about Windows 10 Pro though.

Beautifully put.

Making money.

You don't know how to.

Actually, he has a point. Too many choices can harm sales significantly. Granted, in Microsoft's position, it's not as applicable.

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/research-too-many-choi...

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/too-many-choices/

There really aren't a lot of choices though. This isn't like Windows 7. If you're running Windows 10 at home you have two options: Home or Pro. That's it.

You know that, but my mom wouldn't know that. To the average customer they may assume that the Home version is the only version applicable to them. The Pro version looks like it's marketed as a business only solution. Bottom line is that it's more confusing than it should be.

Your mom won't even hear about the education or enterprise editions. At most she'll hear about home, phone, and pro... and maybe not even the latter.

Please, this is enterprise software we're talking about, sold almost exclusively through resellers, who are licensing experts and decide what the client needs. This is how you extract the most value.

Yes, I realize this - which is why I said it's not as applicable for Microsoft's position.

That having been said, chasings point was more about how it would be wise for Microsoft to make their product line less intimidating for end-users - which would help sell the idea of their latest rebranding - and have benefit for them, and customers as well.

Microsoft makes almost no money off direct-to-end-user sales. It's all either OEM money or volume sales to enterprise/government/other institutions. Microsoft is not about to upend their entire market segmenting strategy just to make things less confusing for people who are at least one step removed from any of the people who actually give them money.

As soon as Dell has a dropdown for nomal vs pro, microsoft is selling windows directly to customers.

And guess what, "Inspiron Small Desktopwith Windows 7 Professional". http://www.dell.com/us/p/desktops?~ck=mn#!facets=153558~0~87... Not that I think the average user knows if they want window 7 pro or windows 8.1 which is what most of the desktops on that page are.

> As soon as Dell has a dropdown for nomal vs pro, microsoft is selling windows directly to customers.

No, Dell is reselling Windows to the consumer.

It does not matter who is reselling what.

What matters is that the consumer has to choose between SKUs and that choice was created by MS.

Resellers take on risks for unsold inventory; Dell does not take on risks for unsold copies of windows. They do take on those risks for other components. EX: Case screws.

PS: This does vary by sales channel. If you buy a dell from best buy they clearly already exist, but if you get a custom dell from their website they buld it after you order it.

I really don't care about downvotes, but it does amuse me when people get pissy about being wrong.

PS: A reseller is a company or individual (merchant) that purchases goods or services with the intention of selling them rather than consuming or using them. This is usually done for profit (but could be resold at a loss). http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reseller

I didn't downvote you. I also don't see how that citation does anything but reinforce the original point -- Dell is buying Windows from Microsoft and reselling it. It's not even a retail product situation, like Best Buy -- Dell isn't selling Windows, it's selling computers that come with Windows. You can't buy the computer at your link without Windows, and you can't buy Windows without the computer through Dell.

Resellers are a specific economic niche. From a customer perspective CostCo and BestBuy are both just stores. However, BestBuy regularly returns unsold inventory to their suppliers where CostCo generally just has to keep lowering their prices or eat the costs.

Dell does not take unsold inventory risks with Windows so it's simply not their business model. Plenty of small PC manufactures do take this risk by buying windows 10 or 100 packs. But, if suddenly more customers want Home vs Pro edition of windows Dell does not end up with unsold inventory and get forced to offer a discount.

PS: The term Authorized Reseller often muddles the issue in people’s minds, but it’s really a different term. The App store is another great example, Apple does not buy a copy of the app before a customer does.

Edit: As to your comment about bundling. Dell does not manufacture their case screws, but they’re not a case screw reseller.

Dell is an OEM. How they chose to package their product is their business. More importantly their direct-to-consumer sales are a drop in the bucket. They use resellers too. When you go to Best Buy, nobody chooses their windows. The smiley guy shows you a few laptops based on what he thinks is best for you and you chose the one who looks the best. There are very specific rules about which windows versions go in which models and there are very specific rules about rebates. The rebates dictate what is getting sold to whom. It is such a sophisticated operation, with so much analysis behind it, that people generally don't understand it at all. I tried to hint that if you make such statements, you might not be qualified to talk about it, but apparently you are not willing to entertain this possibility at all. You think you are understand supply and demand better than the collective of thousands of people who run analysis that makes up this strategy, because you read article on a blog... Nothing more to add.

OEM != Reseller

Most stores != Reseller

Best buy is a store you can buy a prepackaged dell from. But, they are not a Dell reseller.

Again, Reseller is a term based around two sales for the same item which has specific legal meanings.

PS: Book stores are a classic example where they will destroy unsold inventory and ship the covers back. Clearly, if the book store had already purchased the book doing this would not result in a check from the publisher.

It wouldn't be wise, because they will lose a truckload (several dozen truckloads) of money from doing so. MS doesn't make money from end users. MS licenses are resold. Either from OEM or ISV. Customers go to them and the reseller decides what they need. The reseller doesn't need simple licensing. The reseller has a floor of people whose only job is to know the licensing structures.

Why hire so many people to navigate the licensing? Because that's how you extract the maximum value (money) from the market. This is why I said chasing doesn't understand how money is made in such situations. He sees something and takes it at face value. "Derp-a-derp-a-derp, I'm a clueless consumer, don't overwhelm me with so many decisions... why Microsoft sucks so much at business?"

No, they don't suck at business. You do.

I don't use their products, so they may not suck at business, but they suck at getting my business. And given how successful Apple has been at courting both consumers and professionals, I don't think it's at all ridiculous to argue that maybe Microsoft needs to tweak how they present their products to the world. Especially their most successful products.

Or I could use your logic:

Apple makes even more money and they only offer one version of Mac OS X. They don't suck at business. Microsoft does. QED.

Apple sells mobile phones, Microsoft sells software, how can you compare them? Or are you arguing that Apple PCs are more successful than Windows PCs?

It is very funny that you think you made your point with this example when you actually did exactly the opposite. Apple almost went out of business when they competed with MSFT in the PC/OS business, exactly because of those pricing/reseller strategies that MSFT employs.

It could worse. We could have ended up with the mess Vista had.

I realize Microsoft has to price segment, which requires they call out an "Enterprise" category for Mobile and Laptop/Desktop, but sometimes I wonder if they really need all of these categories.

For example, do they really get significant financial value from having a Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Education, Windows 10 Pro? particularly as they are offering it as a free upgrade to Windows 7/8 users.

Notice they don't have a Windows 10 Mobile Home, Windows 10 Mobile Education, and Windows 10 Mobile Pro - just plain, "Windows 10 Mobile".

My suspicion is they would have managed to avoid customer confusion, and captured pretty much all the same economic value, with a simple list of:

  Windows 10
  Windows 10 Mobile
  Windows 10 Enterprise
  Windows 10 Mobile Enteprise

I agree. A simple "Windows 10" with no subtitle would really make things easier for the consumer. Appending 'Home' on what is really a feature reduced version of Windows 10 doesn't seem to be in the best interest of the customer.

Define "Feature Reduced"? Lack of Domain? HyperV? Remote Desktop options?

What features are people "losing" with Home that 95% of "Home" users "need"?

Sure... You and I can't live without half of those things, but home users generally won't notice - or care - if HyperV is missing.

You pay more for Pro/Enterprise because it has added features that Power Users/Businesses need.

Glass Half Empty/Full... Potato/Patato... Home isn't feature reduced... Pro is feature added. Enterprise is feature complete.

If you want feature reduced... look into versions like Starter Edition - http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-w...

Full-disk encryption is something people want even if they don't realize it. Android, iOS, OS X and Linux have encryption built in, whereas BitLocker for Windows comes with the Pro version only.

Normal people also want Remote Desktop, again, even if they don't realize it. That's how I'm able to debug the problems that my parents are having, from a distance.

> Full-disk encryption is something people want even if they don't realize it.

Really? Because it has very limited security advantages, and very real performance impact on many systems. Android L came with it enabled by default and it cut performance in half on devices that weren't designed for it.

And why would Joe Public want it? This is something with so many caveats that DPR, a paranoid computer expert with quite a lot to hide, gained no protection from it whatsoever. So what are the odds a regular user will use it correctly and benefit from it?

I think you're wrong on multiple counts ...

1) it has real security advantages, because your PC or device is a single point of failure - lose your (unencrypted) device and the thief can gain access to everything, including your email account, your facebook, your bank account, etc... and for example AES-256 with a good enough password is unbreakable.

2) On the desktop if you have an Intel processor with the AES-NI instructions set, then you won't notice a speed hit. Core i5 is such a processor. And I own a Nexus 6 device that came encrypted by default, never felt sluggish and I have it filled with music, games, presentations and maps.

3) I don't know whom DPR is, however in the US people are protected against key disclosure with the fifth amendment. Of course, the technology is relatively new and the fifth has yet to be proven in court against key disclosure, however there are cases in which this constitutional right has been upheld [1]. And while in many countries you may not be able to resist a court order, you may be able to resist unwarranted searches or seizures; which is still useful, because ...

4) Most people have something to hide and that's undeniable. Even if you're willing to fully cooperate with the authorities, it is undeniable that most public workers are incompetents. So placing your trust in such individuals is very dangerous for one's self being. Let me give you an example ... because of an incompetent public worker, my personal identification details and home address ended up in a local newspaper. That's how identities can be stoles and lifes can be ruined, OK?

Now - do you really want to place your trust, your data (like 10 years old pictures, emails describing your love affairs, search history describing your most secret desires, etc..) into the hands of such people? You'd have to be a fool to wish for this. At least wait for the FBI to come ;-)

5) I'm sick and tired of the "Joe Public" fallacy. People are really not that dumb.

[1] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-upholds-con...

1) "AES-256 with a good enough password is unbreakable" is a provably incorrect statement. AES-256 used in ECB mode for example is incredibly breakable. And the modes available to you in FDE are compromises compared to what you would use for encrypting data in flight.

2) Windows is aiming for supporting a lot more than just powerful x86 CPUs though. You implied everyone wants this, not just people with CPUs with AES-NI instructions.

3&4&5) DPR = The guy who ran the silk road. So he had a lot more to hide than most people and was a lot more competent than most people but FDE didn't help him at all. It wasn't key disclosure - his computer was seized while it was still running. I don't think people are all that dumb. I think you need to be very very smart to fully understand the compromises involved with FDE, and if you're that smart you'll rely on something else entirely for the data most important to you.

I also think a lot of people, given the choice between "your data is sort of protected against theft, as long as the system is actually off not just suspended, and assuming you used a strong password" and "your data can be easily recovered when you hose your system and/or forget your password" would pick the latter.

A small side-note regarding key disclosure: not everyone is in the USA. Where I live, it's absolutely definitive that I hand over keys on request or I go to jail :(

Device theft by a non-technical perpetrator is incredibly common.

Even just to mitigate against this single specific threat, full-disk encryption on a modern PC is completely worth it, for soccer moms, grandparents and hackers alike.

And wiping the device and immediately fencing it is also incredibly common. No-one's going to hijack your Facebook and steal your wedding photos.

Remote Desktop is almost essential for "home" users, as it allows remote guidance through the computer.

>You pay more for Pro/Enterprise because it has added features that Power Users/Businesses need.

Do you really? When negotiating large licenses with volume discounts, does Microsoft really end up charging more for each install than they do with the Home options?

How many consumers pay for the Pro or Enterprise versions, and how much money does Microsoft actually make on that small price differential, compared to how much the market segmentation costs them in terms of consumer confusion and dismay?

Clearly MS knows these answers better than I do, but I also don't really trust their marketing teams to execute that well in the consumer space. Sure, they are awesome in the business sphere, but they really suck when it comes to consumers.

Enterprise/Education will only be available through organization based license agreements... not really for individuals. As to Home/Pro, I mostly agree... I wouldn't mind seeing a base version that's effectively Pro... considering the domain is a server license with additional CALs required anyway (SAMBA aside).

That, or just sell the pro services as an upgrade package for windows, instead of a separate OS package... I know it's all in the details, just the same it can/should be more transparent.

Remote Desktop is not essential for "home" users, there is Windows Remote Assistance which is way better for that use case. It is based on RDP but can traversal NAT, so Remote Desktop is really not needed for "home" users at all.

The editions make sense for market segmentation. Home editions cannot join a domain so that rules them out for business and education. Then they want to price segment between schools and business which makes the distinction between Education and Enterprise.

Pro is sort of the consumer version of Enterprise; it can join a domain too. I run 8.1 pro, not because of the join a domain feature, but because it can host a remote desktop session and home cannot.

> Home editions cannot join a domain so that rules them out for business and education.

The Home edition of Windows 10 sounds like it might be able to join Azure Active Directory. [1]

Support for modern form factors. Azure AD Join will work on devices that don't have the traditional domain join capabilities.

[1] http://blogs.technet.com/b/ad/archive/2015/05/13/azure-activ...

"Pro" is for people that don't have volume licenses but want the business-specific features like domain joining. Remember, Windows 10 may be a free upgrade, but it's not free and I imagine they still make quite a bit of extra money from businesses buying Pro.

"Education" looks like it's a discounted volume license available to schools. Not sure what extra features it's going to have but it's not something that anyone other than a school administrator will ever care about.

Education exists because Microsoft provides cheaper licensing to schools as a marketing exercise. They also let you buy the license entitlement through volume licensing, so smart schools will buy PCs with FreeDOS or Linux and BYO Windows.

This creates a problem, because the Federal government requires that it receives the lowest possible price for a particular product. So they carve out the education market as a separate SKU.

I can't tell you how many times I've had coworkers come in with a new device they convinced management to buy them, without my approval, and they've saved a few hundred on the OS by having a Personal edition.

So MS is paid twice there - once for the Personal version that came with the device, and once again for the business buying a single copy of Pro version to install over the Personal version.

Businesses (large ones anyway) tend to buy Windows Enterprise which only available through volume licensing. Technically the free upgrade is not available for Win7 or Win8 Enterprise (fine print on this page: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about). But if the organization always pays for Software Assurance, that includes upgrades for all covered licenses.

In my experience I see smaller businesses just purchasing hardware with OEM licenses (usually Pro).

Does Windows 7 Pro upgrade to Windows 10 Pro?

> My suspicion is they would have managed to avoid customer confusion, and captured pretty much all the same economic value, with a simple list of:

You are probably right, but doing so would have cost MS a significant amount of money. This is an entrenched company trying to avoid killing so many cash cows.

Likely the biggest motivation for this segmentation/pricing strategy is profit extraction from existing, business customers.

I run 8.1 pro on my personal PCs because I need hyper-v and remote desktop for development. I would be happy to buy a "home" edition if it came with the those features but MS captured my additional dollars for the pro edition precisely because I did need them.

Most people are getting OEM editions of Windows anyways. Anyone installing an OS on bare hardware is not going to be put off by confusion between SKUs.

It's only free as an upgrade, and even that is time-limited. New copies will still cost money.

What seems to be new in this announcement is that if you do upgrade for free, you get that for life. Before it wasn't clear if you'd need to pay subscription fees afterwards.

Plus, you can still get retail Win7 DVDs at under $100, then upgrade for free to Win10 Pro.

Right, but if you don't upgrade in the first year then you might not get it for free. I don't think anyone has said how much it will cost exactly. I haven't heard of a subscription fee either?

Agreed. I would only add to it their embedded "IoT" version.

Please Microsoft, just one Windows 10, the technical side sounds great(one OS runs everywhere) but your marketing guy is messing things up, the list of various window10 flavors made me dizzy and I had to quit reading quickly.

There's really only two versions here for people buying it for themselves. One for mobile, and one for non-mobile.

Everything else is variations for the hows and wheres.

The list is really for the IT pro getting ready to figure out what SKU he/she needs come next fiscal.

They don't call it all the same thing because you're not being priced the same way; there's other considerations.

OK they messed it up, again? Anyone with a laptop preloaded with the crippled Home edition (meaning most laptops) will not be able to take it to the work place and connect it to the domain. Then there's Pro and Enterprise, and most people don't know why they need Enterprise.

You just pay for the upgrade to Pro which you can do from within the OS.

This is against so many IT security best practices, you're probably breaking a regulation if you're in an industry not dealing with selling jewelry on Etsy.

While you're right, BYOD has been an on-going headache in IT for several years now. It's one thing to say unapproved devices are completely not allowed, but reality is when the CEO brings in their shiny new iPad and demands it get on the office wifi, the iPad gets onto the network (however heavily segmented and firewalled).

BYOD for mobile isn't entirely new, but most people doing that have MDM software that MITM's secure connections (potentially) and keeps all office-related software in a sandbox.

Attaching a desktop to an office network rarely has those same mechanisms.

Some devices include Windows 8.1 Pro, see for example the Surface Pro 3.

why would you take your home computer and connect it to the workplace?

You should Google up and see how common this problem really is. My example, I am a consultant. But I do have domain accounts in companies I consult. The OS that came with the machine (windows 7 home) had to be written over since it won't let me log in.

The point being, it's such an artificial restriction. Most PCs are laptops, and this really restricts mobility.

For clarity, are you talking about joining your laptop to the domain, or merely logging into domain accounts using a non-domain-joined laptop?

A remote desktop session into the my employer's network from guest wifi works fine within their building. My laptop running the rdp client is faster than the thin client they issued me with!

I think a consultant using their machine for work purposes can fork out for Windows Pro instead of using Home edition...

And where do you work that this is even allowed? Maybe it's only because I work for the Federal government, but there is not a snowball's chance in hell that I would be allowed to attach my personal machine to the non-guest network in any way.

I'm a developer and everywhere I've worked (small companies) I use my personal machine for work.

Further, would you even trust it on the guest network?

"why would you take your home computer and connect it to the workplace?"

- Blackberry

BYOD (bring your own device) is the big noise in corporate IT, has been for a while. Now, it started with iPhones and macs and iPads, but if your staff have, for example, a Surface Pro 3 they like to use, you want some way for them to be able to use it in the corporate network environment, right?

Now, I'd question whether the right way to handle that is to join it to the Windows domain (I'd question whether having a Windows domain is the right way to handle ANYTHING in fact), but it's definitely a part of the corporate IT landscape nowadays, and MS should have some sort of a story for how you can do it.

I do this all the time.

And suddenly I feel a lot less excited about possibly switching back to Windows. With 10, I was hoping for a single version for everything going forward. But if Microsoft is going to continue splitting their product lines and making it a headache for me to know which versions have the features I need (ex: RDP), I'm just going to not give them a second chance no matter how much they open source. It's just extra grief that I don't need as a normal end user.

One thing I haven't discovered yet is whether the installation of 10 is going to be a brand new install rather than an upgrade. In other words, will it be necessary to reinstall all my applications after moving to 10?

The technical previews have offered an upgrade option, but that's not guarantee it will be included in the final version. Either way, it's almost always better to do a full reinstall for a major version like this.

An upgrade; the underlying technology in Windows hasn't changed significantly since Vista.

It reminds me of the Model Year - We're still on Windows Model Year 2008.

Windows 10 was version 6.4 internally but it sounds like they're going to go make it 10.0 on release.

(Windows 8.1 is 6.3 and Windows 7 is 6.1 and Vista is 6.0)

I haven't used Win10 yet. I'm curious if they've rewritten some of the core components like they did for the 2003-2008 jump. Things like IIS, Task Scheduler engine, & Security (UAC elevation).

That's not correct - Tech Preview already shows the version 10.0.build#

Conceptually Windows 10 would/could have been 6.4, but it isn't.

In the same vein... Windows Vista hadn't changed significantly since XP, or XP since 2000, or 2000 since NT 3.5.1, etc. It's all iterative and subject to perspective here.

2003 -> Vista was the big change. All others were minor by comparison.

Plus we were talking about the deployment/upgrade technology.

But how "big" those changes are, is pretty subjective unless you're talking a pretty narrow context... the UI changed significantly in any number of areas between releases... if you have to access those a lot, that change is huge... to you. Frankly, I don't find any of them too different from each prior version... over time they're more significant.

Necessary? Probably not.

But you should anyways.

It isn't 2001 anymore.

Eh, even with constant upkeep and trimming of all non-essential processes/services, desktop Windows still begins to atrophy from day 1 in a way that one just does not see on *nix machines. Wish it weren't so but such is the price of Windows' legacy baggage.

Hah, Microsoft's DNA returns with a vengeance.

They tried to change, but couldn't /not/ segment their market, even if it impairs the customer experience. That's the MS we all know and love!

Why can't it be as simple as Linux?

If I want Redhat commercial support I simply have to decide between Standard or Premium Subscription with, or without Smart Management, normal or Entry level. Or the version for virtual Datacenters (if you want to run VMs with RHEL inside them the pricing is of course different). That's for x86 32/64 bit -- of course, if you want IBM POWER processor support, that is a different product with different pricing -- can't expect to use the same licensing model for a different CPU!

And if you want to run Red Hat on a Desktop, that too is a different product.

So in a total, 18 different versions of Linux: https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html

While for support packages you might be looking at multiple options, Linux distributions generally come in the Awesome edition only.

Correct, it only impacts support, not functionality, while for Windows functionality is impaired.

There's (quite rightly) been a bit of a fuss of late regarding the modular, paired down kernel. Why not offer the features above Home via the app / business store? CAL can still work. Then you have Windows, Windows Mobile and IoT?

one presumes inertia and marketing are the biggest drivers behind these editions.

No mention of Windows 10 IoT? Is it still going to live in some weird licensing limbo zone where it's only for preview and not for normal people to buy and use?

edit: Oh geeze I missed it, it's appparently part of 'Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise'... seriously?

No, I think you misinterpreted it.

> There will also be versions of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise for industry devices like ATMs, retail point of sale, handheld terminals and industrial robotics

conversational pause

> and Windows 10 IoT Core for small footprint, low cost devices like gateways.

There was an earlier impression (desire?) that Windows 10 was going to do away with this marketing mess of a bazillion different versions. Yet in reality, nothing has changed. All this blog post is doing differently is finally explaining what each version is.

So if Windows 10 home and pro are both free upgrades, why are they separate? I get the rest is so they can call their mobile OS the same as they call their desktop OS and segmenting enterprise, but why the home/pro distinction?

This is not granular enough. I wonder if the following features are still missing from Windows 10 pro

1. Multi monitor support in RDP

2. Support for mounting NFS mounts

Of course as in the past the compare windows editions will omit important actual differences like these.

I don't get it - can you upgrade a Windows 8.1 standard to Win10 Pro?

Unfortunately this kind of complexity isn't just questionable marketing, it propagates to everything else. It makes seamless user experiences needlessly difficult.

For example, imagine trying to create a supporting product, or simply writing instructions on how to do something. You're trying to make sure that the user will see what they're supposed to see but with all these versions you can't assume anything so you have to consider everything. A simple list of bullets suddenly becomes a series of "if you have X, do Y" statements. Everywhere.

When products and companies become this big, a simple and arbitrary choice is all it takes to create unnecessary costs for thousands of organizations around the world.

Blech, this is not sexy marketing. How do you do a press announcement with no pictures of said greatness? Its pretty pointless to describe your software product with paragraphs.

> We are also bringing the Xbox gaming experience to Windows 10, giving games and gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community, enabling the capture and share of gameplay and giving Xbox One owners the ability to play their Xbox One games from any Windows 10 PC in their home.

I do not like the sound of this. It looks like another attempt at the loathed GWFL (Games For Windows Live)

Hey so what does everyone think of them releasing multiple versions of Windows 10?

They are too focused on the one OS for everything meme. Apple does it better with iOS and MacOS. Yes you will (presumably) be able to run Office across all devices but they're not really the same programs on each platform. The UI will still be different because it has to be.

The UI will adapt on the Universal App Plattform as well, because it has to. So not really sure where the argument for Apple is here. A good analogy is responsive design for websites. It can have a few advantages to have a mobile and a desktop version seperate, but i don't think its always better, and i don't think its the future.

I was expecting to see a gold version for $10,000...

Why were you expecting this?

Title reminds OP of Apple Watch Editions, which are gold and cost $10,000: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-watch/apple-watch-edition

Good lord, those are ugly.

> everything from elevators to ATMs to heart rate monitors to wearables

I've never been more frightened in my life. Forget the zombie apocalypse, this is the W10 apocalypse.

I can't believe people are downvoting this!

Everyone is OK with Windows running elevators? What's next, pacemakers?

Good lord... With all the stride MS has made and they STILL insist on releasing 1 million different versions of Windows... How stupid do you have to be to continue to do this?

Has it ever occurred to you they know better what to do then you?

You're crazy man. Where do you get these ideas?

Next you'll tell me that my opinions formed after 10 minutes of perusing a forum are subject to cognitive bias.

No, but I will tell you that over 10 years of watching this unfold and using Windows for about half of that time I think I've got some ground to stand on. Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with this move and playing right into Apple and friend's hands. They are over complicating something that shouldn't be complicated (Desktop, Mobile, and Server are the only valid "flavors" to be releasing at this point).

For one millionth of a second... that I came to my senses.

Considering their abysmal track record, it's pretty clear they don't.

Their abysmal track record? Are we still talking about the biggest, most successful software company in the world, which made all of its mountains of money using exactly this pricing strategy?

Yeah. I mean, just look at this graph!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Operating...

See how no one uses Windows anymore on supercomputers?

Seriously though, the only reason Windows 7 lost market share is because Windows 8.1 came out, according to http://www.statista.com/statistics/272667/market-share-held-...

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