Microsoft stays true to its word, will end free Windows 10 upgrades on July 29

AppleInsider · May 5, 2016 4:44PM

In what could be described as a somewhat surprising move given the company's proclivity for indecision, Microsoft on Thursday announced that it would stick to the plan it announced last year and begin charging for Windows upgrades this summer.

After the switch -- which comes on the operating system's first birthday -- standalone Windows 10 Home licenses will cost $119. There is no word yet on pricing for other editions.

Windows 10 has done its part to rehabilitate the image tarnished by Windows 8's disastrous rollout. The software has been well-received by both consumers and the important enterprise market, having made its way to more than 300 million devices worldwide.

Microsoft has big plans for Windows 10, touting a significant anniversary update to drop alongside the pricing switch.

That update will bring a new handwriting feature called Windows Ink, updates to Cortana and tighter integration between Windows 10 and Windows phones. No release date is available yet, but it is safe to assume that the update will arrive sometime this summer.

kent909 · May 5, 2016 5:02PM

So the plan is to get Windows 10 on a billion devices. After giving it away for almost a year they are at 300 mi. At $119 I wonder how long it will take to get to the goal. This could really delay Windows 11.

knowitall · May 5, 2016 5:13PM

hurry

tjskywasher · May 5, 2016 5:13PM

About time they just offered one version that does everything for $119 instead of multiple versions with a few different features here and there. As for well received, for the Windows users in my household it's been nothing but a bag of hurt. No end of problems, things missing that have been in previous versions of Windows, some functionality has been lost across the OS and bundled apps. My mother wanted to play a DVD, connected an external drive to her laptop and guess what, no software included with Windows 10 to play a DVD! Nightmare.

runbuh · May 5, 2016 5:16PM

kent909 said:

So the plan is to get Windows 10 on a billion devices. After giving it away for almost a year they are at 300 mi. At $119 I wonder how long it will take to get to the goal. This could really delay Windows 11.

There will be no Windows 11, supposedly.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows

rob53 · May 5, 2016 5:17PM

Microsoft still doesn't get it. Windows OS has always been the loss leader product for them yet they can't figure that out. Once a PC has Windows on it and a company buys them, they are stuck buying just about everything from Microsoft. This includes client licenses, which are embarrassingly expensive, as well as a large assortment of desktop and server based products, which are also expensive. They could continue to give the OS away and still make more money than they should be. People complain about ebooks and digital music costing too much because "all they have to do is copy the original, that doesn't cost anything" but when Windows services are mentioned, people feel it's ok to pay for them. Microsoft needs to have a retreat to think about how to really sell their company.

Of course, I could care less about Microsoft succeeding but there are those who do.

runbuh · May 5, 2016 5:20PM

tjskywasher said:

About time they just offered one version that does everything for $119 instead of multiple versions with a few different features here and there. As for well received, for the Windows users in my household it's been nothing but a bag of hurt. No end of problems, things missing that have been in previous versions of Windows, some functionality has been lost across the OS and bundled apps. My mother wanted to play a DVD, connected an external drive to her laptop and guess what, no software included with Windows 10 to play a DVD! Nightmare.

Nope. Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Professional, and Windows 10 Enterprise. Don't forget Windows 10 Mobile. Not sure what flavor of Windows 10 runs on a regular Surface (not a Surface "Pro")...

cpsro · May 5, 2016 5:23PM

The anniversary update will no doubt restore all of the tracking that users thought they had disabled.

runbuh · May 5, 2016 5:23PM

AppleInsider said:

After the switch -- which comes on the operating system's first birthday -- standalone Windows 10 Home licenses will cost $119. There is no word yet on pricing for other editions.

Windows 10 Pro is $199.99 from the Microsoft store.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categoryID.70036700?=en_US_Store_UH_software_Win

cpsro · May 5, 2016 5:24PM

runbuh said:

kent909 said:

So the plan is to get Windows 10 on a billion devices. After giving it away for almost a year they are at 300 mi. At $119 I wonder how long it will take to get to the goal. This could really delay Windows 11.

There will be no Windows 11, supposedly.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows

As far as I'm concerned, there is no Windows 10 either.

isteelers · May 5, 2016 5:25PM

I did the upgrade on a few of our Windows machines and I am not really thrilled with it. I think Windows gets more convoluted with each new version. Anecdotal I know, but there is no way I would pay $119 for A new Windows OS.

rotateleftbyte · May 5, 2016 5:31PM

Roll up, roll up, roll up.
Last change for a freebie!
Come and get it now!
Don't delay upgrade today

We need your data
We need to send you Adverts
For crap you won't want to buy
but it is free isn't it?

Never mind the quality
Never mind the tracking
Never mind the adverts
Get you free OS Now.

-----------
Thankfully I am retiring an can get rid of each and every MS product I use to ear a crust.
Windows 10 is a Piece of Malware as far as I'm concerned.

runbuh · May 5, 2016 5:37PM

isteelers said:

I did the upgrade on a few of our Windows machines and I am not really thrilled with it. I think Windows gets more convoluted with each new version. Anecdotal I know, but there is no way I would pay $119 for A new Windows OS.

Most people don't. If a user is planning on sticking with Windows, then they probably fit into one of these categories:
1 - Never going to run Windows 10 on the machine they have
2 - They've upgraded their machine for free already
3 - They will buy a machine with Windows pre-loaded in the future
4 - They are using a corporate computer with an enterprise license, for which the company is paying maintenance, and will be upgrading at some point in the future (Windows 10 Enterprise licenses were never a part of the free upgrade promotion to begin with)

lkrupp · May 5, 2016 5:40PM

The last few versions of Windows have been utter disasters. Windows mobile remains a partial abortion. PC sales are slowing down. Yet analysts don’t fall all over themselves to publish “Microsoft is doomed” articles. Where are the “What Microsoft must do to survive” articles? Analysts fume that Apple is a one trick pony with the iPhone responsible for too much of its bottom line. Microsoft is basically a one trick pony with Windows, the Surface line is doing just okay, and Windows phones are a sad joke. But Apple is the one in trouble, right?

lkrupp · May 5, 2016 5:54PM

sog35 said:

We all laugh at Microsoft. But the Microsoft CEO is destroying Tim Cook.

Nice rant. But it appears that ONLY YOU think this. Every financial blog, every tech blog, literally everybody BUT YOU thinks Tim Cook is doing an amazing job running Apple. Well, you and a few other “Steve is dead” ranters here on AI.

appex · May 5, 2016 5:58PM

Once you try Mac OS X, you do not want Windows even for free. BTW, Mac OS X is free.

AppleZulu · May 5, 2016 6:03PM

Microsoft finds themselves between a rock and a hard place. They make money from software, not hardware. They can give away the OS as a loss-leader, but there are increasingly viable alternatives to core products like Office. If you take the loss on the front end and don't recoup on the back end, you're in a world of hurt. Charge money for the OS, and you have income, but you also have a strong disincentive for frequent upgrades. Apple OSX and iOS can be free, because they're tied to the hardware, which is not free. Because the OS upgrades are free, Apple consumers are acculturated to staying current with the software, and that probably translates into greater willingness to more regularly paying for hardware upgrades.

Google Andriod isn't tied to hardware, and it's free, but the users themselves are the commodity sold back to advertisers. Microsoft hasn't shifted to that model, either, so they're left with trying to make money from software, which is more difficult than it used to be.

runbuh · May 5, 2016 6:03PM

lkrupp said:

The last few versions of Windows have been utter disasters. Windows mobile remains a partial abortion. PC sales are slowing down. Yet analysts don’t fall all over themselves to publish “Microsoft is doomed” articles. Where are the “What Microsoft must do to survive” articles? Analysts fume that Apple is a one trick pony with the iPhone responsible for too much of its bottom line. Microsoft is basically a one trick pony with Windows, the Surface line is doing just okay, and Windows phones are a sad joke. But Apple is the one in trouble, right?

Every company has its cash cows. Please go check to see where to see where more than half of Apple's revenue comes from. 51.2 million iPhones sold in the latest quarter and total revenue of $50B. The same quarter in the previous year was 61.2 million iPhones sold and $58B in revenue. Apple is forecasting revenue in the next quarter to also drop (year over year) due to "slumping demand" (quote from Maestri). That's not slumping demand for Apple Music or iTunes. While I wish my "slumping demand" still resulted in billions of dollars in sales and profits, these data points still reflect the common perception of how vulnerable Apple revenue is when iPhones sales don't grow as quickly as they used to.

Meanwhile, here are some articles not painting a rosy picture of Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Cloud Business Falls Short of Investors’ Hopes

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/microsoft-earnings.html?_r=0

Microsoft revenue, profit miss estimates

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-results-idUSKCN0XI2NG

runbuh · May 5, 2016 6:05PM

appex said:

Once you try Mac OS X, you do not want Windows even for free. BTW, Mac OS X is free.

"Free" and "Not Available for Sale" are two different things. If it only comes bundled with the machine, and you can't run it on other machines, how is that "Free"?

By your logic, Windows 10 is free. It comes bundled with the machine and upgrades are free.

knowitall · May 5, 2016 6:06PM

To not be negative all the time (someone might see a pattern) I found one positive feature of MS W10 now in beta, to be introduced later next year: it's called Ubuntu and its binary (even bash) compatible with Linux executables.
It really is great news for companies still running Windows because they can now build for Linux only, and as a nice bonus will make Windows obsolete altogether.
Cudos to MS.

TomE · May 5, 2016 6:06PM

You could not give me a Windows OS for Free. Oops, that is what they want to do. The legacy costs and imbedded problems are too high. I got out of the Windows market and will never, "Never" go back. Unfortunately , there are too many IT Professionals who make their living on Windoze - that makes it hard for them to "just go away".

Microsoft stays true to its word, will end free Windows 10 upgrades on July 29

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