Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Microsoft is changing their business model to subscription-based that may produce more sustainable profits from quarter-to-quarter. This is what Adobe has moved to as well. I use both Mac, Windows and Linux. Windows 7 will be my last OS.
I refuse to pay for subscription-ware both to avoid lock-in and to facilitate resiliency/interoperability if/when a vendor decides to force some unwanted application change onto me or if I want to change providers.
I use Macs but few if any Apple-bundled programs since they tend to tie apps to the OS, so a new upgrade can 'break' stuff. I refuse to use iCloud primarily because AAPL just can't run a cloud service reliably -- I use SpiderOak for reliability and security instead, and GDrive for university stuff.
At the moment I use an Android phone and Google for my contacts/calendar -- all of which can be easily moved to other devices/platforms if I want. I use the (free) OpenOffice mainly and work-provided MS Office if needed, mainly using the widely-accepted DOCX formats. Firefox is my browser for its customisation potential. I use BusyCal versus iCal because it's got tons more features. The only major Apple-provided app I use regularly is Mail because I've not found a replacement that looks as spiffy.
Subscription-ware is great for software companies, but users hate it. Adobe faced a huge backlash from small and indie videographers/illustrators/designers a few years ago when it went that route with Photoshop and its other products, and had to soften its terms as a result. Oracle and other enterprise-type companies use this process regularly, which is understandable. However sometimes they can go overboard with it - see this BI article on how Oracle is using this technique to boost its cloud services sales despite customers not wanting it: http://www.businessinsider.com/oracles-cloud-sales-2015-7
........Or they bundle unwanted junk along with their upgrades that you must opt out of. The "I want this thing" is already pre-checked FOR you, until you UN-CHECK it. Slimes.
First - I recommend going to the source, the Computerworld article referenced in the Forbes piece; the latter seems to simply restate what's there. Also noted by Computerworld are some dates - for clarifications by Microsoft, for release of financials (where one will see what a lot of this means), etc. All this calendar year, before you have to commit to a "free" Windows upgrade.
Second - I really get the sense that Microsoft itself doesn't know what these things mean. A lot is coming from the investor/business side (see slides linked to by Computerworld). More is coming from marketing. When they talk about "Windows as a Serivce, it isn't in the conventional sense of SaaS, i.e. a real service where they are responsible for running and upgrading the software. Rather, they're talking about scheduled, annual, feature-laden updates for installation, as contrasted with the current somewhat more ad hoc process of releasing updates/Service Packs as needed. (Also, and importantly, major updates are currently revenue points - you want Windows 11, you'll pay for it.)
This affects accounting, because instead of booking all revenue at time of sale (updates, if any, are indeterminate and only as needed), they will commit to periodic updates. So they'll book revenue attached to each of the scheduled updates, even though you paid your money up front. In their marcom minds, this is software as a service.
To do this, they have to have a sense of how many updates they are committing to. (Commit to two updates, and the revenue gets spread over three years; commit to four updates, and the revenue gets spread over five.) I don't see this as saying definitively that they won't provide further updates. Key word here is estimated device life. A necessary figure for the bookkeepers to estimate how many years to spread the revenue over. (That's the slide in which this term appears.)
Until Microsoft figures things out, I would just take a wait and see attitude. There's no need to install Windows 10 this month.
well i reserved it on a couple of machines. Need to make decision if I to take it. I have a Windows 7 machine I think I will take it. I'm curious about Windows 10, so... Windows 8, now I think I will decline.
Comments
I refuse to pay for subscription-ware both to avoid lock-in and to facilitate resiliency/interoperability if/when a vendor decides to force some unwanted application change onto me or if I want to change providers.
I use Macs but few if any Apple-bundled programs since they tend to tie apps to the OS, so a new upgrade can 'break' stuff. I refuse to use iCloud primarily because AAPL just can't run a cloud service reliably -- I use SpiderOak for reliability and security instead, and GDrive for university stuff.
At the moment I use an Android phone and Google for my contacts/calendar -- all of which can be easily moved to other devices/platforms if I want. I use the (free) OpenOffice mainly and work-provided MS Office if needed, mainly using the widely-accepted DOCX formats. Firefox is my browser for its customisation potential. I use BusyCal versus iCal because it's got tons more features. The only major Apple-provided app I use regularly is Mail because I've not found a replacement that looks as spiffy.
Subscription-ware is great for software companies, but users hate it. Adobe faced a huge backlash from small and indie videographers/illustrators/designers a few years ago when it went that route with Photoshop and its other products, and had to soften its terms as a result. Oracle and other enterprise-type companies use this process regularly, which is understandable. However sometimes they can go overboard with it - see this BI article on how Oracle is using this technique to boost its cloud services sales despite customers not wanting it: http://www.businessinsider.com/oracles-cloud-sales-2015-7
Sorry I see the Forbes link now.
Derf
Second - I really get the sense that Microsoft itself doesn't know what these things mean. A lot is coming from the investor/business side (see slides linked to by Computerworld). More is coming from marketing. When they talk about "Windows as a Serivce, it isn't in the conventional sense of SaaS, i.e. a real service where they are responsible for running and upgrading the software. Rather, they're talking about scheduled, annual, feature-laden updates for installation, as contrasted with the current somewhat more ad hoc process of releasing updates/Service Packs as needed. (Also, and importantly, major updates are currently revenue points - you want Windows 11, you'll pay for it.)
This affects accounting, because instead of booking all revenue at time of sale (updates, if any, are indeterminate and only as needed), they will commit to periodic updates. So they'll book revenue attached to each of the scheduled updates, even though you paid your money up front. In their marcom minds, this is software as a service.
To do this, they have to have a sense of how many updates they are committing to. (Commit to two updates, and the revenue gets spread over three years; commit to four updates, and the revenue gets spread over five.) I don't see this as saying definitively that they won't provide further updates. Key word here is estimated device life. A necessary figure for the bookkeepers to estimate how many years to spread the revenue over. (That's the slide in which this term appears.)
Until Microsoft figures things out, I would just take a wait and see attitude. There's no need to install Windows 10 this month.
Windows 8, now I think I will decline.