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[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a “Subscription Edition,” “Subscription Type,” and a “subscription status.”
Incredibly unlikely to happen to home versions. MAYBE “pro” could be subscription, but I assume this will be a paid support model instead.
Because Microsoft’s market share comes from everyone pirating copies and getting free copies from university. It is the same reason Apple has so many discounts for students and position themselves as “required for art”
Because when those people enter the corporate world? It is easier to support the OS that people sort of know how to use and like.
So yeah, there is almost zero chance of consumer grade windows requiring a subscription. And any outlet that would even entertain the thought mostly shows itself to not understand the market.
Microsoft overcharges for Windows anyway. You can go to StackSocial and regularly get Win 11 Pro for $30, when the retail price is $200.
In any case, everything else tech is moving to SaaS. It’s not hard to believe that MS would “give” out a free (read: ad-laden) version of Windows, with various features enabled depending on tier of subscription. They’ve already got the technology in place with Azure Active Domain and this seems like a logical extension of that.
They’ve also already got the embedded ads feature ready to run in windows.
Except that already have that with the Enterprise/SA tier and have for a long time. Sure, Pro is still required but it’s typically an OEM license included in the cost of the hardware.
Those are typically grey market keys, and subject to being voided.
Not saying it’s not a good deal, or not worth the small risk, just that those aren’t true retail prices.
It eludes me why people purchase these grey market products over just running unactivated. They’re not valid licenses, they just overcome the technical limitations of non-activation. Generally speaking, you’re supporting criminal enterprise for the sake of being able to change your wallpaper.
Edit: Truth hurts, I guess.
StackSocial’s parent company, StackCommerce, is listed as a partner with Microsoft, so they’re probably legit. Speaking for myself, the Win 11 key and two Office keys I’ve bought before haven’t had any problems.
Two things that boggle my mind:
In a thread where the discussion is about Microsoft possibly giving away a “free” future version of Windows and monetizing features, someone thinks it unlikely that Microsoft could sell Windows now at a loss hoping to push Office 365 and OneDrive subs, and
That some people feel such a sense of entitlement they’ll go to fantastic lengths to not pay for services or products they use. They think that just because they decide a movie, or album, or operating system is too expensive they can can acquire it without paying for it. (Not you obviously, since the nagware version of Windows is technically free, just… other people).
Two thoughts on StackSocial. Even if they legitimately are an MS partner that bar is so low as to be irrelevant. I know, I’m an MS Partner. All it takes is an email address and two (maybe three) checkboxes to become a Partner at the lowest levels. Additionally, the product isn’t actually being sold by SS. the vendor is “SmartTrainingLab” which appears to only exist in the context of selling cheap keys via Stack Social and it’s clone, other clone, e-commerce sites.
As for selling Windows at a loss… They’ve always been split-brained on that front. They only just stopped giving away free upgrades to Windows 10/11 in the past few weeks despite that offer having expired over seven years ago. The real Windows Desktop OS money has historically been from the fees that OEMs pay for licensing. That’s why the retail price is so high; it establishes the baseline from which OEM discounts get negotiated. The $199 actually is pretty reasonable considering inflation, etc. Windows 3.1 was $149, Windows 95 was $209 and Windows NT 4.0, which current Windows is descended from, was $319. I wouldn’t even pretend to know what they’re going to do on that front but a subscription service seems highly possible, though I see it most likely being bundled as part of the Microsoft 365 products; you get the upgrades for “free” with one of the (product formerly known as) Office 365 consumer subscriptions OR you get ad-laden upgrades for free OR you pay $99 upgrade pricing.
And Microsoft doesn’t care. Because the profit made off a single person’s license is nothing. That is why they have never cared how many people called to unlocked FEED-BEEF-1234-5678. They know we all got that off dc++ and they don’t care because, again, the goal is to get corporate sales and to more or less make it a requirement for all OEMs and prebuilts to include a key in the sticker price.
And even if they did, fully hacked local install versions would be created… adobe photoshop is subscription only and I see full installs for it all over the place (and I might even have one myself but Im admitting to nothing)
Microsoft already has more than 50,000,000 consumers (not businesses) on Office 365 personal or family plans. It’s a small step from there to adding Microsoft 365 Cloud PC to it. With a marketing push people will gladly buy cheap WinBooks to connect in. You can do it NOW if you wanted too, all of the low cost hardware already exists as do the Windows VDs, it’s just not being packaged for and marketed directly to consumers yet.
I strongly suspect that Windows 12 will come with two licensing models “Install on your own hardware” and “License for Virtual Desktop”. Over time Microsoft will push ever harder to get people to go for the second one. They did it exactly like this with Office and it worked quite well.
MS Office has long been replaced with Google Docs. To the point that students pretty much use it from kindergarten until they graduate high school. At this point, the only people really buying MS Office have no choice or are old idiots.
So… it is a lot closer to the Adobe model of “What else are you going to do?”
No it hasn’t. My Son is currently in Engineering School here in the States and MSO is a requirement. My Niece is working on her BSN at a different College and MSO is a requirement.
Then you graduate and find out that nearly every business is also using MSO and you’ll be interacting with it daily at work. So when you get home and need to type something up…well…there’s a reason that Microsoft has 50 Million subscribers to it’s MS Family Plan.
So what you are saying is that MS is still incentivizing universities with cheap copies and licenses so that companies will use MS Office?
That doesn’t mean that you, as a consumer, at all need MS Office just like you, as a consumer, do not need Adobe Acrobat in any form.
But, if you have an effectively free license, you might well use it.
What I’m saying is that despite anyone’s thoughts or feelings MSO is in no way shape or form dead. It is the standard that all other Office Applications and Suites are judged against. None of us have to like it but its not going anywhere. Windows itself will die before MSO does.
As someone who installed Slackware 3.1 from floppy disk in 1996 I’m a veteran of the OS and Application Holy Wars. The fact is our wishes don’t matter, most businesses will make the easy purchase, most users will follow along with that at home and the easy purchase is Microsoft.
Microsoft has already shown success at getting Home Users to sign up for Microsoft Family in order to get MSO. So while us olds may remember the “better” GUIs of previous versions of Office, which were hated in their day too, there’s now over a decade of users who are used to the Ribbon. When they fire up Open or Libre all they think is “Ewww, this looks old!” You may as well tell them to install WordPerfect 7.
Ah. Well, just so long as you are in your thirties then I am sure you require ms office for personal use and totally aren’t wasting money.