Windows as a subscription

I have the feeling that M$ will release the new OS as a subscription.
I see it as a global movement of the software's companies.
We first saw the antivirus as a subscription as they have to be updated daily.
Now you have Office 365, Windows Enterprise, Macrium Reflect, and many other brands selling their software as a subscription.

Time will tell.

Personally I don't think they will as Office 365 and OneDrive, even Edge are available on Apple and Android. So they'd be pushing customers away from Windows IMHO. The only stalwarts you have left would be gamers but then you have the likes of Steam producing the Deck that's Linux based and we don't know yet how that will develop in the future.
Business' are, of course, a different kettle of fish.

In the Elevenforum there has been a discussion about this, about 10 pages long, including a poll.
Maybe it's worthwhile to read that:

Luiz,

We've been seeing those unsubstantiated rumours for a decade.


Subscriptions are a very logical payment method for software that provides extensive user support; it makes the revenue flow match the incursion of costs.
Much specialist commercial software has been subscription-based for a very long time.


Merry Christmas,
Denis

I think they may have learned their lesson with Office 365. For a while it was not possible to purchase a perpetual license of Office Home as Microsoft tried to force you to switch to office 365, and people simply chose to stay with he last available version of office and not upgrade. Microsoft eventually relented.

I think the Subscription version may be for the cloud editition.

I cannot see the point in guessing what may or may not happen, it will all be revealed soon (possibly)

I don't mind change, I could switch to Linux for instance, though I'd rather not.

Betonhaus said:

I think they may have learned their lesson with Office 365. For a while it was not possible to purchase a perpetual license of Office Home as Microsoft tried to force you to switch to office 365, and people simply chose to stay with he last available version of office and not upgrade. Microsoft eventually relented.

I think the Subscription version may be for the cloud editition.

Click to expand...

I'm quite pleased to still have two owned copies of Word 2013 in my Microsoft account. Which I use and am happy with. I only really need word. But also now have the Pro Plus office owned in my Microsoft Account - so can't see I'll be needing any 365 in the future and really don't like the idea of it. I hope Word 2013 continues to work for a long time!

Presumably MS gets money from the laptop manufacturers for using Windows? They had so much hassle with licence fraud in the past that I can't see them starting to charge for using Windows again.

365 is worth the money just for the 6TB of Onedrive space, getting the Office apps for all the Familiys PCs is just a bonus.

A Guy