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Windows 10 as an Internet service?

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dr_andus:
21 Jan 2015 at 17:46, Iain Thomson
The upgrade will only be free in the first 12 months after release and will last for the "supported lifetime of the device." Microsoft said the new OS will run on PCS, tablets, phones, and a new device to be announced later today.

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-40hz (January 21, 2015, 12:05 PM)
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What does this mean? Do they mean for the lifetime of my current Win7 PC that will give up the ghost one day, or do they mean until the day they decide they no longer want to support my device, at which point it becomes unusable, forcing me to buy a new device?

21 Jan 2015 at 17:46, Iain Thomson

This will involved "universal apps," software that works equally well on the phone, tablet, and PC. The Office applications will be included in this, but developers will be encouraged to do the same with their own code.

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-40hz (January 21, 2015, 12:05 PM)
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I thought the whole Metro, RT etc. fiasco had shown that it's a bad idea to try to run the same OS on very different devices (which is why Apple doesn't do it)??

40hz:
I thought the whole Metro, RT etc. fiasco had shown that it's a bad idea to try to run the same OS on very different devices (which is why Apple doesn't do it)??
-dr_andus (January 21, 2015, 01:53 PM)
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Yeah...noticed that too did ya?

They never learn. :-\

dr_andus:
21 Jan 2015 at 17:46, Iain Thomson
The upgrade will only be free in the first 12 months after release and will last for the "supported lifetime of the device."

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I looked around a bit and it seems I'm not the only one confused by the phrasing of this new policy. There are some very different interpretations out there, and none of them good.

So this could either mean that I wouldn't be able to move my license to a new machine (Win10 will be free for that upgraded device but a new device will require a new subscription?) or that the new business model is based on planned obsolescence, i.e. MS can decide to stop supporting a type of device, at which point it becomes obsolete or at least much impaired?

My iPad 1 experience is a case study of how the latter would work. Apple decided not to update the OS at some point, after which gradually more and more developers stopped supporting the apps for that OS version, which in many cases meant that apps I've paid for stopped working altogether.

That's very different from having your device and the apps you paid for and using them until the hardware wears out. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with my iPad 1 hardware. It's the OS that has been abandoned.

40hz:
I'm guessing (since you can't do much else when it comes to Microsoft licensing) that they mean it in the same way OEM licenses work. Which is to say it's non-transferable to another PC. It's only licensed for the original machine it's installed on. Otherwise, everyone and their cousin would claim a freebie and use it on everything else they buy until Windows 12 comes out.

I suspect they're mostly trying to speed up adoption by the Windows 7 users (remember XP?) without making the Windows 8 users feel like they got taken for a ride like the Vista users did. It's clever too in that because it's free for the first year, corporate IT departments will have a huge amount of trouble justifying to their upper management any decision to stick with 7 if they let the opportunity for that freebie to slip by.

Microsoft certainly isn't doing any of this out of kindness, that's for sure. This is a typical Redmond squeeze play they're making. Just like the hardball offer they tried with Windows 8 - except that upgrade wasn't free. And the early adopter discount offer only lasted a very short time in comparison.
'
I don't like any of what I'm seeing. It feels like the a major 'set-up' is about to go down. And I just hope I end up being wrong about that.

TaoPhoenix:
I don't know what I think of this. I'm sure it will be all over the tech news as the months roll on. So I'll have to revisit it when I am not tired!

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