Windows 8 Gets Personal Use License For Homebuilt PCs

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Geek.com: "Microsoft has never really acknowledged or supported those among us who choose to build their own PCs. Windows licensing is usually offered in three forms: full retail product license, retail upgrade license, and OEM license. If you want to build your own machine at the moment, Microsoft expects you to buy a full retail copy of Windows. With Windows 8 that all changes and Microsoft has decided to actively support individuals who want to build their own machines or run Windows 8 as a virtual machine. That support comes in the form of a new license option called the Personal Use License for System Builder (PULSB). With PULSB, Microsoft is dumping the full retail license used in previous versions. Instead it is offering a version of Windows 8 to be installed as the main operating system on a single system meant for personal use, or in a virtual machine running on an existing PC (running any legal OS such as Windows 7, Mac OS X, or your favorite flavor of Linux)."

Comments

Is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Microsoft really desperate to get windows 8 to work?

Re:Is it just me

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Microsoft really desperate to get windows 8 to work?

Why does it have to be a desperation move? Maybe Microsoft is looking to try to capitalize on revenue opportunities from people who either wouldn't consider Windows because of the full retail price or people who don't purchase additional copies because of the price. Desperation move or not, it's a great benefit to people who still need Windows and don't buy OEM systems.

Re:Is it just me

[Defenestrar]

Desperation? Not as in the case of survival. MS is extremely diversified on the software front and still has the defacto standard software for a majority of business applications (OS included). The only thing they might be desperate about is that other people are making money in a field to which MS has a relatively low barrier for entry. So, rather than calling them desperate, I'd suggest that they're really excited to enter a market that they're well poised to kick butt in. There's a decent chance they'll screw up the first iteration - but there's also a decent chance they've already done that (Win Phone 7).

If MS does Windows 8 right, they'll put the death nails in RIM's coffin while simultaneously slapping Android and iOS out of the business field entirely. A well implemented remote desktop alone could make that happen. Once MS has business adoption, education/private users will migrate to something that's most relevant/familiar. The existing mobile OSs will slowly fade to niche markets for those who like trendy items or those who like to tinker under the chassis (and I don't think I need to mention which is apple and which is linux).

So, in summary, MS is well poised to repeat the desktop successes of the '80s and 90's in the mobile market. They weren't Atari, Commodore, or Apple, (or even IBM), but MS won the day and (after a lot of development) they have quality product and a secure hold on the desktop market - the only thing they need to worry about is whether they can translate their dominance into a new hardware architecture. Worst case scenario: they screw up Windows 8 and don't manage world dominance until Windows 9. Unless iOS or Android are willing to license PC interface technology from MS (which would be a different type of win), MS has nothing to worry about. If anything, the only thing MS has to be desperate about is making Windows 7 another XP.

Re:Is it just me

[IntlHarvester]

I can't see how this really matters. The price of Win8 is low already primarily for the reason they want you to adopt it. The reason they accept a lower price to increase adoption is that they feel they'll be making up the difference in that 30% they are going to be charging for their software store.

It doesn't even require any nefarious motives, MS simply finally woke up and realized their was a huge disparity between their retail prices and the far lower volume prices. If Dell is only paying $30 a copy, why were they even trying to get $300 from joe home builder? It was stupid and they finally figured it out.

Not to mention that Microsoft's old price sheet literally dates back to the 1980s and OS/2. People used to pay $300 for Windows NT Workstation and install it on their $2500 PC, pretty good deal compared to Unix, eh? But it's 2012 now and nobody is paying that kind of money to install an OS on their $400 laptop.

What's the difference..

[Anonymous Coward]

Between this and the full product license?

Re:What's the difference..

[Applekid]

It's their loss. When you make it painful to stay legal and compliant, they just drive people to piracy anyway. If your $130 OEM copy isn't legal you might as well pay $0.

They should just go back to the "good" old days and just charge a flat price and be done with it. Incidentally, those were the monopoly days, too, so obviously something was going well for Microsoft with that plan.

Re:What's the difference..

[GameboyRMH]

The license is non-portable and becomes locked to the motherboard

Oh I'm sure this new license will be totally popular with the people who build their own PCs, especially gamers.

"will probably be on par with OEM pricing"

[Anonymous Coward]

so what's the difference then?

Re:"will probably be on par with OEM pricing"

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can funnel everyone who builds their own machines into buying this version, they can lock down the retail/OEM versions harder (which will appeal to manufacturers). Then, a few years down the lines, they can pull the PULSB version and voila - the walled garden they've always wanted!

Of course they won't *actually* do that, but can't help but think they're trying to create a distinction and secure boot probably plays into it a little bit.

Re:"will probably be on par with OEM pricing"

[ottothecow]

I don't think microsoft particularily minds people buying a mac and then running windows on apple hardware.

Sure, they may only be bootcamping or VMing it for specific situations, but it beats the alternative which is the customer learning to live completely without windows.

Free (as in beer)?

[sqrt(2)]

If it's not free (beer) then it's not going to make much of a difference converting unlicensed copies into licensed ones. Home built PCs often use unlicensed copies of Windows, among people who are building PCs to run Windows and games at least. You're not going to convert those people to legitimate users unless you can meet the current price they are paying now--which is zero.

For personal use I don't know why anyone would pay for a copy of Windows, especially when it means taking money away from spending it on hardware. When faced with the choice of a "legitimate" copy of Windows or the next highest graphics card or CPU, people will always choose the hardware that provides tangible improvement. A licensed copy of windows is bit-for-bit identical to the unlicensed one and offers no improvement other than some vague (false) sense of moral correctness. And that's entirely based on the user's subjective opinions on software licensing and the morality of imaginary property.

So whom is this licensing option really going to be for? I don't see it going anywhere, unless the price is so low as to be negligible, but then they'd be undercutting their other more profitable licensing options.

Re:Free (as in beer)?

[geekoid]

All the updates work at MS's good nature.
They can turn all that off but decided it wouldn't be good in that it would create a pool of virus and malware that would go unchecked.

MS is being benevolent. They can change at any time.

Prices?

[Alter_3d]

From TFA:

Although final pricing for Windows 8 hasn’t been announced yet, the PULSB license will definitely be cheaper than purchasing a full retail license and probably on a par with OEM pricing. It is also expected that pricing in general for the new OS will be lower than what we currently pay for copies of Windows 7.

Hmmm... "not announced yet", "probably", "it is also expected"
Sounds like a lot of maybes.... I'll wait for the real prices to see if Microsoft actually is on to something.

Priced to reduce piracy.

[jellomizer]

The issue has always been with a lot of piracy. The fallacy is the company is competing with free, that isn't the case, the problem is the company is competing with easier to get. Microsoft with its different licenses where the rates that people are willing to pay they are technically not support to pay. Even the guys who do not want a pirated copy but an original would get the OEM off eBay (something we really shouldn't be doing)... However if we can get a good price for the OS a lot of us will be willing to get the fully legit version.

Re:but... why???

[Dog-Cow]

That's only a big advantage if you don't want to run Windows. The vast majority of computer users do, in fact, want to run Windows.

Retina MacBook Pro and other sealed computers

[tepples]

most shops would sell you the OS for purchasing any 1 piece of equipment which goes inside your case. [...] I upgraded the RAM in my laptop

Which isn't so good for people who want to run Windows on a MacBook Pro with Retina Display, which has almost no socketed parts. See the recent story about sealed-box computers

"But why would anyone want to run Windows on a Mac?" Developers who already have a Mac for developing Mac or iOS apps might need to dual-boot to Windows to test a web site in IE, port a Mac application to Windows, port a Mac game to XNA for Xbox Live Indie Games on Xbox 360, or port an iOS application to Windows Phone 7.

Re:Retina MacBook Pro and other sealed computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this use case basically what the retail license was intended for?

Re:Retina MacBook Pro and other sealed computers

[ratbag]

Nice bit of shoe-horning there.

The rMBP along with all other sealed or unsealed computers will be able to use the PULSB licence, which is supposedly going to cost about the same as the OEM licence. So where's the problem?

And if you want to do one of the things on your list and you can work quickly, then developers can even download a free 90-day eval version of Windows 8 .

But again - why the special mention of the Retina? It has no relevance to the discussion at hand - ie the new licensing that Microsoft offers.

Re:Wonderful? At What Cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit

Give it away for free

[KingSkippus]

To be honest, I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't just give away Windows for free as a loss leader. It sounds like they're headed toward selling software via the Microsoft store a la Apple's app store and Google Play, in which case they'll be getting a cut of all software sales. I can understand selling some kind of "business connectivity" package that contains the domain connectivity bits that companies require at a premium. They're even getting into the hardware retail business, as well as hammering hard on search (thus data mining and advertising), online services, console gaming, etc.

With their main operating system competitors a company that sells its OS as part of its hardware package (Apple) and a loose conglomerate developers that give away their operating system--and most of their productivity software--completely free (as in speech and beer), it just seems like it would be a smart move by Microsoft to completely embrace its alternative revenue streams and make a play to get legal copies of its core OS--and its connectivity to its software store where the real money is now--on every desktop, laptop, and tablet in the world. How many users, presented with the option of buying the MacOS upgrades for $20 or $25 a pop, would be mighty tempted to install Windows 8 on their Macs for free instead, especially if they know they won't have to pay for any more MacOS or Windows upgrades down the line? Microsoft could very well steal a chunk of market share from Apple on their own hardware.

The most frequent justification I see from Linux users (myself included) for using Linux is, "You never have to pay for upgrades to get the latest and greatest version again." Yeah, the free software is nice, but you can get free software (many times the exact same software--Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity, etc.) for Windows. Yeah, the principles behind open source are admirable--and make no mistake, I would continue to support them--but most average schmoes really couldn't care less that they can download and compile their own OS source code, and wouldn't have a clue how to go about it even if they did care.

From a purely business standpoint, I really think that giving Windows away for free is the best long-term strategy for Microsoft, and it would be perceived as a bold and welcome move by the industry as well as draw in a bunch more users who would then earn Microsoft money via software sales, advertising, and online services.

Re:first

[screwdriver]

This isn't reddit folks.