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Microsoft Trademarks "Windows 365"
jones_supa writes The talks about a subscription-based Windows have begun again. With Windows 10 those ideas did not materialize in the way that many had speculated. Even though Microsoft has not fully detailed its Windows 10 pricing strategy, it is not believed that Microsoft is targeting an annual subscription charge for Windows at this time. However, it turns out that Microsoft has recently filed for a trademark for Windows 365, which adds a bit of fuel to the subscription based version of Windows. As of right now, Microsoft has only claimed this branding right, but as for what they will do with it, only time will tell. Deep inside the company, the idea is clearly still bubbling there.
...Consumers and hobbyists signing on to a perpetual Microsoft tax.
I have my doubts about large customers also. Many stick with a single version of windows for years and years because they want a stable computing environment.
Well, as stable as it can be with Microsoft.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
With no metro, no software as a service, and not built-in spyware
... but what happens on a leap year? Will Windows be unusable on that day? I mean, more unusable than it already is.
Subscription Windows might finally lead to the year of Linux on the desktop.
I say might because I'm consistently amazed by the extent that Windows users are prepared to bend over and take whatever Microsoft gives them. If you're prepared to put up with Windows 8/10 you'll probably put up with anything.
no windows for 2016 2020 2024 2028 2032 2036...
Does anyone have actual numbers on subscriptions to Office 365 vs amount of customers who simply bought Office 2013 outright? I would bet that OS licensing would be 5x less popular than even those pathetic office subscription numbers.
Let's break it down. You pay for the OS forever so Office 2003 for example would have cost you over $2000 per seat by now. BUT WAIT it's worth it because you get free mandatory updates to your product so you have to re-test all your corporate software every single time they release an OS so it costs EVEN MORE money! What a great deal! Paying 10x more for software plus upgrades you never wanted. And I'm sure it's simple to buy a computer from Dell or HP with no windows license when you replace your actively subscribed PCs with new hardware. MS is a big fan of OEMs selling OS-less computers.
The OS is being released for free, or free to Win 8 users. I can't remember the stipulations. And I think Office is free for the first year, then some sort of subscription. Subscriptions are the way of the future, soon you'll download office then to unlock more options it's a subscription or a micro transaction.
To much like windows 386 but that video was cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noEHHB6rnMI
Not until Google fiber is everywhere or the incumbents stop fooling around in the tar pits. And by then, maybe Chrome OS + vGPU transports will have taken over.
it could be a decent service for folks on Linux. My company has gone with Office 365, and while the actual Office apps are currently a bit weak, Outlook works pretty well. Since I prefer Linux, and run it on my development machine, I have to boot up my VPN to do Windows based tasks. Running their apps on the browser would be more convenient for me.
However, my current take is that their cloud application suite (Word, PPT, Sharepoint) isn't nearly as functional as the Google Drive analogs.
In a band? Use WheresTheGig for free.
Microsoft needs SaaS for their profit to keep going up. They switched businesses to essentially the same thing a long time ago with the site license.
I really don't think it will be successful with consumers unless it's free. There are alternatives these days. I'll never forget Balmer laughing at the Chromebooks, now microsoft is so afraid of them they are trying to produce similar products that basically bring back the netbook (which is NOT what a chromebook is). The Microsoft ship can't turn this quickly, especially with what it will do to revenue. I expect whatever they do will fail abysmally with everyone but businesses.
I only use Windows for gaming and I already have a few games with monthly fees. If I need to pay a monthly/yearly fee to keep using that PC, I'll just ditch it and buy a Nintendo or Sony console instead without ever considering anything from Microsoft.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
That drove MS into the ground VISTA onward are doing it again.
Will someone please think of February 29th?
"Windows 8 suxxxxxxs, what to do?"
"Windows 8.1 as a stopgap. And rush Windows 9 into production."
"No, we need to give the perception of totally abandoning 8. Skip 9 and call it 10."
"Might not be far enough. How about 360 like X-Box? Release in 2016."
"Nah sounds like a toy. How about Windows 365 -- The everyday computer for the everyman?"
"Everyperson."
"Ok, do it."
2016 rolls around. $2 billion in ads come out.
"Microsoft proudly introduces Windows 365! The everyday computer for the everyperson!"
"Oh my god."
"What?"
"2016 is a leap year."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
On all fronts, the competition has been hurting them by reduced/no OS licensing cost inflicted on the consumer and/or vendor. For Apple, it's to push hardware, for google to push ecosystem. In both their major competitor's cases, they are making inroads by using the OS as a giveaway as a means to a more profitable end.
MS doubling down on charging for the OS would only help their competition. If they are serious about enabling their ecosystem, they need to restructure things so those goals fund the OS development, not require the OS development to pay for itself.
MS also misunderstands another facet. They think a rolling release OS is critical to their success. They think they need the OS to be able to incorporate new function on a whim. They probably feel that way as they are impatient to have Windows 10 come along to fix what they did wrong in Windows 8. The problem is no one was demanding features out of Windows 7. The sin in windows 8 was inflicting undesired features, not being slow to deliver features. A rolling release will mean that MS customers pissed with some major design change are less able to latch on to some MS sanctioned safe haven (e.g. today it is windows 7) and look harder at jumping on OSX, IOS, Android, or a desktop linux depending on the area. Enthusiasts may bitch and moan about not having Lollipop 5 minutes after it releases, but 99% of the world would just as soon have their device work basically the same way day to day.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Registering a trademark is cheap, especially for any outfit that's large enough to have their own lawyers already on staff. So, there isn't much percentage in trying to read anything big into the registering of a trademark. In this case, they would need no greater reason to trademark "Windows 365" than the fact that they already have some related trademarks.
I suspect this does not qualify but... http://www.jackyliang.com/jack...
Every computer will come with it and you won't be able to get a game or new hardware without having to check extensively that it supports Linux (or BSD) and find that it doesn't yet.
You won't be able to get older versions.
You won't be allowed on the internet without a "supported OS".
You will have no choice in this matter except not to play at all and give up computers. And then if enough do that, it will be "explained" as being due to piracy or some other guff.
Windows 365 is a follow-on to Office 365, it seems. Will Windows 10 be hosted on a cloud? Is the new subscription model to be based on local licensing, everything else key-dependent and run from and on the cloud? I'm not saying annual subscription, but that does open the door to, for example, the same or similar model to the Office 365 of $8/user/month.
Is this the marker for the end of capable, standalone consumer devices, I wonder? If all this rings true, what does it mean for alternative platforms such as GNU/Linux? I doubt it'll be able to run on something that'll basically be back to the realms of a Nokia Communicator, with just barely enough power to relay a desktop UI that's generated on a server farm in the middle of Greenbow, Alabama.
It seems a logical progression to me: timeshared processor time on a farm using transient VMs configured on the fly depending on your key, to ridiculously cheap user hardware. It's a win all around: hardware costs are minimised, clients get to run their entire experience for the power equivalent of an AA battery a month.
If nobody's thought of this and suddenly reading this thinking it's a cool idea: you're welcome to use it, but credit where it's due, or I'm coming looking for you - and it won't be to send flowers.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Microsoft is driving people to keep using XP and 7 forever?
After redmond axed 4000 employees they really didnt show much afterwards. The tablet still hemmorages cash, the phone is clearly still on XBox revenue life support, and the OS looks more like the doomed airplane in the movie 'Flight' than an actual commercial product. the OS has existed, albeit forcibly, as the Microsoft moneytrain choo choo edition since arguably late into windows 7. Windows 8 turned everyones computers into touchscreens briefly, and sent businesses running for the hills of 7 despite numerous license discounts for the new version. The microsoft app store has been extended from the phone into the OS, but its usage statistics clearly arent enough to assuage investors and management. We went from evangelizing the latest version to issuing breakneck promises of reform and features in later versions but without a strong showing in functionality and usability, microsofts hand is beginning to show.
windows arguably isnt for users, its for businesses. Business licenses and xbox revenue along with patent chicannery in the android ecosystem make for the bulk of redmonds sustaining income, but home users have always been a hard sell unless its 'bundled' at a loss to them. Windows 365 is a way to not only get a foot in the door through dell and other PC manufacturers, but to maintain that revenue stream by periodically billing home users. Its likely not been pursued due to its high potential for disaster.
home windows users cling to the OS for games, facebook, and maybe a word processor. there are more than 10 flavours of easily installable linux that do this and dont charge users, and theres Apple as well who has the sense to hit the UI out of the park. "Windows is an excellent OS to download another OS with" is microsofts real nightmare, because it would call into question bundling with hardware. in 20 years you may have the very legitimate possibility of a userbase that only uses windows when they need to, not because they need to and hardware manufacturers that routinely shun the offering.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Today you pay an OS and keep it for years, sometimes a decade. And it cost you 80-120 euro or dollar so it is a cost of maybe 10$ a year at most. can you imagine people suddenly asked a monthly or yearly subscription ? A lot of normal folk will suddenly be highly suspicious even if the price is lower.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
What would you pay for a Windows subscription license? A $100 (or so) OEM copy of Windows installed onto my PC typically lasts around 4-5 years before I upgrade again (so 48 to 60 months). So, the starting price I'd be looking for would be about $2 a month / $24 a year! What's the betting that any subscription based model (if they went ahead) wouldn't be in that sort of ballpark?
--- To save space, would readers please insert their own witty comment -here-
Microsoft has tried at least three times during my career to sell rental contracts for Office. The rental approach has never worked on any of those occasions. If they can't get it to work for Office, it'll never work for Windows.
On one of those occasions, I was deeply involved with an effort by a major international company to set up Office on rental licences, as part of their portfolio to offer to business customers. I helped set up and run a trial, we got some trial customers in, and tried to get Microsoft to do their bit to make it work. We met with a total blank indifference from the local Microsoft people, and a total refusal to move even an inch to be helpful to the trial customers.
There were constant problems (with updates, with licence management, with bugs), and Microsoft was massively unhelpful whenever we phoned the global assistance helpline (which we were paying through the nose for). I don't think we got a satisfactory answer to any of the problems we reported (alll probs that could not be fixed at either local or country level)
In the end we gave up, bought the trial customers full-price retail licences and boxed sets with manuals, just to be able to get out of the trial.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
that 365 is an odd number. Even numbered versions of Windows sucked.
Users have been trained to accept continual remote fiddling of their machines, that software is merely licensed, and that your data is ephemeral.
As geeks, we have failed the rest of the world.
The price on those cheap small tablets for Windows is $0. So the only people who can pay that subscription are corporations locked into Microsoft.
Finally , with a subscription based Windows, the era of Linux Desktop arrives!!! again!!! and again!!!
So no Windows and no Office on February 29th? :)
At least we will be able to use it 1 day for free every 4 years.
Yes, busy with trademark application for Windows 666.
...does M$ have enough of a monopoly to force a subscription model on its users, even though they don't want it?
Maybe the majority of businesses will be fine with it, so long as it simplifies things enough to make it worth it. If so, that may make it keep its position as a defacto standard, which in turn will force most private consumers to use it as well, whether they like it or not.
If this isn't the case, then M$ probably won't go with it.
Microsoft posted that all current owners of Win 7 or Win 8.x it will be free to upgrade for the first year.. See : http://www.cnet.com/news/micro... See : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... What Microsoft is really telling you is that if you upgrade to Win 10 the first's year subscription is free. Microsoft wants to move users away from older versions of support (understandable) and get everyone on the Apple style platform. Because Microsoft does not sell the hardware (see Apple comment) they cannot make back the money on the software by giving it away for free.. Subscriptions are coming and are coming to stay. All hardware makers and software makers wants this. Because in the end I can make sure that most everyone will run the latest versions of software.
Didn't we already have this discussion on Slashdot fairly recently? I recall that some hack journalist was trying to tease-apart the wording of MS's recent statement about making Windows 10 free "for the first year", and drawing the immediate conclusion that "this means that they must be pushing a subscription model!"
So what if MS trademarked a name? Trademarks are cheap.
Is this really journalism? We have an article that takes a SINGLE FACT and extrapolates all sorts of opinions about it. Whopee.
They've actually gone back to the Windows 95 naming convention. This will be ready for release in the year 2365.
Windows 365 is 21 less than Windows 386. It also doesn't have this promotional video, but knowing Microsoft, they'll come up with something else terrible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGO2hVA3P58
Let's see how much longer we can totaly disapoint the customers. I know, let's taint CyanogenMod and make the Xbox,Windows, and Office abnoxious to use. Wait don't go, customers! We are introducing a subscription to the OS that instances partially run on our servers unencrypted and partially on your machine. Please insert credits to continue. It is not riddled with security holes, and we give your data to anyone that asks for it. Why are you leaving? There are 175,000 updates this week, but this is not a beta version sold as complete. Please do not use or power off your machine for the next 40 minutes. Oops, updater crashed in the middle of updates. Please insert credits to continue.
You'll have the choice of paying extra for Windows 366 on those years, or else leaving your computer off for an entire day.
Nah, they just rewrote time.h to avoid future leap-years.
We're not agrarian any more, so our years don't need to be synchronized to the seasons.
What about my 365 windows I am trying to sell? Will I not be able to do that?
Oh, wait...
Windows 666
Didn't Microsoft register Windows as a trademark in 1995, just before they launched Windows 95? Has that trademark expired? If not, why would they need to trademark 'Windows 365', since no one else can use 'Windows' as the name of a commercial product w/o violating Microsoft's trademark.
Two things:
1) Many educational institutions already pay yearly for Microsoft products through their Microsoft Consolidated Campus Agreement. While the OSes are generally purchased along with new computers, the upgrades are rolled into the "Desktop Core" package -- so we go and buy a hundred computers with Windows 7 Home (or whatever the cheapest one is outside of Win7 Basic), then we can upgrade them to Windows 8.1 Enterprise for "free" (or Win 7 Enterprise)...and eventually Windows 10 assuming hardware specs out well enough. It isn't cheap -- somewhere around $35/person (there's a nice equation) and that gets upgrades to Windows, new Office, and a few other things. And installs can go anywhere once you've completed the equation -- you might have 200 people in your department, but 500 computers -- and you can install on all 500 computers.
2) Windows comes wrapped up with the new PC usually, so where pricing hits you is with upgrades, or if you're building your own from components. A subscription model makes good business sense -- steadier revenue. But revenue hasn't really been a Microsoft problem since such a high percentage of computers are licensed with Windows.
Microsoft Trademarks "Windows 365"
As if anyone would have got away with branding something with that name prior to MS trademarking it...
Or does this mean Windows 364 and Windows 366 (for leap years, of course) are still anybody's?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's like they almost turned it around, but went too far and still in the same general direction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If average PC lasts for 8-10 years, will the yearly Windows rent then be $12..$15? Or does Microsoft think they can get more? Would the rented Windows also get forced "upgrades" to current windows? Who would pay more just to get continuous breakage, feature removal and constant randomization of the UI?
Since they totally abandoned Windows 8...this name would fit them better! Also, considering that it will only be useful half the time as well, the rest of the time it will be busy downloading and installing the endless "security" updates and bug fixes!
Microsoft reported a 128 percent year-over-year growth for Azure and its other commercial cloud services, including Office 365 for business. Home users of Office 365 (now numbering 7 million, Microsoft says) also edged up 25 percent over the last quarter.
In some ways the Office 365 figures are more significant than the Azure numbers, since they hint that one of Microsoft's most intractable customer groups -- users of the desktop, on-premises Office suite -- can be transformed incrementally into cloud users, and from "transactional purchasing to annuity" (read subscription) customers. Microsoft has made wise moves in that area, such as offer more granular Office 365 subscription deals for small businesses. The basic Business SKU, which includes the full Office desktop apps, is now $8.25 per user per month for up to five devices per user.
Microsoft reported solid Q1 gains with Azure and Office 365, but the payoff from its mobile efforts may still be a long way off [oct 24, 2014]
With XP and onward, activation means that you can be denied your working old computer.
Isn't that kind of them?
Given that MS are skipping over having a Windows 9 because of the negative reception of Windows 8, they're just anticipating that everyone will hate Windows 10 so much that they're going to skip over all the numbers from 11-364.
Will it stop during leap seconds, too?
If you don't pay next year's or next month's Win 10 (aka Win 365) fee Microsoft could just brick your computer. This is different from just not providing security updates if you don't buy the next version like happened with dropping support for Win XP requiring the purchase of Win 7 or 8.x if one wanted continued security updates. For the non-enterprise user there might be options such as moving to Linux or Apple OSs but for enterprise they already pay regular fees and there may not see much difference.
You must wait 20 minutes - or you can buy some Ballmerberries for just $4.99 and continue writing your thesis!
"Screw that; I'll just plant my own berry bushes." [Heads off to libreoffice.org]
Microsoft has to keep in mind that implementing usage quotas into Office 365 would likely drive users away. Microsoft would especially lose users with a lot of usage under whatever billing metric it chooses but little need for the more sophisticated features that LibreOffice Writer doesn't import well.
If Windows 365(Previously Known as Windows 10) does become a subscription based OS and still charge you $$$ for purchasing the OEM or Retail disc I doubt that people would leave Windows 7/8/8.1. Imagine if Windows 365 for $99 only comes with the WinRT API and you have to shell out another $99 to purchase the Win32 API to run your standard windows applications.
The problem with Linux is that it's extremely buggy when it comes to the desktop. I think the KDE is a better GUI then MS's Windows 7 but not rock solid. But I prefer using the Windows 8/8.1 metro over all other start menu's. I was never a fan of the windows 95 based menu systems.
Want to hasten your own decline for consumers? Try foisting a subscription model on them and then acting like it's not the consumer who owns the computer.
I'd like to believe that, but unfortunately a significant fraction of the customer base for software appears to be quite happy paying up. Adobe show no remorse over moving to subscription-only with Creative Cloud. Games companies show no remorse about requiring always-online DRM schemes, and little sympathy even when the servers fall over and people can't play their new game on Christmas morning. I assume the amount of money they're making from the people who still pay up outweighs the amount they've lost in customers choosing not to buy (rent?) their new software on those terms.
I hope -- and expect -- that this situation will change in time, as the reality of paying or being literally shut off sinks in, and as people get tired of having forced upgrades they didn't want or need that sometimes make things worse than they were before.
Personally, I would never voluntarily rely on software for anything important where it stopped working completely if I stopped paying. This is the so-called "rental model" for software sales, and can be very customer-hostile -- stop paying and you actually lose something you had before.
However, some software -- particularly system software -- naturally becomes less useful over time unless it receives updates to ensure compatibility with newer things and to protect against newer security and privacy risks. So, my take is that big software companies like Microsoft are missing a huge opportunity right now. I would happily pay a reasonable recurring fee to a software company in return for ongoing compatibility and security fixes, if that meant I could keep using the version of software I actually liked and found useful indefinitely, without having to buy into "upgrades" that might break something. Some of the big names have taken some steps in this direction with various corporate licensing schemes, but these are usually the preserve of big business customers, while smaller businesses and private customers are stuck with off-the-shelf, upgrade-when-it-runs-out software.
There's no commercial need for turkeys like Windows 8 to be rushed out if you have a decent product in Windows 7 and your customers are willing to pay you real money to maintain it for the long term. And as a customer, given some reasonable and clearly stated initial period of support with a software purchase, I don't think it's unreasonable to then provide some more money to the developers in return for ongoing support after that time. After all, software doesn't magically grow on trees, and I'd rather pay them for working on something I value than have them to try force/trick me into paying them for something that isn't really what I want.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Considering how predatory everything is now, I would never want any of this.
That I could file a trademark for "Windows 356"? If appending a number on the end of windows is trademarkable, my Microsoft's own admission, then why not?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Chromebooks and Chrome boxes will give free OS upgrades. Chrome OS currently does most of what a typical user wants. Our local schools use it. Teachers love it as they can not only get assigned homework the can tell when it was posted on Google's cloud. The biggest hurdle for consumers, outside of no web based alternatives to some programs, is that local printing needs to be have automatically installed drivers and not just Google cloud printing, which is not simple for some people to set up..
Microsoft does not sell the hardware (see Apple comment) they cannot make back the money on the software by giving it away for free.
Of course google doesn't sell the hardware either. Part of MS' problem is that they can't decide if they want to be like Apple or Google and are aiming for an odd mix of both and their own legacy self.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
is really "free" I laugh at you. You are giving up your license that has a support lifetime for one that can be pulled out of under you in so many ways its funny.
MS can end of life your device anytime it wants, requiring you to pay subscription for past life support/patches at any time.
MS can introduce adds or other monetizing features on the rolling release (unless you pay for the subscription model)
blah blah blah. The most important part of the free upgrade offer is what MS has not put in writing -- IE all of the ways they have left the offer open to screw you.
they're making no claims concerning 24/7
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Is that the temperature the CPU will run at?
(373.15 is the boiling point of water at normal atmospheric pressure)
...if they package it something like they have with Office 365 then I'm in. I love Linux and the whole Open Source thing, but truth be told, the vast majority of people in the world don't use Linux and I need Windows for work. I do pay for the full O365 subscription with 5 licenses but in all honesty, the real reason I do is primarily for the storage. At the time they released it, I was using Dropbox and was looking at solutions to which I can obtain at least 100Gb of online storage. For the price of Dropbox, Google Drive and a few others, I purchased an O365 subscription (which incidentally I now have 10Tb of available online storage) for less than anyone else offers for their highest available plan. If MS bundles O365 and W365 with 5 licenses for 15-20 bucks a month, then it's worth it to me to keep my computers recent and up to date.
365K should be enough for anyone.
At the moment you can take a PC out of a shop and get it home without subscription. Which means it will have to be done at home at a later point ,aka first month or first year is free. By that point people will not understand why suddenly they will have to pay money to continue using the software they HAD bought in previous years. If there is anything which would push toward a revolt, that's that. And in europe they would be walking on eggshell with the change to a licencing modell and anti monopoly sentiment.
Windows 365 is a follow-on to Office 365, it seems. Will Windows 10 be hosted on a cloud?
That's actually a pretty good guess. Microsoft hosted VDI would not be outside the realm of possibility.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
All this does is remind me that MS couldn't even get a calendar to work with the Zune and with Azure and had both the device and the service fall over due to an assumption that every year is 365 days long.
High school students would be marked with a fail if they made such a ridiculous mistake, so something was seriously wrong at MS to make such a mistake twice and not catch it before release or deployment.
That's how many days it will take Windows Cloud to start up.
Table-ized A.I.
On all fronts, the competition has been hurting them by reduced/no OS licensing cost inflicted on the consumer and/or vendor.
No, it really hasn't. Apple isn't yet a threat on the desktop (And you think people paying 1.5-3x the cost of hardware give a shit about the price of an operating system? We can buy Windows all the damned live long day, son.) Linux is a complete fucking joke.
Servers? Apple has none. And ain't nobody is running ShittyRollYouOwnLinux on servers; they're paying bank to RHEL.
Naturally, queue the developmentally challenged individuals who believe their own ShittyLinuxServer or FucktasticOpenSoresDesktop provides anecdotal evidence (the best kind!) that Micro$oft (LOLOLOLOL) will die real soon now. Like it has been. For longer than Slashdot has existed.
Lose offline gaming, and you lose all market share among members of the armed services.
You seem to be quite the fan of hyperbole it seems. It's not really helping the discussion - this is what gossipy people do. Stick to the facts, and you might learn something.