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Microsoft Trademarks "Windows 365"

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-easy-payment dept.

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.

5 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Hard To Imagine... by sycodon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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.

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    1. Re:Hard To Imagine... by spacepimp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well if Windows becomes a rental system, then wouldn't that spell the immediate removal of the MS tax, and that the base OS can't essentially be pirated any longer? Meaning All hardware companies can freely put any OS or none on there without fear of reproach?

    2. Re:Hard To Imagine... by mlts · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I can see something similar to O365. However, would the enterprise want to license production servers on this scale and have a glitch cause them to shut down? Good luck with that. The only way I can see something like this happening is using a KMS-like mechanism, but even then, there are many companies who run Windows air-gapped where a KMS would be unacceptable.

      To be real, MS needs to take their stock private, just like Dell, and get off the stock market where they don't have to just look at each quarter and little else. This way, MS can expand into a lot more markets (which mean a lot more long term growth) than they can now. A few examples:

      1: MS can make money by licensing their IP... same thing that keeps IBM from collapsing. If MS licensed Active Directory and Exchange to Apple and UNIX makers, it would mean ongoing profits for them with zero work. Oracle, IBM, and RedHat would pay MS for licensing so their products could run MS technologies. This is a win for everyone in the picture, because it means core functionality that would be forced to be on Windows could be on other environments.

      2: MS could start working on new technologies to leverage their software advantage. For example, with a two phase deduplication process similar to PureStorage devices (where basic deduplication is done on writes, and a second pass is done in the background for even better space savings), coupled with better RAM management in Hyper-V, coupled with the ability for Hyper-V nodes to access each other's drives via Infiniband connections... they would have made the SAN obsolete while offering just as much, if not more redundancy.

      3: Re-engineer for security. Vista was a major step in this regard, but it has been ten years, and the Windows kernel needs to be re-engineered again. This time, it might be good to have Hyper-V be always on, so any machine, desktop or workstation is a VM, and the user can load an AV utility at the hypervisor level to catch rootkits, even RAM based ones. Of course, this makes backups easy since the whole machine's snapshot, RAM and all, can be done.

      As for a subscription for consumers, it is an option, but it has to be priced right. Too high, and users will stick to previous of Windows indefinitely.

    3. Re:Hard To Imagine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm a very happy 365 user and here's why:
      I'm a professional that uses outlook, word, excel, one note, and PowerPoint. I needed to use a cloud backup service. I can utilize Skype international calls.

      The 65 dollar license per year might be enough, but I'm gladly posting the 100 because it's got licenses for 5 computers/users. The unlimited cloud storage is amazing, and the accessibility from mac and android is really convenient. I know I sound like a salesman right now, but I can assure you I'm not. It's just that, to me, this is great software and storage that is a bargain at 100/year for my family.

    4. Re:Hard To Imagine... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't know how their Office subscription is doing though, so maybe they've snookered some people into getting used to it.

      I like the Office 365 subscription. It's $10/month (versus $400 for Office Pro), I get regular updates, and I can install it on 5 machines and 5 phones. I currently have it installed on 4 laptops and two phones. To do those installs via hard media would be $1600. It'll take over 13 years of subscription to meet the price of buying the equivalent suites for my installs. And with Microsoft rolling significant updates every couple years, this is a vastly cheaper way for me to keep up with the releases. Not sure how the leads to being "snookered"...

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