Microsoft Announces Surface as a Service, Windows 10 Enterprise E3 for $7 Per User Per Month (zdnet.com)

Mary Jo Foley, reporting for ZDNet: Microsoft plans to make its recently renamed Windows 10 Enterprise product available as a subscription for $7 per user per month, or $84 per year. Microsoft took the wraps off the pricing of one of the two renamed versions of Windows 10 Enterprise at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto on July 12. Windows 10 Enterprise E3 is the name of the lower-end of two different versions of Windows 10 Enterprise. Windows 10 Enterprise E5 is the new name of the Windows 10 Enterprise version that also will include Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a new Microsoft service for detecting and responding to attacks. Microsoft announced the renaming of Windows 10 Enterprise last week, and said the E3 and E5 versions will also be available as part of "Secure Productive Enterprise" bundles.Microsoft also announced a subscription service for Surface tablet. The company says that its Cloud Solution Providers and Surface Authorized Distributors can now sell Surface as a Service.

Comments

Re:Rent-Seeking

[PsychoSlashDot]

Not to worry, citizen! Your OS and Tablet will be automatically upgraded by Microsoft to a subscription model, for your convenience!

No. Just no. Stop perpetuating this. While Microsoft has made many missteps with Win10, this isn't one of them. Yet.

Enterprise was never free to upgrade. It was always a product available only through volume licensing, usually with Software Assurance, which is a yearly fee.

Home and Pro have no sign of moving to a subscription plan at this point. That might change some day, but there's no sign of it yet.

Like last week's "revelation" that the latest Win10 build includes some SUBSCRIPTIONTHING.EXE and folks like you coming out of the woodwork to say "I told you so", despite Microsoft very, very clearly explaining that the file had nothing to do with Pro/Home installs and was purely for Enterprise, the FUD is getting annoying. I'm no fanboy, but to date, your suggesting has no basis in fact.