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

Aaaannnd there it is...

[Lab Rat Jason]

So no shock here... windows as a service for 3x the price you used to pay. Nice move Micro$oft.

Re:Rent-Seeking

[nmb3000]

Home and Pro have no sign of moving to a subscription plan at this point.

Are you sure? Does it need to be in 150-foot tall neon for it to qualify as a "sign"?

Given the direction they've taken consumer and enterprise Office, the newly announced enterprise Windows subscriptions, and the claim that "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows", what other conclusion can be made? And on top of that, desktop sales have slowed as newer machines tend to last users a lot longer than they historically did. With all this in mind I think it's entirely reasonable to deduce that within a year or two all editions of Windows will be sold via subscription.

The real question is what they will do with existing installations. Will there be a year or two grace period after which point your license expires and will require a subscription renewal? Or will they allow existing licenses to continue in perpetuity? Will offline installation still be possible or will yearly renewals be required via phone for disconnected machines? Either way, Microsoft will probably price it such that they even claim it's a "savings" because the "average user" would have spent more to upgrade Windows every two years than they will in subscription fees.