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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 $84 per year. Microsoft took the wraps off the pricing of one of the two renamed versions of Windows 10 Enterprise at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto on July 12. Windows 10 Enterprise E3 is the name of the lower-end of two different versions of Windows 10 Enterprise. Windows 10 Enterprise E5 is the new name of the Windows 10 Enterprise version that also will include Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a new Microsoft service for detecting and responding to attacks. Microsoft announced the renaming of Windows 10 Enterprise last week, and said the E3 and E5 versions will also be available as part of "Secure Productive Enterprise" bundles.Microsoft also announced a subscription service for Surface tablet. The company says that its Cloud Solution Providers and Surface Authorized Distributors can now sell Surface as a Service.
Can you say "rent-seeking," ladies and gentlemen? MS knows they're out of ideas, so their next step is to "Office-ize" their entire vertical stack, from hardware to OS to applications. Predictable, and ultimately a very dangerous move for ordinary consumers.
So no shock here... windows as a service for 3x the price you used to pay. Nice move Micro$oft.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Well, I guess we can all guess what will be coming soon....... Will you be paying for your copy of Windows 10 with a check or credit card?
For everyone who swore up and down that Windows 10 will never be a subscription and Microsoft will always stick with their old business model (pay once for the OS, additional support by subscription): hope the crow is tasty!
Now the question is if they'll turn the 'Home' and 'Pro' editions into subscriptions as well. It's clearly not beneath them, it's only a question if their execs determine that the hostage revenues will outweigh the massive bad will backlash they'll receive.
To all those Microsoft fanbois who said affirmatively that Microsoft was not planning a subscription model for Windows 10, please explain once again how Microsoft would never institute a subscription model for Windows 10.
Simple - it will be renamed to Windows Overlord Edition. So it won't be Windows 10.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Wouldn't "surface as a service" in any sane world just be called leasing it?
..linux..
Haven't you been paying attention? Microsoft has been dabbling in Linux now, too. Clearly they want to own all operating systems for all devices. They're probably just consolidating their resources and forces as much as possilble before attacking Apple. Microsoft has always wanted to be a monopoly, and nothing has changed. They of course have to be stopped, broken up into smaller chunks (again), and in general smacked on the nose with a newspaper (again) and have it made clear to them that they do not own people's devices, and they will not be allowed to have a monopoly and stifle all competition. Personally I'd rather have NO computer than have any version of Windows anymore, entirely because of their behavior.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Many companies prefer these models over buying licenses outright because in many companies CAPEX is much harder to get than OPEX, even if it costs more in the long run. Not to mention most companies already have SA or other yearly contracts so it's not really anything new.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
When I first heard Surface as a Service, I envisioned a system where I could blow a whistle and from around a corner a sweat-drenched, breathless, and slightly bloated Steve Ballmer would bolt, full-tilt toward my being with a mighty "woooooooo!" and a surface in each greasy paw and a Microsoft phone the size of a prison lunch tray strapped to his hip.
Good people go to bed earlier.
If you honestly think that Linux users as a whole want the kind of unification and only-one-way-of-doing-things then you have missed the entire point of Linux/Unix design philosophy altogether.
Actually, I don't think that the Linux "community" wants that at all.
And that is both Linux' greatest strength, and its greatest weakness.
Simple - it will be renamed to Windows Overlord Edition. So it won't be Windows 10.
Given the past few years, I think it's more likely they'll call it Windows Sierra.
#DeleteChrome
I don't mind if Windows 10 Pro is rented, per se. If the PC market is slowing, it strikes me as a reasonable way to fund (and incent) continued security patches and bug-fixes. I.e., make Microsoft re-earn my business every 6-12 months. After all, I can always migrate away at my leisure before the rental agreement expires.
However, I do object to other aspects of Windows 10, that if anything I would expect to get worse under such a model:
* An EULA that gives Microsoft unfettered access to all of my data, and using it in whatever way they see fit.
* The inability to assess each proposed patch, and to choose if/when to apply it.
* The inability to prevent Windows 10 from phoning home for reasons I'm prevented from knowing.
If it were just the rental cost, the cost/benefit analysis for my wife's photography business would be easy. But the snooping, and particular the risk of uncontrollable, unpreventable, unnecessary downtime on her production computers... that risk is unacceptable even if Windows 10 were perpetually free (as in beer).
I really don't look forward to the cost of migrating her photo-editing workstation to a sufficiently powerful Mac. But we'll probably need to find a way.
To all those Microsoft fanbois who said affirmatively that Microsoft was not planning a subscription model for Windows 10, please explain once again how Microsoft would never institute a subscription model for Windows 10.
1) Windows Enterprise Editions via VLA have been subscription based forever. So this move in particular is much ado about nothing.
2) I don't think anybody has ever said Microsoft isn't moving towards a subscription based system. What people have said, is that the Windows 10 systems out there right now, they don't think will become subscription in the future.
IOW, that PC you upgraded to windows 10 last month... I'm skeptical it will EVER require a subscription to win10. I don't rule it out. But I don't think it's going to happen. But sure, a few years down, I fully expect windows to be SaaS on new hardware.
I also wonder if that makes desktop linux a thing -- because its one thing to have a perpetual windows license for a PC as a small line item in a $1000 purchase that isn't even broken out into lines items for most buyers.
Its quite another for buyers to sign up for $N / month. Especially, given that PCs are quite long lived now... lasting 10+ years in many homes.... 84$/year ? x 10 years? To use windows? That's going to be a non-starter for a LOT of people.
And families with a couple kids... hell I've got 5 windows PCs that are actively used in my home. I'm not going to drop $500 a year to keep that going. I won't even consider buying an xbox because im not subscribing to Xbox live.
And I say that as someone who generally likes windows 10, for the most part. (ie after killing telemetry and a few other really stupid oobe defaults).
I won't buy this. They might get me on one PC just so I've go a copy in the house. But the rest? I'll go Mac or Linux. I've already got 2 linux servers, and 2 mac laptops in the house.
I told you this would happen. I toldja toldja toldja.
Yeah, they'll start with Enterprise customers but mark my words, within a few years every Microsoft OS released will be a subscription model. Hang on to Win 7 and 8, because that's the last "pay once" OS you'll ever see from Redmond.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I don't think anybody has ever said Microsoft isn't moving towards a subscription based system.
That's funny, some people right here are saying it.
What people have said, is that the Windows 10 systems out there right now, they don't think will become subscription in the future.
Are people saying that? Many here including me are saying just the opposite. As MS have said Win10 is the last ever version of Windows, how are they to get any future income from non-enterprise Windows unless they turn those systems into subscription? MS control those Win10 installations so they can do it.
-- its one thing to have a perpetual windows license for a PC as a small line item in a $1000 purchase
It is not a small item, and you need to look hard to find a PC costing as much as £1000. Windows is a significant part of the cost of a high street PC.
Its quite another for buyers to sign up for $N / month. Especially, given that PCs are quite long lived now....... 84$/year ? x 10 years? To use windows? That's going to be a non-starter for a LOT of people.
They will have to pay the subscription like it or not - the pre-loaded Windows 10 on their new PC will only work for a month if they refuse. And don't talk about Linux - Joe Sixpack is never going to install it - can't, won't.
Little companies like this as they tend to prefer less fixed cost. Larger companies, companies that tend to vertically integrate prefer fixed costs as they know how to leverage that capital more effectively. At least they used to. This everything-in-the-cloud phenomenon has tended to stupefy C-suites into forgetting this.
Big enterprises tend to be the ones who prefer this type of thing actually, and they have for a long time since those also tend to be the companies where getting CAPEX involves lots of hoop jumping and usually a few satanic ritual sacrifices if it's over a certain threshold. Small companies tend to be more concerned about actual cost. Most big companies would rather lease software, hardware, hell even people.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
And don't talk about Linux - Joe Sixpack is never going to install it - can't, won't.
But dell might, if people balk at buying PCs that require a subscription. Or chromebooks or android PCs or something along those lines...
In my opinion linux doesn't sell well because people 'want windows' and linux is 'close but not windows' but if microsoft pulls a subscription model out, people might suddenly want NOT windows... and be a lot more open to alternatives. And because they are sitting their pining for windows they're satisfaction with the alternatives will be a lot higher.