Microsoft May Have Price Increases in Store For Windows 10 Pro Workstation, Win 10 Downgrade Customers (zdnet.com)

Mary Jo Foley, reporting for ZDNet: Microsoft soon will be adding a new edition of Windows 10 to its lineup. That edition, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, may include more than just a new name and feature set. It also may come with a change to the way Microsoft licenses and prices Windows 10 for its PC maker partners -- who potentially could pass on these changes to end-user customers. I've heard from a couple of customers recently who've been contacted by different OEMs about the coming changes. One said that Microsoft will begin licensing the Windows 10 Desktop operating system by processor family, and all PCs sold with Intel Xeon workstation processors will be affected by this change. One customer said he was told there could be a price increase of roughly $70 per operating system for use on systems with processors with four or fewer cores. For machines with Xeon processors with more than four cores, there could be a price increase of roughly $230 per operating system, I was told. Windows 10 Pro for Workstations is going to be available around the time Windows 10 Fall Creators Update starts rolling out, which is October 17.

Comments

Makes sense

[rsilvergun]

we've got multiple administrations around the world that are either too weak to enforce anti-trust or simply don't believe in it. Now's the time to put the screws on.

Re:Makes sense

[ckatko]

I strongly believe that our nation's justice departments and congress have completely collapsed. (Read: regulatory capture)

When Enron collapsed, love or hate him, Bush Jr.'s DOJ threw their management in jail. They didn't care about effects on "the economy" or "jobs" or anything. They tossed those sum-bitches in jail.

Meanwhile, GM makes cars that kill teenagers, nothing happens. Wall Street single-handedly PUTS US INTO A RECESSION (that could have become a full on depression) and none of them go to jail. Thanks, Eric Holder! Speaking of Holder, his department SENDS GUNS TO MEXICAN DRUG DEALERS that we know for a fact were used to murder a US border agent (and possibly countless Mexicans) and NO ONE GOES TO JAIL.

Forget "cops being above the law", you want to be above the law, just pay the $49 fee to incorporate. No need to spend time getting in shape and going through the academy.

Re:Makes sense

[deadwill69]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ma...

Announced 2 months ago

[will_die]

Was announced a few months ago. Has a bunch of new features for high end machine. It also increases the number of CPUs from the current 2, and increase memory from 2TB to 6TB.

Re:Announced 2 months ago

[im_thatoneguy]

it's still pretty hard to to outfit a single host (virtualized or not) with 2TB of memory, much less 6TB and much less a 4 CPU+ host with 6TB that is a "desktop".

Windows Pro Workstation is essentially just a license to sell to Windows Pro users who were buying Windows Server. We've run a few monster machines before with 4 sockets and lots of RAM for complicated 3D simulations and rendering. They required Windows Server. It was a bit of a PITA because by default it's configured to be a server, not a workstation so everything insanely locked down and has iffy driver compatibility with video cards etc.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

The intended audience of this seems like a footnote compared to overall users. The major changes, other than the sensionalist title, are support for 4 Processors, support for up to 6TB RAM, ReFS enabled by default, and and Direct SMB support.

We are talking about extremely high machines in what is most likely a fairly niche environment. If that is the case then a $70 surcharge for that OS seems reasonable given the cost of one of those computers.

The rest of us? Likely unaffected.

Re:Meh

[MightyMartian]

Can you explain why it's justified? It's the same codebase, and I'm assuming whatever extensions are there for the Xeon processors are part of the kernel and/or distribution.

Re:Meh

[loonycyborg]

People who buy high core count processors have more spare money. That's the only justification possible or needed.

Re:Meh

[zlives]

its justified same way as a hot dog cost 10 dollars at a stadium...

Re:Meh

[squiggleslash]

This is a fairly standard business model: develop one product, but sell various versions of it that differ in cost to manufacture by pennies, but cost massively different prices to the end user. The idea is to maximize revenue by getting more money from those who are prepared to pay more, while still getting some from those who can't afford the high prices paid by the premium group.

In this case, the logic seems to be "You can pay more, as you're proving by buying a motherboard that can support four CPUs, and actually buying four CPUs, so we're going to ask for a little more money from you." Which... makes sense I suppose.

Microsoft has gone in the other direction too: for cheap netbooks and tablets, they offer Windows 10 without a per-license cost, because they recognize you're not going spend $100 on an OS for a $70 tablet, especially with Android being around. Instead they hope to claw some revenue back from you in advertising and sales of apps (their own and third party) and so on.

Is this bad? I think trying to relate cost to ability to pay isn't a terrible thing.

Huh

[JohnFen]

When I buy computers, I always delete the Windows installation that comes with them. Although I qualify to get reimbursed for the Windows portion of the selling price, I've never bothered -- it just wasn't enough money to be worth the hassle.

This might change that equation!

Re:Huh

[Baron_Yam]

Allowing that bundling to be ubiquitous was a really bad thing for consumer choice.

Negative options are evil.

Re:Linux is still free, right?

[DontBeAMoran]

BSD is still free, but also still dying. Just like Apple.

Losing Telemetry?

[deadwill69]

I wonder, if at the higher price point, you might get some of your privacy back? At least some decent options? I doubt it, but one can hope.

Not free of incompatibility

[tepples]

GNU/Linux is free as long as bootloaders, chipsets, and applications remain compatible. None of those is guaranteed of hardware in U.S. showroom chains.

SCO Redux

[GerryGilmore]

I'm having a flashback to my days when we were installing SCO Unix systems. (I know - AIX, etc had the same deal) I had 3 separate file cabinets filled with the SCO license numbers, indexed by client as they added/upgraded CPUs, ran more "users", etc. Certainly MS has made things easier, but...when we finished our transition to Linux we had an Office Space-style bonfire where we burned every fucking license to ashes. Felt so good and so right!

Re:Running Windows into the ground

[DogDude]

Most companies aren't moving to Macs or Linux over $70. That's nutty.

Price discrimination for bug fixes

[tepples]

Can you explain why [a surcharge for an extremely high-end workstation is] justified?

High core counts expose bugs and inefficient algorithms that might be expensive to fix, such as process destruction being serialized. Price discrimination based on core count applies the benefit principle to the Windows tax, allowing those affected by a particular defect associated with high core counts to foot the bill for its correction.

Re:Paid the piper last week...

[Khyber]

Or you could just run Hyper-V core 2012, run your Windows machine in one VM, and Docker containers in another VM natively, for free?

Re:Running Windows into the ground

[jwhyche]

Actually, no they aren't.