This week, when we have seem the new Microsoft strategy launched with Windows 10, the newest edition of the company’s OS, the system offered a mix of the acquainted and new to the users who had previous editions of it on over 1.5 billion PCs and other gadgets.
The OS has a virtual assistant in the program that is monitoring all users’ plans, and Microsoft will consistently outflow up-dates with brand new options to its customers over the Web. And its Start Menu, a fitting of Microsoft Windows for many years, will have an official reappearance.
However, one of the greatest changes is its cost. The company will not charge users to update their Windows on their devices, a move that emphasizes how power characteristics in the technical industry have been modified.
Their decision to give for free an item that once had a price between $50 and $100 is an indication of how asking money from customers for an OS is a dying method in the current tech world. Organizations like Google have entered into Microsoft’s territory with their free operating systems, applications and services sponsored by its major advertising company, while Apple has recently made improvements to its free programs and OS, making its money instead from components sales.
Microsoft, a company whose primary products are programs, wanted to make money with this pattern for as long as it was possible. The novelties created by the likes of apple or Google have put an extreme stress on the Windows’ producer to find innovative ways to make profits from some of these big software.
Windows 10 will reach users’ main objectives so that they do not have to pay for their operating systems. The Windows devices eliminated their ability to generate income from anything on the customer part, aside from the famous Xbox console and Lumia mobile phones
Already, the organization has been offering mobile editions of Office applications like Word or Excel, in an effort to offer the OS some boost for a type of gadgets where Microsoft is doing rather poor. And it made Microsoft Windows free to businesses that create smaller gadgets, mainly mobile phones or tablets, to attract more clients to use the system.
The idea behind the organization’s decision follows a similar reasoning. Microsoft wanted to compromise some of the Windows income for the basic reason that the organization needs customers to use Windows 10 – and as soon as possible. PCs have been pushed aside in many ways by smart phones and tablets recently.
The organization’s previous OS, Microsoft Windows 8, was not a hit on the market and could have made things worse with a strong upgrade of the interface that was not appealing to the customers.
During the past months, international PC deliveries dropped with 9 %, according to the technology-researching firms. They reported that there would be about 250 million PCs marketed all over 2015 and 1.5 billion phones. Microsoft Windows is delivered on less than 5 % of the mobile phones marketed worldwide, while Google’s Android OS or Apple’s iOS being installed on the majority of the devices. .
An OS is only as good as the software that can function on it. But recently, Windows has turned into a postscript for many application designers, who are interested about the large and involved viewers on mobile phones. That move has left the company in an unsafe position with customers recently.
To gather more attention from designers, Microsoft has developed Windows 10 to function on desktops, mobile phones and other gadgets, which is intended to make it more effective for designers to write applications that work across all of these gadgets. The organization has stated that will be around 1 billion gadgets running with the OS within the next two to three decades, providing designers a large potential market to fill with their improvements.
The benefits of quick and free adopting of Microsoft Windows 10 might well over-shadow the income Microsoft is sacrificing. The organization does not reveal how much update income it normally has from a new OS, but experts calculated that it is rather small compared with to the other means of monetization in which the company makes its money from the software.
Microsoft’s primary financial official recently told traders that the organization expects to earn about 15 billion dollars from Microsoft Windows during the next financial year, which will end on July 30 2016.
Most of this income is related to the business industry, where its position is more powerful than it was among clients. About a one fourth of Microsoft’s income comes from licenses for the big business clients, who generally pay for privileges for Microsoft Windows improvements over a number of years, along with their possibility to handle lots of clients over business systems.
Most users pay for their Windows, whether they recognize it or not, like when they purchase a new computer with a duplicate already set up. Almost half of Microsoft Windows income came from PC producers who certified the OS in order to put it on devices targeted at the professional industry, while just a little over one fourth, about 5 billion, was from customer PC creators. The part they are giving away is the part nobody is paying for anyway, which is the update to Microsoft Windows.
Windows continues to be the most prominent OS on PCs, and if this trend does not change, the company is unlikely to stop asking money from computer producers in exchange for its software. Still, opponents are challenging Windows’s place in the customer industry, pushing the organization to cut costs in some regions.
Last year, the company cut its charges for the OS for producers in the low end of laptop computer industry, where Microsoft Windows encounters competitors that are even more powerful with affordable gadgets known as Chromebooks and that run on a free Goole platform.
The organization’s managers also made Microsoft Windows totally free on gadgets with displays smaller than 9”, a classification that comprises mainly of mobile phones and tablets, with few laptop like items on the side.
Microsoft professionals have started discussing about new ways to earn money from their Windows. They see advertising income from Bing, the organization’s online search engine that is involved in various features within Microsoft Windows, like a solid opportunity. Moreover, if the organization can get enough individuals buying games or other applications through Windows app stores, its share from those dealings could be significant.
The organization is seeking similar trade-offs in all other areas of activity. With Office, for instance, Microsoft offers mobile editions to get users to pay for their registration to the products, which offers them the possibility to use the program on computers along with online storage and the other advantages that come with the payment.
Microsoft is looking to join in the components segment of the technology industry, with the Surface tablets and Lumia mobile phones, even if it recently declared its plan to lessen the smart phone company after poor sales.
The organization also has a wide range of application items targeted at the business markets, from data sources to texting to cloud storage services, which are doing very well and might help balancing a loss in income from its free improvements.
But the independent experts say that Microsoft’s position on the tech industry could be less strong than we usually believed. They say that, in conferences with traders, there are more and more users that carry iPads, Android devices and Chromebooks. There is some threat there that those from people are neglecting for now, or at least not feeling its menace.
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