Microsoft stays true to its word, will end free Windows 10 upgrades on July 29
In what could be described as a somewhat surprising move given the company's proclivity for indecision, Microsoft on Thursday announced that it would stick to the plan it announced last year and begin charging for Windows upgrades this summer.
After the switch — which comes on the operating system's first birthday — standalone Windows 10 Home licenses will cost $119. There is no word yet on pricing for other editions.
Windows 10 has done its part to rehabilitate the image tarnished by Windows 8's disastrous rollout. The software has been well-received by both consumers and the important enterprise market, having made its way to more than 300 million devices worldwide.
Microsoft has big plans for Windows 10, touting a significant anniversary update to drop alongside the pricing switch.
That update will bring a new handwriting feature called Windows Ink, updates to Cortana and tighter integration between Windows 10 and Windows phones. No release date is available yet, but it is safe to assume that the update will arrive sometime this summer.
66 Comments
So the plan is to get Windows 10 on a billion devices. After giving it away for almost a year they are at 300 mi. At $119 I wonder how long it will take to get to the goal. This could really delay Windows 11.
hurry
About time they just offered one version that does everything for $119 instead of multiple versions with a few different features here and there. As for well received, for the Windows users in my household it's been nothing but a bag of hurt. No end of problems, things missing that have been in previous versions of Windows, some functionality has been lost across the OS and bundled apps. My mother wanted to play a DVD, connected an external drive to her laptop and guess what, no software included with Windows 10 to play a DVD! Nightmare.
Microsoft still doesn't get it. Windows OS has always been the loss leader product for them yet they can't figure that out. Once a PC has Windows on it and a company buys them, they are stuck buying just about everything from Microsoft. This includes client licenses, which are embarrassingly expensive, as well as a large assortment of desktop and server based products, which are also expensive. They could continue to give the OS away and still make more money than they should be. People complain about ebooks and digital music costing too much because "all they have to do is copy the original, that doesn't cost anything" but when Windows services are mentioned, people feel it's ok to pay for them. Microsoft needs to have a retreat to think about how to really sell their company.
Of course, I could care less about Microsoft succeeding but there are those who do.