7 ms·

Probably settlement for these lawsuits will cost Microsoft a lot less than people not upgrading. The strategy worked.

Silhouette 10y ago
Then again, these lawsuits probably do more damage by perpetuating the negative publicity around Windows 10 than through any direct financial impact they might have. Now that the free upgrade period for Windows 10 has run out, and it's clear that large numbers of people didn't want Microsoft's latest product or buy into its everything-cloudy vision even though they were literally giving the OS away and heavily promoting the whole strategy, it will be interesting to see what they try next.
- a_small_island 10y ago
  Yeah, but the executives already got their bonuses for many years. If the campaign is a monetary failure for the company, they will just clean house and hire a new batch of execs who will blame all the problems on the prior group so that they get their bonuses. Everyone wins, except the user.
- freehunter 10y ago
  The problem is, people have to upgrade. And for the most part, they have to upgrade to something Windows. So if Windows 10 is their only choice, they have to do it, bad publicity or not. Windows XP support is done, Windows 7 mainstream support ended last year and all support runs out in four years. Unless Windows 11 comes out by then and is not controversial, 10 is the only choice. Sure, some people could move to Linux, but it's unfamiliar and fairly unpopular, and a lot of people would rather have some familiarity and popularity to help troubleshoot rather than zero. Some people could move to macOS, which is more reasonable since it's more popular, unless they have software that needs Windows. The big issue there is, I hardly see anyone with an ultrabook or a high end desktop (that isn't being used for gaming). Windows users are used to cheaper computers, and a Macbook might be out of their price range. So for everyone who doesn't have the technical support options for Linux and doesn't have the budget for a Macbook or iMac, they're stuck with Windows. And someday they will have to upgrade, like it or not. Bad press doesn't really hurt Windows in the long run.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > Unless Windows 11 comes out by then I agree with your points, However, the chance of Windows coming out is zero, unless you think Microsoft could simply rename Windows 10 to 11. There is no team inside Microsoft working on Windows 11, as far as I can tell. The Windows team is working on improved versions of Windows 10, which seem to be appearing twice a year at the moment. Any reader from the Windows team is, of course, welcome to comment ;-)
    - ams6110 10y ago
      I thought I had read recently that Microsoft is not going to continue with the incremental release numbers. If anything, they'll probably just drop the version number, call it "Windows OS" and have an Arch-like rolling release strategy.
      - scholia 10y ago
        They have build numbers for the test rings. Otherwise, they've used names and numbers for new releases. The last one was November's Fall Update, version 1511 (from the date) and the next one is August 2's Anniversary Update. Either way, the naming is essentially arbitrary, so they can change it however they like. The same Windows code, which has a long history, is going to continue into the foreseeable future...
    - scholia 10y ago
      Sorry, terrible typo, or braino. Instead of "the chance of Windows coming out is zero", please read "the chance of Windows 11 coming out is zero".
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    The problem is, people have to upgrade. Eventually, yes, but not any time soon and not necessarily to Windows 10. Our standard in my businesses (which are relatively small and in tech industries) is still Windows 7. We don't consider Windows 10 a viable option because of the forced updates and telemetry issues, so we'd be looking at alternative platforms if Microsoft decided to dig in. As things stand, neither of those situations looks like changing any time soon; I'm guessing we're not alone, since all of our suppliers still seem to assume Windows 7 by default on new machines, so it will be interesting to see how the likes of Dell put pressure on MS to deliver something they can sell at Windows 7 nears EOL. In our case, Apple gear would be the most obvious switch today. It has viable alternatives for most of the software we need in most areas, and crucially, it already has much better options in some of areas that aren't available on Windows. The hardware itself is relatively expensive, but it's far less expensive than making the wrong choice of platform and a lot of the applications themselves are cheaper, so it's well inside the "acceptable business expense" range. Our view is that going cloud-everything isn't the way forward for us, so we're not particularly interested in those kinds of alternatives. Other businesses will presumably have different needs and priorities, though, and certainly the cloud-based offerings are becoming more competitive with traditional desktop software in a lot of areas for those who can meet their requirements that way and tolerate the disadvantages. If you can move your essential business software to something Web-enabled then it doesn't matter what OS you're running, or potentially even what type of device you're using. And of course if MS do leave a huge vacuum in the mainstream desktop/laptop OS category, someone will surely move to fill it, because there's still an awful lot of money to be made there. I doubt it would be anything like any of the current Linux or BSD distributions, but as we've seen with OS X, Android, SteamOS and others, you can build a lot on top of those platforms with enough resources in the length of time we're talking about here, and certainly there are several heavyweights in tech today who have those resources if they choose to make a move. So you might be right about people having to upgrade eventually, but I think there are likely to be a lot more viable options by that time than you're allowing for here.
- dmfdmf 10y ago
  >...it will be interesting to see what they try next. It seems clear to me they've had the meetings and made the decision to ram Win10 down user's throats come hell or high water. They've given no indication that they regret the Win10 hard-sell or that it was any kind of mistake or misstep. On the contrary, they have doubled-down on the strategy and dismissed all objections along the way. The misuse of the red X to mean "OK" instead of "No" or "Cancel", breaking Windows Update so you could not block or hide the GWX are clear signs of their intent. Win10 is the core of Microsoft's strategy to compete with Apple and Google. They want to become a marketing company and Windows 10 OS [Operating Spyware] is key to their long-term strategy. They want to shutdown support for all the remaining operating systems and push everyone onto Win10 as quickly as possible. The strategy is further revealed by their announcement that Cortana (and its associated collection of personal data and tracking) cannot be turned off in all but the Enterprise or Education versions of Win10, neither of which will be generally available. My view is that this strategy will backfire. Win10 is not going to be installed in any business that needs high data security either for operations or regulatory requirements like HIPPA or the SEC, etc. The vast number of companies currently using Win7 aren't going to move to Win10 unless Microsoft reveals the scope of the spying and provides tools to shut it off without buying the Enterprise version. Everything will come to a head in 2020 when Win7 support is slated to end. At that point, I am planning on moving to Linux and I don't think I am alone. But what I do is irrelevant to Microsoft (essentially a consumer user of Windows) but what the installed base of business users of Windows choose to do will determine the future of Windows. It will be interesting to see who blinks first.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Consumers can also choose to be spied by Apple or Google instead.
    - dmfdmf 10y ago
      Some people are down voting you but this is true. What is different about Microsoft is they are changing the terms of the relationship with Windows 10 whereas with Apple and Google it was always like this.

Then again, these lawsuits probably do more damage by perpetuating the negative publicity around Windows 10 than through any direct financial impact they might have. Now that the free upgrade period for Windows 10 has run out, and it's clear that large numbers of people didn't want Microsoft's latest product or buy into its everything-cloudy vision even though they were literally giving the OS away and heavily promoting the whole strategy, it will be interesting to see what they try next.

a_small_island 10y ago
Yeah, but the executives already got their bonuses for many years. If the campaign is a monetary failure for the company, they will just clean house and hire a new batch of execs who will blame all the problems on the prior group so that they get their bonuses. Everyone wins, except the user.
freehunter 10y ago
The problem is, people have to upgrade. And for the most part, they have to upgrade to something Windows. So if Windows 10 is their only choice, they have to do it, bad publicity or not. Windows XP support is done, Windows 7 mainstream support ended last year and all support runs out in four years. Unless Windows 11 comes out by then and is not controversial, 10 is the only choice. Sure, some people could move to Linux, but it's unfamiliar and fairly unpopular, and a lot of people would rather have some familiarity and popularity to help troubleshoot rather than zero. Some people could move to macOS, which is more reasonable since it's more popular, unless they have software that needs Windows. The big issue there is, I hardly see anyone with an ultrabook or a high end desktop (that isn't being used for gaming). Windows users are used to cheaper computers, and a Macbook might be out of their price range. So for everyone who doesn't have the technical support options for Linux and doesn't have the budget for a Macbook or iMac, they're stuck with Windows. And someday they will have to upgrade, like it or not. Bad press doesn't really hurt Windows in the long run.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Unless Windows 11 comes out by then I agree with your points, However, the chance of Windows coming out is zero, unless you think Microsoft could simply rename Windows 10 to 11. There is no team inside Microsoft working on Windows 11, as far as I can tell. The Windows team is working on improved versions of Windows 10, which seem to be appearing twice a year at the moment. Any reader from the Windows team is, of course, welcome to comment ;-)
  - ams6110 10y ago
    I thought I had read recently that Microsoft is not going to continue with the incremental release numbers. If anything, they'll probably just drop the version number, call it "Windows OS" and have an Arch-like rolling release strategy.
    - scholia 10y ago
      They have build numbers for the test rings. Otherwise, they've used names and numbers for new releases. The last one was November's Fall Update, version 1511 (from the date) and the next one is August 2's Anniversary Update. Either way, the naming is essentially arbitrary, so they can change it however they like. The same Windows code, which has a long history, is going to continue into the foreseeable future...
  - scholia 10y ago
    Sorry, terrible typo, or braino. Instead of "the chance of Windows coming out is zero", please read "the chance of Windows 11 coming out is zero".
- Silhouette 10y ago
  The problem is, people have to upgrade. Eventually, yes, but not any time soon and not necessarily to Windows 10. Our standard in my businesses (which are relatively small and in tech industries) is still Windows 7. We don't consider Windows 10 a viable option because of the forced updates and telemetry issues, so we'd be looking at alternative platforms if Microsoft decided to dig in. As things stand, neither of those situations looks like changing any time soon; I'm guessing we're not alone, since all of our suppliers still seem to assume Windows 7 by default on new machines, so it will be interesting to see how the likes of Dell put pressure on MS to deliver something they can sell at Windows 7 nears EOL. In our case, Apple gear would be the most obvious switch today. It has viable alternatives for most of the software we need in most areas, and crucially, it already has much better options in some of areas that aren't available on Windows. The hardware itself is relatively expensive, but it's far less expensive than making the wrong choice of platform and a lot of the applications themselves are cheaper, so it's well inside the "acceptable business expense" range. Our view is that going cloud-everything isn't the way forward for us, so we're not particularly interested in those kinds of alternatives. Other businesses will presumably have different needs and priorities, though, and certainly the cloud-based offerings are becoming more competitive with traditional desktop software in a lot of areas for those who can meet their requirements that way and tolerate the disadvantages. If you can move your essential business software to something Web-enabled then it doesn't matter what OS you're running, or potentially even what type of device you're using. And of course if MS do leave a huge vacuum in the mainstream desktop/laptop OS category, someone will surely move to fill it, because there's still an awful lot of money to be made there. I doubt it would be anything like any of the current Linux or BSD distributions, but as we've seen with OS X, Android, SteamOS and others, you can build a lot on top of those platforms with enough resources in the length of time we're talking about here, and certainly there are several heavyweights in tech today who have those resources if they choose to make a move. So you might be right about people having to upgrade eventually, but I think there are likely to be a lot more viable options by that time than you're allowing for here.
dmfdmf 10y ago
>...it will be interesting to see what they try next. It seems clear to me they've had the meetings and made the decision to ram Win10 down user's throats come hell or high water. They've given no indication that they regret the Win10 hard-sell or that it was any kind of mistake or misstep. On the contrary, they have doubled-down on the strategy and dismissed all objections along the way. The misuse of the red X to mean "OK" instead of "No" or "Cancel", breaking Windows Update so you could not block or hide the GWX are clear signs of their intent. Win10 is the core of Microsoft's strategy to compete with Apple and Google. They want to become a marketing company and Windows 10 OS [Operating Spyware] is key to their long-term strategy. They want to shutdown support for all the remaining operating systems and push everyone onto Win10 as quickly as possible. The strategy is further revealed by their announcement that Cortana (and its associated collection of personal data and tracking) cannot be turned off in all but the Enterprise or Education versions of Win10, neither of which will be generally available. My view is that this strategy will backfire. Win10 is not going to be installed in any business that needs high data security either for operations or regulatory requirements like HIPPA or the SEC, etc. The vast number of companies currently using Win7 aren't going to move to Win10 unless Microsoft reveals the scope of the spying and provides tools to shut it off without buying the Enterprise version. Everything will come to a head in 2020 when Win7 support is slated to end. At that point, I am planning on moving to Linux and I don't think I am alone. But what I do is irrelevant to Microsoft (essentially a consumer user of Windows) but what the installed base of business users of Windows choose to do will determine the future of Windows. It will be interesting to see who blinks first.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Consumers can also choose to be spied by Apple or Google instead.
  - dmfdmf 10y ago
    Some people are down voting you but this is true. What is different about Microsoft is they are changing the terms of the relationship with Windows 10 whereas with Apple and Google it was always like this.