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> Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model. Everything is not free and spyware is not Microsoft's business model. (It makes
by scholia 10y ago
> Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model.
Everything is not free and spyware is not Microsoft's business model. (It makes very little money from ads, and most of that is sold by AOL for Bing.)
The Windows B2C business model is to charge OEMs to install Windows code on PCs, and to charge users for upgrades. This is exactly what it was before.
UPDATE: The extra profit from Windows 10 is earned from your use of Bing. (You will recall that Google and other search engines pay vast sums to get people to use their search by default.) In the case of Windows 10, your extra use of Bing comes from Cortana firing up the Edge browser and doing a Bing search. You may well find this annoying or even evil, but it seems to me that OK Google and Siri do much the same thing.
- yuhong 10y agoThat is the traditional model, but the reality is that little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades and PC sales are falling. In addition to Bing, there is also the Windows store. And there is also the B2B model of Software Assurance.
- scholia 10y agoAbsolutely true. And because, as you say, "little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades," Microsoft didn't give up much income by making the Windows 10 upgrade free for one year (though it did add a bunch of server and bandwidth costs). To compensate for falling PC sales, Microsoft is clearly heading online as rapidly as possible, with Office 365, CRM, Azure etc. It's also heading cross-platform with online services and dozens of apps for iOS and Android, and Linux support in Azure and Windows 10. Times change.... But my point was that the Windows 10 business model hasn't fundamentally changed, even if Microsoft manages to make a bit of extra money via Bing ads and Windows Store apps.