4 ms·

To the end user, what makes this model preferable to buying the operating system software? For some businesses higher up the stack, it makes sense-- e.g., peopl

To the end user, what makes this model preferable to buying the operating system software? For some businesses higher up the stack, it makes sense-- e.g., people spend $X per month on the Adobe Suite, and people tend to enjoy that.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago
I really think if you explained this properly to most end users they will still want something like what Microsoft is moving toward. Let Microsoft worry about it, is what they'll say. Non-tech people don't want to buy and upgrade operating systems. They see the operating system as part of the device. I'd like to say selling operating systems to non-technical people doesn't work, but I'm not sure it's ever really been tried. The bulk of Microsoft's OS sales have never been to end users, but to OEMs and companies on Software Assurance. Now technical people are certainly involved where an IT department builds systems for companies, but I think Microsoft wants to eliminate that too.
- saghm 7y ago
  Sometimes selling operating systems to technical people doesn't even work! Last week, my friend got a new laptop, and he wanted to try out Arch along-side Windows (instead of Ubuntu like he usually did), but he accidentally messed up the boot partition the pre-installed Windows was using when he was installing it. I tried to convince him to just do a fresh Windows install with an .iso since he already had a license key (and that's technically not even necessary, since you can use Windows 10 indefinitely without registering it as long as you don't mind not being able to configure things like the theme and fonts), but he absolutely refused because he liked how the vendor-specific face unlock software worked and wasn't sure if he could get it with a fresh install. He ended up spending several hours figuring out how to repear the partition (which he ended up succeeding at). If someone willing to install Arch and muck around with bootloaders for most of a day still prefers to use preinstalled Windows, I can't imagine how selling operating systems separate from machines can possibly be the optimal business model for Microsoft to sell to non-technical people.
tim58 7y ago
It's a total managed solution. Predictable. Requires less human capital to administer. Contract is negotiable with M$.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> people spend $X per month on the Adobe Suite, and people tend to enjoy that. I work in the graphic design industry, and I've got news for you... people do not enjoy Adobe's move to subscription pricing, and on the contrary still complain about it. Anecdotal evidence, I suppose, but seriously... I haven't met a single person who prefers Creative Cloud to just buying the suites.
- toastal 7y ago
  With alternative softwares like Figma, Sketch and Affinity, I've been seeing a lot of designers migrate away. Sadly and tangential to other discussions, Figma is the only one that will run cross-platform being WASM-based. I personally had been holding on to Windows/Mac through college til this subscription model. Since I really only do photo work now, darktable and RawTherapee are great FOSS alternatives. Krita and GIMP get way more flack than they deserve.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Our agency uses Sketch for web projects, but for print Adobe is still king.
- input_sh 7y ago
  Not to mention that its prices are ridiculously expensive for the majority of the world.
- pndy 7y ago
  My friend who's a graphic designer had to reinstall Windows because, surprise surprise, one of earlier Windows 10 builds released for Windows 7 bricked her machine and that of course comes with reinstalling all software as well. And the fun started when she had to reinstall Adobe stuff: she couldn't reactivate one of older Photoshop she bought because it wasn't supported anymore - it couldn't connect to Adobe servers; helpdesk suggested her moving to CC which was out of the question for her. In the end, she pick the different solution suggested by her friend that doesn't come as SaaS.
  - 7y ago

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

I really think if you explained this properly to most end users they will still want something like what Microsoft is moving toward. Let Microsoft worry about it, is what they'll say. Non-tech people don't want to buy and upgrade operating systems. They see the operating system as part of the device. I'd like to say selling operating systems to non-technical people doesn't work, but I'm not sure it's ever really been tried. The bulk of Microsoft's OS sales have never been to end users, but to OEMs and companies on Software Assurance. Now technical people are certainly involved where an IT department builds systems for companies, but I think Microsoft wants to eliminate that too.

saghm 7y ago
Sometimes selling operating systems to technical people doesn't even work! Last week, my friend got a new laptop, and he wanted to try out Arch along-side Windows (instead of Ubuntu like he usually did), but he accidentally messed up the boot partition the pre-installed Windows was using when he was installing it. I tried to convince him to just do a fresh Windows install with an .iso since he already had a license key (and that's technically not even necessary, since you can use Windows 10 indefinitely without registering it as long as you don't mind not being able to configure things like the theme and fonts), but he absolutely refused because he liked how the vendor-specific face unlock software worked and wasn't sure if he could get it with a fresh install. He ended up spending several hours figuring out how to repear the partition (which he ended up succeeding at). If someone willing to install Arch and muck around with bootloaders for most of a day still prefers to use preinstalled Windows, I can't imagine how selling operating systems separate from machines can possibly be the optimal business model for Microsoft to sell to non-technical people.

tim58 7y ago

It's a total managed solution. Predictable. Requires less human capital to administer. Contract is negotiable with M$.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> people spend $X per month on the Adobe Suite, and people tend to enjoy that. I work in the graphic design industry, and I've got news for you... people do not enjoy Adobe's move to subscription pricing, and on the contrary still complain about it. Anecdotal evidence, I suppose, but seriously... I haven't met a single person who prefers Creative Cloud to just buying the suites.

toastal 7y ago
With alternative softwares like Figma, Sketch and Affinity, I've been seeing a lot of designers migrate away. Sadly and tangential to other discussions, Figma is the only one that will run cross-platform being WASM-based. I personally had been holding on to Windows/Mac through college til this subscription model. Since I really only do photo work now, darktable and RawTherapee are great FOSS alternatives. Krita and GIMP get way more flack than they deserve.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Our agency uses Sketch for web projects, but for print Adobe is still king.
input_sh 7y ago
Not to mention that its prices are ridiculously expensive for the majority of the world.
pndy 7y ago
My friend who's a graphic designer had to reinstall Windows because, surprise surprise, one of earlier Windows 10 builds released for Windows 7 bricked her machine and that of course comes with reinstalling all software as well. And the fun started when she had to reinstall Adobe stuff: she couldn't reactivate one of older Photoshop she bought because it wasn't supported anymore - it couldn't connect to Adobe servers; helpdesk suggested her moving to CC which was out of the question for her. In the end, she pick the different solution suggested by her friend that doesn't come as SaaS.
- 7y ago