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The problem is Microsoft is into the business of selling software licenses to make their billions. They don't have a billion dollar hardware business like Apple
by patrickaljord 13y ago
The problem is Microsoft is into the business of selling software licenses to make their billions. They don't have a billion dollar hardware business like Apple or a billion dollar ad business like Google that allows them to license their software for free/cheap. So if MS start licensing their software for free, they would stop making money (they do have the xbox and a few services but they're not enoough).
- gregd 13y agoWell the issue that I see is that Microsoft has to attract more people to their platforms because their platforms are their "billion dollar" business. I fail to see a better way of increasing the number of users of their platforms, then to release the entry point for free.
- virmundi 13y agoI think the middle ground would be to give away Professional. This would cost them 1.5k or so in license, but would get a lot of people in the door. The fact that I can't easily unit test in an integrated way with Express makes me not use .NET even though C#/F# are better languages than Java.