MSFT is a public company and you can look at the annual/quarterly reports to glean the revenue from Win7/Win8/etc (which, IMO, offers insight). http://www.micr

MSFT is a public company and you can look at the annual/quarterly reports to glean the revenue from Win7/Win8/etc (which, IMO, offers insight). http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/download-center/index.html http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar13/download-cent... I'm not sure I'm reading it right but, on page 74, it says the "Windows Division" recorded almost $2.1 billion in revenue. There's also a quote in there that 65% of that revenue comes from OEMs (if I'm reading that right). So if they just gave the software away, they'd be $2bb poorer, right? What would the benefit be - would people who are on Apple/Linux switch to Microsoft all of a sudden just b/c the OS is free? What would they sell the people so that they can make up that $2bb loss? I like the question you've asked but CEOs get fired for "losing" $2bb in revenue without replacing it with "hope for a better future". It's a bit tougher to pull that info from the Apple report - http://investor.apple.com/SECFilingNav.cfm?FilingID=1193125-13-416534&CIK http://investor.apple.com/SECFilingNav.cfm?FilingID=1193125-... - but maybe it's there.