New Update Microsoft Office 2024 Preview - Part of M365 and non-subscription options

[Marko :)]

Microsoft is still a monopoly and is regularly targeted by regulators and other software publishers for its monopolistic behaviors, operations and policies.

Depends on the region, in Europe it might be monopoly, but in the US it isn't because of Apple.

That is why Microsoft provides the browser-based web application for free. There is no economic incentive for Microsoft to replicate the free web application as a feature-limited desktop version. For decades it provided WordPad for free. It met the needs of most people, and yet they paid for the standalone Office version for features they would never use.

More often than not, people have used the piracy hacks to activate Office or purchased cheap license keys.

Office and Microsoft 365 are the standard today because Microsoft shrewdly got governments, public institutions, and corporations to adopt it. Only Microsoft has provided the large scale support solutions to maintain the product within those environments. Now they are often a requirement and this is how Microsoft came to be able to hold the world hostage with its productivity apps.

No. Microsoft doesn't provide free web variant of Office because they are a monopoly. They provide it so people would get hooked and pay subscription for Microsoft 365. None of the companies offer their products for free because they have to. It's all a trick to get you to buy their product. Pure marketing strategy.

Why is Microsoft Office standard today? Few reasons; but most important is, it was the first office suite created and Microsoft was the only company that could sell that software to the masses. OpenOffice, LibreOffice and all Microsoft's competitors came way too late and by that time, they were lacking in features and weren't compatible with the format already used by the millions. For the same reasons Windows Phone was doomed from the start; you had two mobile platforms that were used by the people and no one had desire to use the third one and start learning the new OS again, with the lack of apps.

You will be really unhappy when Microsoft eventually makes all of its software products subscription-based. Windows OS will require a subscription before the next 20 years ends. And it can do that without getting into any trouble with regulators.

People here can state that subscription-based Windows Home is never going to happen. Oh, but it is.

Yeah... that's not happening for at least two reasons.

1. Microsoft would lose massive amount of market share. People would just start using Linux because home users aren't willing to pay for the operating system.
2. Microsoft tried so hard to stop people from pirating Windows and Office; and they did it by giving everyone Windows for free and releasing a free web version of Office. They not only gave Windows for free to users with legal license key, they gave it to everyone, including the pirates.

Unactivated Windows now barely have any limitations and are fully functional. They adopted ads and sponsored apps in the OS which is how they make money; that allows you to use Windows for free. This is also the reason why Microsoft doesn't care if you use MAS or pirate KMS servers for activation; because they make money on you anyway.

Yes, they still sell Windows, but Microsoft isn't expecting you to buy it. The only reason why it isn't completely free is so they can charge OEMs and businesses for license, because both need to have legally activated software. Beside, Windows isn't the main product of Microsoft anymore. The focus shifted on business products such as Azure and Cloud. This is where Microsoft makes the majority of money.

If they ever make Windows as a subscription, it will be only for business users. Not for home users because it doesn't make sense. Unless they want Windows to be doomed on the home market, but I doubt that's the case.

 

[bazang]

Depends on the region, in Europe it might be monopoly, but in the US it isn't because of Apple.

Microsoft is a monopoly in the US regardless of Apple, Google, AWS, or any other large tech firm. Why is that? Because it has the largest control and influence on everything within the US from gaming to productivity software to the Windows OS to its vast infrastructure services.

"Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft Corp. and Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a lawsuit brought against multinational technology corporation Microsoft and video game holding company Activision Blizzard in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sought a temporary injunction against Microsoft in their efforts to acquire Activision Blizzard."

Just because nobody is currently suing Microsoft or taking regulatory actions against it, does not in any way mean that it is not a monopoly. Microsoft sure is a monopoly. That fact is indisputable.

Apple provides no effective competition to Microsoft.

Yeah... that's not happening for at least two reasons.

1. Microsoft would lose massive amount of market share. People would just start using Linux because home users aren't willing to pay for the operating system.

Nope. It is proven that home users are not willing to move to Linux from Windows. There is decades of evidence that proves this fact.

Corporations and governments are the vast majority of Microsoft's revenue. Those entities already lease (subscribe) to Windows OS and services for decades.

Device OEMs fully support Windows OS as a subscription product because they get a profitable slice of the revenue.

The global population is moving away from single purchase software licenses to annual subscription software for decades. People will not drop Windows OS if it is subscription based. They are already providing Microsoft billions of US dollars in subscription services for Office 365, games, content streaming, etc. The global population is willing to pay for subscriptions.

Yeah... that's not happening for at least two reasons.

2. Microsoft tried so hard to stop people from pirating Windows and Office; and they did it by giving everyone Windows for free and releasing a free web version of Office. They not only gave Windows for free to users with legal license key, they gave it to everyone, including the pirates.

Unactivated Windows now barely have any limitations and are fully functional.

Microsoft is already making changes to unactivated Windows. It is slowly developing plans to move Windows OS to a subscription-based revenue model. For one they are planning to move to a "Security and feature patches for only activated Windows" at some point in the future. They have been discussing this for years. Nobody pays attention.

Subscription fee Windows is going to happen. There is a lot of willingness and support for it in the industry. If home users are willing to pay $1,000+ for an iPhone or Android phone, plus the average home user spends more than $500 per year on various software or media subscriptions, then those home users will pay for Windows (they already do anyways when they buy a Windows device).

Microsoft hinted that it might make it impossible for some of its most popular products and services to function or to be possible on anything except legitimately activated Windows OS.

The world is changing. Consumer attitudes about subscriptions has long been moving towards all software being subscription-based. It will take time but there is no question that the future of Windows is subscription-based. Microsoft wants to squeeze out every last penny of profit from Windows. It will do the subscription-based Windows in a way that consumers will willingly pay $50 or even $100 per year to be able to use the platform.

People are hesitant to pay for specialized software on an annual basis subscription basis, however when it comes to Office 365, XBox, Games, streaming content, and the ability to have access to those, they are more than willing to accept subscriptions. The final step which Microsoft plans on implementing is to make the Windows OS a gateway or entry point to be able to access those high-demand features and services.

Apple and Google have also had similar projects exploring their various operating systems as subscriptions as an entry point to their content and services ecosystems. All of the large technology companies want to institute bandwidth pricing for services consumed by home users, that includes a tax on operating systems as a platform for consumption. Some have explored that fee as an OS tax or subscription, others have instead chosen to increase the prices of their most popular software and services.

Right now, Apple could get away with charging everyone $5 to have access to the Apple Store platform. Consumers would gladly accept that amount. Once Apple gets them to pay $5 it is only a matter of increasing that annual subscription price.

 

[Sandbox Breaker]

I've got both open-source workspaces and Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC with Office 365 Enterprise. Need to know all worlds lol. Essentially hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of security software and productivity.

 

[Victor M]

These "FOSS" companies target enterprises and governments - particularly government programs that pay stupid prices that are the real reason that the companies can remain economically viable; they cannot generate sustainable revenues from consumers (particularly home users).

But the whole open source model is deliberately doing just that - charging enterprises and governments. So they DO remain viable businesses. Just pointing out the facts does not make them any less a business.

I asked ChatGPT about what you said :

Is open source still considered a viable business model? It seems there is not a lot of businesses making money using that model?

ChatGPT replies:

Yes, open source is still considered a viable business model, though it's often combined with other revenue streams. While open source software (OSS) itself is free, companies have found ways to build sustainable businesses around it. Here are some common approaches:

Support and Services: Companies like Red Hat (now part of IBM) make significant revenue by offering paid support, custom development, and consulting for their open-source products. The software is free, but businesses pay for expertise and reliability.

Open Core: This model involves offering a basic version of the software under an open-source license, while keeping advanced features, plugins, or enterprise versions proprietary. Examples include GitLab and MongoDB.

Cloud and SaaS: Many open-source projects have transitioned to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The software remains open-source, but companies host and manage it for customers on a subscription basis, such as with Elastic (Elasticsearch) or Automattic (WordPress.com).

Licensing: Some companies offer dual licensing, where the software is free under an open-source license for non-commercial use, but businesses need to pay for a commercial license. Qt and MySQL used this model.

Community-driven Innovation: Open-source projects allow businesses to collaborate with a larger community, which can drive innovation and development at a lower cost. This enables companies to focus on customer needs, as seen with large-scale platforms like Kubernetes.

While many companies struggle to make substantial profit purely from open-source, the hybrid models above allow businesses to capitalize on OSS in ways that complement their commercial goals.

 

[bazang]

But the whole open source model is deliberately doing just that - charging enterprises and governments.So they do remain viable businesses. Just pointing out the facts does not make them any less a business.

Making money from supporting FOSS is not the same as FOSS being economically viable in and of itself. FOSS companies survive by charging absurdly high prices - mostly to government agencies and government contractors. Governments pay those absurd prices because it is collected tax money and they can pay prices that are 10X the current market rate. They are not accountable to the taxpayers. Without that kind of profit the FOSS support business model is not sustainable.

Companies like Red Hat exist because they are very largely subsidized by the government, which in turn means it is the taxpayers who are subsidizing the company and keeping it alive.

If it were not for the US Government, Red Hat would fall apart as a company. Because Red Hat is used mostly by US Government subcontractors.

If the average business attempted to use FOSS Red Hat products it could not achieve its technological goals and objectives without having to engage Red Hat and pay its stupid prices. That directly means that Red Hat FOSS is not really FOSS. It has dependencies that costs a lot of money to make the FOSS a possible solution.

FOSS is a specialty, niche market. A few projects that manage to make money off of FOSS is hardly an indicator of a viable business model. 99.5% of all FOSS projects could not become economically successful. Therefore, FOSS generally is not a viable business model. FOSS by its very nature - by the ideology that created and drives FOSS - is anti-capitalist, anti-government, anti-revenue and anti-profit.

When there is a list of at least a few hundred "FOSS" companies charging standard market prices with $100+ million revenue or greater, then that would be evidence that "FOSS" is actually a viable business model. I place FOSS in quotes because FOSS is not really FOSS if it requires money to be paid for add-on products or services to make it a working solution. In the example of Red Hat, its FOSS is nothing but open source software that nobody can deploy in an organization without paying Red Hat for all the dependencies. With Red Hat, nobody is getting a single character of code for free.

 

[bazang]

I've got both open-source workspaces and Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC with Office 365 Enterprise. Need to know all worlds lol. Essentially hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of security software and productivity.

I work in a highly regulated government space. We have all of it and more. Billions of dollars worth of security software and productivity. I don't need to know all worlds to effectively and securely manage hundreds of networks and tens of thousands of end points.

Security is not software. It is a process. Highly robust security is far more about policies, procedures and people than it is about software.

 

[Digmor Crusher]

The world is changing. Consumer attitudes about subscriptions has long been moving towards all software being subscription-based. It will take time but there is no question that the future of Windows is subscription-based. Microsoft wants to squeeze out every last penny of profit from Windows. It will do the subscription-based Windows in a way that consumers will willingly pay $50 or even $100 per year to be able to use the platform.

I am quite certain that 50% of Windows users cannot afford to pay $50 or $100 per year.

 

[SpiderWeb]

New Office 2024 features in a nutshell:

I wish I was joking. They re-arranged some buttons and called it a day. Whew this update better be free.

 

[Marko :)]

Microsoft is a monopoly in the US regardless of Apple, Google, AWS, or any other large tech firm. Why is that? Because it has the largest control and influence on everything within the US from gaming to productivity software to the Windows OS to its vast infrastructure services.

"Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft Corp. and Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a lawsuit brought against multinational technology corporation Microsoft and video game holding company Activision Blizzard in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sought a temporary injunction against Microsoft in their efforts to acquire Activision Blizzard."

Just because nobody is currently suing Microsoft or taking regulatory actions against it, does not in any way mean that it is not a monopoly. Microsoft sure is a monopoly. That fact is indisputable.

Do you know what monopoly is? It's when you have one company without any competition. Microsoft has competition; you can always go and buy a Mac. You can always use macOS, Linux, ChromeOS instead of Windows. Microsoft Office also has alternatives. So Microsoft isn't really a monopoly; it's just it has highest marketshare because people are willing to use their products.

Apple provides no effective competition to Microsoft.

Why? Apple products aren't limited to business customers. You can go to Apple Store and buy anything you want, freeing yourself of Microsoft. It's real competition.

Nope. It is proven that home users are not willing to move to Linux from Windows. There is decades of evidence that proves this fact.

Corporations and governments are the vast majority of Microsoft's revenue. Those entities already lease (subscribe) to Windows OS and services for decades.

Device OEMs fully support Windows OS as a subscription product because they get a profitable slice of the revenue.

The global population is moving away from single purchase software licenses to annual subscription software for decades. People will not drop Windows OS if it is subscription based. They are already providing Microsoft billions of US dollars in subscription services for Office 365, games, content streaming, etc. The global population is willing to pay for subscriptions.

Can you give me the study which confirms your claims? Nothing is proven. People just stayed with Windows because it works. Why would you change something if it works and you're satisfied with it? To make a change you need to have a reason. Subscription is a reason.

If Microsoft introduced subscription for home users, people will leave Windows and use Linux. You can say it's not true, but it is. You really think majority of Microsoft's users are subscribed to their services? They aren't! Same with Google, Spotify and all other companies. Majority of users are free users and companies hope that once you use their free plan, you will eventually subscribe.

Come here to the Balkans and see how many people are subscribed to various services, you'd be surprised. Same is pretty much everywhere in the world.

Microsoft is already making changes to unactivated Windows. It is slowly developing plans to move Windows OS to a subscription-based revenue model. For one they are planning to move to a "Security and feature patches for only activated Windows" at some point in the future. They have been discussing this for years. Nobody pays attention.

Subscription fee Windows is going to happen. There is a lot of willingness and support for it in the industry. If home users are willing to pay $1,000+ for an iPhone or Android phone, plus the average home user spends more than $500 per year on various software or media subscriptions, then those home users will pay for Windows (they already do anyways when they buy a Windows device).

Microsoft hinted that it might make it impossible for some of its most popular products and services to function or to be possible on anything except legitimately activated Windows OS.

Where are those changes? Can you link me a documentation which confirms your claims? Because the only limitation of unactivated Windows is watermark in the right-bottom corner and you can't personalize PC. Nothing else.

You do realize that you pay 1.000€ for a device once, and that for subscription you're required to pay every month if you plan to use a service? You can't compare one-time payments with subscription. LOL

Please link me the proof Microsoft has any plans to introduce subscription for Windows for home users. I'm waiting.

The world is changing. Consumer attitudes about subscriptions has long been moving towards all software being subscription-based. It will take time but there is no question that the future of Windows is subscription-based. Microsoft wants to squeeze out every last penny of profit from Windows. It will do the subscription-based Windows in a way that consumers will willingly pay $50 or even $100 per year to be able to use the platform.

People are hesitant to pay for specialized software on an annual basis subscription basis, however when it comes to Office 365, XBox, Games, streaming content, and the ability to have access to those, they are more than willing to accept subscriptions. The final step which Microsoft plans on implementing is to make the Windows OS a gateway or entry point to be able to access those high-demand features and services.

Apple and Google have also had similar projects exploring their various operating systems as subscriptions as an entry point to their content and services ecosystems. All of the large technology companies want to institute bandwidth pricing for services consumed by home users, that includes a tax on operating systems as a platform for consumption. Some have explored that fee as an OS tax or subscription, others have instead chosen to increase the prices of their most popular software and services.

Right now, Apple could get away with charging everyone $5 to have access to the Apple Store platform. Consumers would gladly accept that amount. Once Apple gets them to pay $5 it is only a matter of increasing that annual subscription price.

This is true, pretty much everyone is moving to subscription model, but that doesn't mean Windows will become part of it. You have to look logically. People just aren't willing to pay for everything. You also have to realize that companies need a flow of money to survive; because if you bought the product for one-time fee, it's all they got from you.

You yourself said Microsoft has contracts with huge number of business and governments; this is how they make money. And while they do sell subscription for Microsoft 365, it doesn't make any sense to make Windows part of it. With all other subscriptions, home users just aren't willing to pay for operating system so they would either pirate it or switch to an alternative. The only thing that kept Windows alive was gaming industry which preferred Windows. But for years now, games are also being developed to be compatible to Linux.

Once Microsoft introduces subscription, gamers will leave. SteamOS exists and is still being maintained. But Microsoft cares about Windows being used in home envinronments and this is exactly why it will remain the same. Because as of now, Microsoft still earns money on the users that aren't willing to pay for Windows. If they introduced subscription, they will lose all users that aren't willing to pay hence end up without those people's money.

 

[Victor M]

A few projects that manage to make money off of FOSS is hardly an indicator of a viable business model.

I think 'the exception proves the rule' is valid here. But the successful ones also tend not make their success known because they want to keep it a secret. As long as they don't turn corporate the public will never know. I think the word viable means different things to different people; some are content to make a $90K salary off it living in a not too trendy middle class neighborhood, and some are only satisfied when they make at least $300K in net profit in the first year.

To say FOSS is anti-government and anti-capitalism is really stretching it, don't you think? I don't doubt the originators really think that they can make money out of it. It is just an over rosey idea. As in common of all visionaries, business people dream big dreams.

I think FOSS is here to stay because people believe in it and there are pockets of communities. And there is a sense of altruism in it. It takes all sorts to make the world go around.

 

[bazang]

I think 'the exception proves the rule' is valid here.

3 companies hawking FOSS support services at high prices set no rule. They just happen to be very lucky because they have government contracts.

Calling companies that generate profit by charging any price for the needed dependencies needed for their so-called "FOSS" to be functional, by the very definition of what FOSS is, makes those companies not FOSS.

There is no other definition of FOSS regardless of what ChatGPT returns. The FOSS movement objective is 100% based upon $0 cost software.

If FOSS were viable, then everybody would do it. Even true $0 cost freeware does not work. It never has and never will unless someone or some entity with a lot of money is willing to pay for the development. Look at the Comodo model. That model, while very well meaning, never really worked to users' expectations from Day 1.

To say FOSS is anti-government and anti-capitalism is really stretching it, don't you think?

Not people at Red Hat. They are not FOSS idealists. They are pro-government, pro-government contract, and pro-capitalist.

However, a lot of FOSS ideology adherents and the leaders within the movement are Anarchist\ANTIFA and anti-capitalist\anti-bank, at least in the US.

The FOSS movement - its core ideology - is about $0 cost software, hence the moniker "Free Open Source Software." Typically the politics is leftist leaning towards the more extreme end of that spectrum.

 

[bazang]

Do you know what monopoly is? It's when you have one company without any competition.

That is not the definition of a monopoly. There are companies that have been legally considered monopolies even in markets with some competition. Low competition is not the same thing as complete control or substantial control over a technology or platform.

Monopolies are not defined on the basis that a consumer cannot go out and buy an alternative. They are defined on the basis of how much economic control they have within markets.

When it comes to PC operating systems, Microsoft is highly monopolistic. If it is not then you will have to explain why the FTC, DOJ, SONY and other vendors have filed anti-trust suits against it during the past 5 years.

The definition of a monopoly is a complex one here in the US. That definition is definitely not only "A company or entity without any competition."

People just stayed with Windows because it works. Why would you change something if it works and you're satisfied with it? To make a change you need to have a reason. Subscription is a reason.

Subscription Windows is not sufficient to make people move to Linux. For one, there is so little available on Linux, it would take decades before companies and projects could make Linux appealing enough for the average person to switch over to Linux. That won't happen because of the Ignorance Tax and Linux does not offer the things that make people use Windows in the first place.

Where are those changes? Can you link me a documentation which confirms your claims? Because the only limitation of unactivated Windows is watermark in the right-bottom corner and you can't personalize PC. Nothing else.

The proposed changes have been discussed during Ignyte.

Microsoft is notorious for not saying or not documenting lots of things about its various products, especially Windows.

Please link me the proof Microsoft has any plans to introduce subscription for Windows for home users. I'm waiting.

And you can keep waiting. "Publicly discussed" does not just mean posted on a web page somewhere. It also includes statements made by voice, during industry group discussions, during shareholder calls, etc.

One thing that has been discussed is to transition Windows to the Chromebook\Android device model of providing updates for only a certain number of years. After that, then users can only continue to receive updates by paying an annual subscription.

When companies begin to discuss these sorts of things, and then apply them in the market place, that means they have a direction - a plan - that they are taking the product towards an end-goal and objectives.

Most older people will object to paying for a Windows subscription. Younger ones in first world nations will not object if Microsoft does the transition correctly.

For other nations, such as India where 90% of all Windows installs are pirated, Microsoft will continue to permit pirated Windows because that in and of itself prevents users from looking for alternatives. Microsoft even stated during a public presentation years ago that it has nothing to fear from Linux, but even though this is the case it would rather allow pirated Windows in certain parts of the world just on the principle of making people dependent upon Windows. In this effort, Microsoft has been wildly successful beyond anything it could have imagined.

No other platform comes close to offering what Microsoft does. The globe is addicted to Windows on the consumer side and wholly dependent upon the enterprise\government side.

What was said about Windows 10 in 2015:

No, Windows 10 Won’t Require a Subscription: Here's How Microsoft Plans on Making Money Instead

Microsoft's Windows 10 message hasn't always been clear.

www.howtogeek.com

What the Windows 10 reality is 9 years later:

Microsoft reveals subscription pricing for using Windows 10 beyond 2025, and it's not cheap

Customers will need to pay $61 per device, which will double every year for three years, to remain secure on Windows 10.

www.windowscentral.com

Slowly but surely, Microsoft is moving towards a 100% subscription-based future. Microsoft has very skillfully changed consumer purchasing habits and overcome objections to subscriptions. Of course there are always dinosaurs that say it will never happen. Oh but it is. It has been happening for years as the world population moves towards an annual service model for most things in their lives.

 

[Marko :)]

What was said about Windows 10 in 2015:

No, Windows 10 Won’t Require a Subscription: Here's How Microsoft Plans on Making Money Instead

Microsoft's Windows 10 message hasn't always been clear.

www.howtogeek.com

What the Windows 10 reality is 9 years later:

Microsoft reveals subscription pricing for using Windows 10 beyond 2025, and it's not cheap

Customers will need to pay $61 per device, which will double every year for three years, to remain secure on Windows 10.

www.windowscentral.com

Slowly but surely, Microsoft is moving towards a 100% subscription-based future. Microsoft has very skillfully changed consumer purchasing habits and overcome objections to subscriptions. Of course there are always dinosaurs that say it will never happen. Oh but it is. It has been happening for years as the world population moves towards an annual service model for most things in their lives.

I've lost the will to reply to you because we'll just keep going in circles. I'll just reply to this part.

Have you read the second article? Because according to your replies, you didn't. Instead you just wrote "windows 10 subscription microsoft" and took the first thing with all keywords in the title.

Windows 10 is near the end of support, and what Microsoft is giving their users is ability to pay for an extended support. Users won't pay for the OS, they'll pay for support for the OS once official support ends. That's something totally different.

 

[bazang]

Windows 10 is near the end of support, and what Microsoft is giving their users is ability to pay for an extended support. Users won't pay for the OS, they'll pay for support for the OS once official support ends. That's something totally different.

What Microsoft said in 2016 is that it will NEVER charge for support (security updates). Not ever. Not at the end of life (EOL) included.

You did not bother to what I posted earlier. One of the models that Microsoft has adopted is to make users pay for updates after X years. It is a form of a subscription model or, more accurately, it is a fee-for-service\feature model. There are those within Microsoft that have been advocating that Windows be moved to the Chrome\Android model of free updates for a limited number of years (e.g. 5 years). After that period of time expires - anyone that wishes to continue to use that Windows version will have to pay for updates and feature upgrades.

Others have advocated for Microsoft to adopt the Red Had model. To keep Windows Home "free" but charge fees for the dependencies. Make it such that Windows Home users have to pay for those dependencies.

You can use semantics and word logic to say that Microsoft is not really charging a subscription, but that is irrelevant. Microsoft's objective is to get first-world home users and everyone else in those societies to pay for the OS - whether it is in the form of an annual subscription or a fee-for-service\feature scheme.

Microsoft shrewdly treats first-world markets differently than second- and third-world markets. As the years pass, more and more people in first-world markets are fully OK with paying for software that traditionally has not required a subscription or fee-for-service. That willingness has been fostered to a large extent by the way that Microsoft has slowly introduced all these payment schemes over the years.

Either you see it or you don't. Tomorrow Microsoft can make Windows 100% subscription and there will not be a mass exodus of users to Linux. Only a small percentage of the population would do it. For everyone else, they are so dependent upon Windows and the things that run on it, that they would have no choice because there is no effective alternative.

Until home users start paying more for Windows, Microsoft is going to treat Windows Home version as the unwanted hand-me-down version that Microsoft would get rid of if it were not for its mandate and obligations to investors to generate profits. It is not what Microsoft says. It is what investors want. There are activist investors that have been advocating for a Windows OS subscription model for years. Slowly that objective is being developed and users are being indoctrinated (the same as other large tech companies such as Google and Apple manipulate their userbase and extract revenues from them).

 

[Sandbox Breaker]

I've got both open-source workspaces and Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC with Office 365 Enterprise. Need to know all worlds lol

I work in a highly regulated government space. We have all of it and more. Billions of dollars worth of security software and productivity. I don't need to know all worlds to effectively and securely manage hundreds of networks and tens of thousands of end points.

Security is not software. It is a process. Highly robust security is far more about policies, procedures and people than it is about software.

I've done government work. Pay is crap. I already know all this lol. Best part is... I personally own the software. The government owns yours lol. I've caught apts left right and center and need to prove nothing. Lol

 

[Chuck57]

I am quite certain that 50% of Windows users cannot afford to pay $50 or $100 per year.

Probably true in other parts of the world, and for some here in the USA as well these days.

For me, the cost isn't a concern. I can easily afford 10X the amount you quoted, but I refuse to pay even $1 a month. My late wife called me a cheapskate. I prefer to think of myself as 'frugal.' I can better use the money for other things, like another gun, or to add more RAM to this laptop, or just to sock it away in a savings account, CD or some other investment source and leave it for my son to inherit.

 

[bazang]

I've done government work. Pay is crap. I already know all this lol. Best part is... I personally own the software. The government owns yours lol. I've caught apts left right and center and need to prove nothing. Lol

You personally own the software. Isn't that wonderful for you?

I never said I worked for the government. I said I work in a highly regulated industry. I have not performed the "employee" role for many years.

You are correct. You don't have to prove anything. That does not change the fact that your habit here at MT is drive-by snipe posts. Some are nonsensical. I am not sure what the problem is. If it is your intent or a language issue or something else. I do know part of your short, abrupt and logic-shorted posts arises as a result of making your posts from a smartphone. The posting style is immediately identifiable as being done on a phone.

Security is not software. It is a process. When Bruce Schneier said "process" he meant a top-to-bottom holistic security architecture that is designed to mitigate all the people that can or do affect the data environment security. If "catching apps" actually provided robust security, then the world would have been very secure long ago because there have been security programs that are extremely good at "catching apps" for the past 30 years. Any security model that is based primarily on software fails immediately as it does not address the one variable - people - that do all the things that undermine, circumvent, and bypass all that security provided by software. And by people I mean the owners, the users, the administrators, and the attackers\threat actors.

If you and your software are "catching apps left, right and center" that is great. But the two parts of that system are allowing those unwanted apps to either breach the security boundaries or allowing legitimate apps to perform security violations within the security boundaries in the first place - or - more probably they are not designed to prevent that part. They work as post-breach or post-infection systems. That problem is not inherent to just your own product, now is it? So from the very beginning I was not slighting you nor your product, although I am sure that has been your interpretation. The critical point that is implicit here is that security software is only a small part of a much larger security picture and performs a minor role at that. The fundamental mistake is that many adhere to the exact opposite of this truth, and because of this it accounts for the current state of poor global security.

 

[bazang]

I am quite certain that 50% of Windows users cannot afford to pay $50 or $100 per year.

Most people in the US and Canada can easily afford to pay $50 or $100 per year. That truth also extends to Europe and all the other first-world and emerging second-world nations.

Microsoft treats first-world markets completely differently than it does second- and third-world markets. Microsoft knows that 90% of all Windows in India are pirated. It engages the Indian government to do very little except to assist it in bringing down and prosecuting large-scale targets and the most egregious violators. Whereas Microsoft actively fights against Windows piracy in first-world nations.

Why does Microsoft permit the extent of Windows piracy in India? Because it wants that billion person population to be dependent upon Windows. That is why. In this objective Microsoft has succeeded.

If Microsoft started to charge $1 to license Windows in India, a majority of the population could come up with that amount (despite many not even having internet access). At least 500 million. Half a billion dollars in additional revenue from a very low-cost fee scheme is financially meaningful to Microsoft.

Why does Microsoft do everything it can to charge fees in fist-world countries? Because it knows that even people on public entitlement benefits in first-world countries will pay fees to get the diversions and entertainments that they want. That means the average citizen you meet on the street will willingly pay.

 

[Marko :)]

For me, the cost isn't a concern. I can easily afford 10X the amount you quoted, but I refuse to pay even $1 a month. My late wife called me a cheapskate. I prefer to think of myself as 'frugal.' I can better use the money for other things, like another gun, or to add more RAM to this laptop, or just to sock it away in a savings account, CD or some other investment source and leave it for my son to inherit.

Same here, well... except the gun part.

Some of my friends and colleagues say I'm cheapskate because I don't waste money of stupid thing I don't need. Same people smoke, drink, go to expensive night clubs regularly and have a car. Some of them need a car because they live outside of the city, but a lot of them live in a city and don't really need a car. I don't do any of that, I don't have a car and because of that I end up saving a lot of money. So when I bought an expensive gaming laptop they were shocked. Then I bought expensive headphones, they were looking at me like I'm Jeff Bezos. We were recently talking about taking a vacation somewhere and whatever I suggested it was too expensive for them. I started wondering if they can afford a trip to the ZOO at that point. If they only changed their lifestyle a bit, they could also save a lot over the time. But as we all know, people rarely change.

 

[Chuck57]

Same here, well... except the gun part.

Some of my friends and colleagues say I'm cheapskate because I don't waste money of stupid thing I don't need. Same people smoke, drink, go to expensive night clubs regularly and have a car. Some of them need a car because they live outside of the city, but a lot of them live in a city and don't really need a car. I don't do any of that, I don't have a car and because of that I end up saving a lot of money. So when I bought an expensive gaming laptop they were shocked. Then I bought expensive headphones, they were looking at me like I'm Jeff Bezos. We were recently talking about taking a vacation somewhere and whatever I suggested it was too expensive for them. I started wondering if they can afford a trip to the ZOO at that point. If they only changed their lifestyle a bit, they could also save a lot over the time. But as we all know, people rarely change.

Exactly. I have a car because the nearest grocery store is almost 20 miles away and, if ever needed, the nearest medical or dental is 80 miles. LOL.....the nearest gas station is 15 miles down the road. I live in a somewhat rural area. On the other hand, I'm not tempted to go out to restaurants or drinking (don't drink anyway) or other things so living remotely also saves money.