Subscription model for new windows?????

[Merlin66]

https://blog.eogn.com/2018/07/30/with-the-next-version-of-microsoft-windows-say-goodbye-to-your-windows-pc-as-you-know-it/

Hmmm definitely makes you think....

[FlashDrive]

Not in favour of this at all .... must get my daughter ( MAC Addict ) to teach me how to use her Mac Book :rolleyes:

I really like my Win7 64Bit Ultimate ... easy to install / and fix anything that ' pokes its head up ....

Col...

[doppler]

Might be time to stock pile some back up components, main board, graphics card, processor, ram etc, newer boards might not support older operating systems, then you will have no choice.

[xelasnave]

I expect this approach would be a preferable business model as future income would be more predictable and translate into a higher share price.
Sales can be volatile whereas rent is predictable.
Alex

[Exfso]

Seriously Microsoft are just plain greedy, it may well lean to their ultimate downfall. If they pull this stunt, I will be leaving them for sure. I would bet that I am not alone in this way of thinking.:mad2:

[FlashDrive]

My thoughts to Rick ....

[FlashDrive]

Peter ...I'm sure you won't be ' Robinson Crusoe ' with this sillly undertaking .... save a seat for me ....:P

[Wavytone]

Inevitable... Microsoft isn’t good at hardware, and there haven’t really been any killer new feature in operating systems since windows NT.

Without a compelling reason to buy a new OS every few years they’ll go under.

So they’ve created a new feature of their own - and it’s a real “killer” - in the form of a time bomb demanding money and holding your files to ransom.

They aren’t alone in this model, it has been tried before in the 1980s and 1990s by mainframe companies - all of which have died anyway except IBM.

[TheCrazedLog]

I've been a sysadmin for the past ... (counts in head) 14 years (man....). The IT industry as a whole is moving towards the Software as a service model, presumably because its a good money spinner. Personally I dislike it. It has advantages, but it has disadvantages too.

Its also moving towards this "Fail fast" mentality which is giving me the ... poos... because we get half... rear... patches by Microsoft which break stuff more than they fix. This month has been terrible for patches.

It is for this reason at home that I have moved mostly to Linux. I do have a Windows install which I use for some games, all the rest (including that machine on a separate boot) I use Linux.

Linux does have its own problems, there's no question about it. But at least I can (largely) control the damn thing.

Mac: personally I loathe them. Differences of opinion, personality clashes, I'm a snob, call it what you like. However for some people they are very good. I fear however that Mac has lost its way since Jobs died.

[ZeroID]

I'll take my primary PC's offline if they go to a subscription model. Switch to a Linux system for online email etc. Fed up with these big greedy corporate extortionists ripping us off. We'll be paying rent just to breathe soon.
I supported users with MS Office 360 in my last job, a pain when the subscription renewal failed to connect. With 800 users all unable to work it becomes a real problem.

[RB]

We do already.....

;)

[Nikolas]

This will hopefully be the death nell for this overbloated, virus plagued system, good riddance

[acropolite]

I have to agree, win 8 and 10 were the first nails in the MS coffin, a subscription based model will only drive more users to Linux.

[doppler]

My win7 desktop is still going fine after 7 years, I just don't let MS in to stuff it up with any of their updates.

[dpastern]

OS X is pretty good, but even Apple is being a ******* - older Intel based Macs can't upgrade to the latest MacOS - the UEFI bios is used as a weapon by Apple to ensure that you can't upgrade.

GNU/Linux is pretty damn good, has very few problems of its own making. The only real problems are due to 3rd party software developers who only release their software for Windows (and occasionally, OS X). WINE does a good job for most Windows software.

GNU/Linux's problem is threefold:

1) generally speaking, poor UI

2) far too many applications - for each application type (say, web browser) there's so many different apps that it's confusing for newbies. It also dilutes QA/QC and feature development imho, by splintering the developers. I know many open source fans cry that this is its strongest selling point, I personally disagree.



It's becoming more and more common today. Adobe? The Sky? I personally think it's disgusting. Having to pay a subscription fee for a software dev to fix their bloody buggy software is outrageous and downright illegal. But, as usual, legislators get very confused when you mention software.

There are 2 big operating systems today - Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X. If Microsoft goes this way, you can bet your bottom dollar the greedy buggers at Apple will follow. And with only 2 real competitors, tying up 99% of the market, the rest of the 3rd party software companies will follow suit. Except for open source software of course (GNU GPL'd).

Microsoft has been feeling the waters with MS Office for several years now. It hasn't harmed "sales" of MS Office.



Nope. See above. People are stupid. They'll do it, cos they only know Microsoft and don't wanna learn anything else. Switching to Apple is dangerous - worsening products and product design and QA/QC make their products unfavourable to purchase.

But yes, it is a virus plagued system, and it would be good to see it gone.



Nah. Your average person is too stupid, and too lazy to want to figure out how to use Linux. If 3rd party devs don't port their software to Linux, people will not move. Linux has had this issue since the early 00s. it ain't gonna change anytime soon (in fact, Microsoft has deliberately interfered with open source competition at every *single* turn - ODF anyone?).

[Kal]

I have to disagree with pretty much everything you say here.


The revenue MS gets from it's hardware is more than it gets from it's desktop operating systems (think X-box, Surface etc). In fact, in 2015 PC operating systems revenue made up less than 16% of their total revenue.


Regarding the artticle, this sounds more like something that will sit alongside the current windows 10 that people are familiar with buying and managing, and will probably be a successful product, just not to regular consumers, think more business and enterprise consumers.

[dpastern]

Windows mobile blows, and the surface has been a dismal failure in most markets.

XBOX One has a crappy GPU and the PS4 (let alone the PS4 Pro!) kills it in terms of performance. Sony also kills the Microsoft XBOX One both in sales, and game sales for the platform.

I highly doubt that Microsoft makes more money from its hardware sales than it does software - source please?

[Kal]

Pic attached


Also surface dismal failure? Recent article here showing it is still going strong https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/26/microsoft-q3-earnings/

[dpastern]

Vulgarity deleted.

[dpastern]

Vulgarity deleted.
Last TOS warning before Ban.

[Zuts]

What about Surface Book, laptop and tablet. XBox, Holo Lens, Kinnect, Studio, plus all their business collaborative hardware. I reckon Microsoft is very innovative in hardware.

As far as the subscription model is concerned there may never be a Windows 11 as they are now releasing twice yearly upgrades. To date you don't have to pay for them they are free; and they are not service packs but contain new features.

So it may be the case that your old pc won't be stuck in an xp like timewarp but will always be up to date with the latest software, only upgrading to take advantage of new hardware.

My 2 cents...

[TheCrazedLog]

I'm far from a MS lover, but I'd like to think I'm pragmatic. Windows 10, in itself, is a good OS. It has some things in there I really like (like powershell window being able to go full screen). Its the stuff going on around it that I object to, namely the forced updates, the telemetry and the constant nagging question of showing ads on the lock screen. Personally, I intensely dislike it when someone says "This is how you shall use this!" (hence my feelings towards OSX). I stand by the statement that Windows 7 was an excellent OS and I have fond feelings towards 8.1 10 would be great if they could give us control over the dang OS and stop forcing updates down our throat.

I've had some MS hardware over the years: their sidewinder joysticks, a mouse or two and a few other odds and ends. I still use a Comfort 4000 keyboard. Their hardware is generally pretty good.

As for virus ridden, I think that a tad narrow minded. I believe it narrow minded for the simple reason that if you're a bad guy, what are you going to target? The 1% or the 90%? Windows is the dominant OS out there, its going to be the dominant target. I've seen Linux machines hacked (thanks PHP), I've seen some horrendous vulnerabilities in Mac OSX (what was that root access one recently? That was good fun). Is Windows more vulnerable than Mac or Linux? There are people who say it is, just as there are people who say the earth is flat (quieten down, easy with the pitchforks. I'm not comparing the two, merely saying there are people who say all sorts of things). I've also seen reports that Mac is more vulnerable in that they haven't had the experience that MS have had in dealing with this stuff.

The faults of Linux are real: On the pro side you have a 1000 ways of doing things. On the con side, you have 1000 ways of doing things. Not all work, a few cause more problems than they solve and one or two result in things catching fire in a rather embarrassing way. Documentation for some things isn't bad, for others its frankly terrible.

I've caught myself out a couple of times forgiving Linux for something that'd I'd be hurling insult upon curse for some other OS. An example would be my home router: I use a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter (... pro? lite? The $150 one, whichever that is) and have installed OpenWRT on it. I wanted to upgrade it. The upgrade process didn't work and I had to format the device and install OpenWRT from scratch and then reconfigure it. This was accepted as "Oh well, that's fine". If it was netgear or some other company, I'd be still swearing. But its double standards. Why is one acceptable and the other not? Why with Windows do I not accept a little crash now and again but with Linux I accept something like BTRFS in which half the features are marked "Don't use this in production!" (Truth to told, I didn't accept it as soon as I found the features missing page for BTRFS. I was rather horrified and immediately took steps not to use it at work. Mind you, with VMWare and a SAN there was no benefit).

[dpastern]

Powershell SUCKS. No, it blows. Sorry, not sorry. it's worse than Microsoft's rip off off CPM lol (with DOS)! And that's saying something. No thank you. I hated using powershell in my last job. I compared a simple upgrade CSR from 1024 bit to 2048 bit (edit, was also upgrading to SHA256) between Windows server 2008 R2 and Debian GNU/Linux and it was a no brainer.

PHP has always been a painful p.o.s software, no matter what the platform. If it was up to me, PHP would be banned from any web server that I maintained. Period.

If you stick to the best of breed open source software on GNU/Linux, you won't have too many issues. Yes, the system maintenance will confuse the hell out of the average ordinary joe blow. But hey, if you're not smart enough to maintain a computer, you shouldn't bloody well be on the Internet imho. it's idiots like that that get viruses etc and then slow down the whole damn Internet cos of the unwanted virus related traffic. Sorry if I sound elitist, but I'm suck and tired of other idiots ruining my online experience because they are well, idiots, and have no idea what they're doing . I mean, you don't let any old idiot drive a car on the roads, do you?

I've never played with OpenWRT, but my best friend has (to be fair, he's a sysadmin too). he's never had a problem with it. Still, if I was going to that much effort, I'd rather get a Cisco.

[sil]

When MS launched .NET many years ago this was their end goal for the shifts they made. to lay the groundwork to a subscription/online OS managed by them. Hopefully a class action will hit MS with a bill for renting our hardware. Nobody builds a PC just to run Windows after all. So we may get a shift towards an OS independent platform. Like back in the day we didnt have hard drives with OSes, we had a basic set of libraries or even custom ones that was all thats needed to load an entire game from a floppy disk (880KB). No reason programs can't have their own essentials to talk to the (now) fairly standardised hardware comms specs. No real reason to run all this garbage an OS loads just because you have hardware. We'll get a shift I bet. Alternative OSes already untether us from MS but I can see the need for a step back now and look at PCs (personal computers) with fresh eyes, we aren't strangled by competeing hardware components they way the industry started in the 70s. Microsoft can become another software vendor with office but Windows I don't think is really needed anymore.

[Zuts]

I think you are misunderstanding the term operating system. With your all the essentials on one disk, are you expecting the app developers to build their own access control, disk control, network stack, usb control, video stack, security and a million other things. The OS supplies these things and whether or not you do or don't like windows, linux, macos, unix, xenix, IBM Z/Os et al you definately need some OS to run the show.

[Zuts]

I am a technical lead on a system with 5 million active users. We have around 100,000 concurrent users at any one time. Guess what, our build, continuous deployment, testing etc is entirely managed by powershell scripts. Sure, like any scripting language it has it's quirks but in an MS environment and if you take the time to learn it, guess what? it doesn't suck!

There are over 3 billion computer users in the world. These range from 100 year old grannies to 5 year old kids in some African slum typing away under a 5 watt bulb. If you expect each and every one of them to have your skills then yes, you do sound elitist and yes you should be sorry!

[dpastern]

and I beg to differ. I stand by my prior comments that powershell sucks. Any UNIX admin will agree with me . Go back to your junk kiddy toy operating system.

[Wavytone]

Well bully for you, Zuts, in an environment which can well afford to employ specialist admins like you to prop up what is frankly a flaky system shot full of holes, but where - due to the sheer number of users - this becomes an economic proposition because when scaled to medium to large enterprises, it becomes cheaper to run a crap OS on crap hardware and pay for a support system to keep it all working.

This is characterised by:

1. a huge number of users for whom the most basic entry-level PC hardware is sufficient, not gaming rigs;
2. the enterprise licensing deals for both Windows and Office from M$ which are generally not available to Joe Public;
3. the volume of enterprise application software that is Windows-only - Macs not supported thanks to the shortsightedness of the developers.


This is a totally different situation to the domestic user who:

a) has probably 1 to 3 computers, at most;
b) the one decent computer has to be suitable for everything from gaming and transcoding huge videos (sheer horsepower) to light-duty stuff (MS Office) but also needs to be secure (financial transactions);
c) the owner/user isn't computer literate,
d) won't pay (can't afford) professional support via typical support agreements,
e) doesn't need enterprise applications;
f) needs a system that actually works when they need it to; and
g) needs a reasonably secure solution against malware, out-of-the-box.

For domestic users Windows IMHO is the last choice on all points. If Microsoft fixed its crap your career would cease to exist.
Contrast that to the millions of domestic Apple users who are quite content most of the time - with no specialist support.

As for UNIX/Linux.. thats fine, if you're a professionally trained system admin. But few are.