Quote:
Originally Posted by FlameOn
Microsoft is going to be pushing windows towards a subscription based model with Microsoft Blue in the coming years. Apparently this is to provide a "more steady stream of updates to the consumer" when it more clearly appears to be a money grab considering windows XP had more than a decade of active support for the price of the initial purchase
http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3...pdate-low-cost
What is even more concerning is that windows 8 will be dropped shortly.
Since Windows Blue will be released mid-2013, Windows 8 seems to be DOA much like Windows phone 7 will be. This really doesn't help the growing perception that Microsoft is doomed as per article below. Good jobs running the company further and further into the ground Steve Ballmer.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonyk...trophe-theory/ |
Windows 8 is not being dropped.
It's a somewhat sensationalist (or just badly written) article that people are going to jump to conclusions about (already happened in this thread) if they don't read it properly. Blue is just an alternative stream. Microsoft has been moving to subscription, user based CAL models, and more cloud (think Office 365) in many areas lately but Windows 8 SP1 and Windows Phone 9 are still all slated for 2014.
Was just in a roadmap meeting with Microsoft and Blue wasn't even mentioned. Blue is just a strategy for a low-cost offering providing updates and features for a fee and developers will be encouraged to build apps that have cross-platform compatibility. They have a huge problem right now with software compatibility between Windows 8, Windows 8 Phone, and different hardware architectures (ARM, x86 with Surface RT and Pro). Office 2010 is available on Windows 8 but it's not designed for the UI at all, that will change with Office 2013. They are also getting rid of the differentiations between versioning (Pro, etc.) Windows 9 Phone is supposed to be the full fledged version of the Windows 9.
This is just another version of what's already happened in the enterprise sector with subscription software and cloud platforms like Office 365 (you don't own Office, you subscribe to it and get all the support from Microsoft's data centers).