Windows is now a service. It’s done.
At an event today in the company’s hometown, Redmond, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of OS, Terry Myerson dropped quite a bombshell. As he announced, following the release of Windows 10, the latest version of the operating service will become available to all Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users for free for at least a year following release. And, as well as that, he indicated some sort of support for all users who upgrade, as well as a continuous update system which will likely become a subscription service in the future that follows, similar to Office 365, or maybe as an extension of that price.
As well as that, Windows Phone 8.1 users will also receive free updates for their devices.
This news follows a disappointing reception to Windows 8 from users and enterprise, with this free update cycle likely being executed to not only give Microsoft’s users a similar experience to, say, a phone or tablet OS upgrade plan, but also to give developers a single platform to develop for. The scarcity of giving the free upgrade an expiration date, of a year from release, will also likely be used to entice possible new users. Windows 10 in general has also been about convincing conservative users to upgrade to the new OS, with even the name possibly being an attempt to nudge users to upgrade, with 7 sounding fairly out of date next to a version 10.