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There Will Be No More Windows Launches, Microsoft Confirms

There Will Be No More Windows Launches, Microsoft Confirms

Instead the Company who is one of the largest software Companies in the world has decided to simply offer upgrades to their OS. What is not known is whether consumers will have to pay for specific capability in future versions after the Company said that the first year of Windows 10 will be free. 

Nor is it known as to whether Microsoft will lift the cost to OEM manufacturers of PC’s, observers say that a move to increase OEM fees could see more OEM PC Companies push Google Chrome. 

Jerry Nixon, a Microsoft development executive, revealed late last week that Windows 10 would be the “last version” of their OS as the Company struggles to deliver a smartphone and tablet version at the same time as a PC version. The Windows 10 launch will take place on July 27th. 

The future for Windows is going to be all about instalment upgrades, in a statement issued on Friday Microsoft said Mr Nixon’s comments reflected a change in the way that it made its software.

“Windows will be delivered as a service bringing new innovations and updates in an ongoing manner,” it said, adding that it expected there to be a “long future” for Windows.

“There will be no Windows 11,” warned Steve Kleynhans, a research vice-president at analyst firm Gartner who monitors Microsoft.

He said Microsoft had in the past deliberately avoided using the name “Windows 9” and instead chose Windows 10 as a way to signify a break with a past which involved successive stand-alone versions of the operating system.

However, he said, working in that way had created many problems for Microsoft and its customers.

“Every three years or so Microsoft would sit down and create ‘the next great OS’,” he said.

“The developers would be locked away and out would pop a product based on what the world wanted three years ago.”

Microsoft also had to spend a huge amount of money and marketing muscle to convince people that they needed this new version, and that it was better than anything that had come before, he explained.
Moving to a situation in which Windows is a constantly updated service will break out of this cycle, and let Microsoft tinker more with the software to test new features and see how customers like them, he added.

Most of the revenue generated by Windows for Microsoft came from sales of new PCs and this was unlikely to be affected by the change, Mr Kleynhans claimed.

“Overall this is a positive step, but it does have some risks,” he said.

“Microsoft will have to work hard to keep generating updates and new features, he said, adding that questions still remained about how corporate customers would adapt to the change and how Microsoft would provide support.

“It doesn’t mean that Windows is frozen and will never move forward again,” Mr Kleynhans told the BBC.