Windows 10 may be subscription-based after all

When information and rumors about Windows 10 began to circulate last year the idea of a subscription-based operating system came up quite a few times. While Microsoft has since confirmed that individual users of Windows 7 and 8 will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free it has made it clear that enterprise users will not be granted that luxury. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed but the fact that Microsoft just trademarked “Windows 365,” it’s certainly possible that the company will charge a subscription fee. 

Last spring, the idea of ‘Windows 365’ popped up several times and the logic behind it was that Microsoft would soon offer a subscription based Windows service. Much like Office 365, the rumors hedged that Microsoft would charge an annual fee for the OS instead of a typical one-time fee that is generally quite expensive. But, seeing that Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will be free, for anyone upgrading from Windows 7 or 8, ‘Windows 365’ did not materialize in the way that many had speculated. Even though Microsoft has not fully detailed its Windows 10 pricing strategy, such as what does a license cost for someone building their own PC and after one-year, what is the upgrade charge for Windows 10, we do not believe that Microsoft is targeting an annual subscription charge for Windows, at this time.