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But now it’s clear just how badly Microsoft wants a unified user base on Windows 10. Speaking to Reuters yesterday, Windows chief Terry Myerson explained:
"We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10.”
And in case that isn’t clear, a Microsoft spokesperson clarified exactly what that meant to The Verge:
"Anyone with a qualified device can upgrade to Windows 10, including those with pirated copies of Windows.”
That’s right, even if your copy of Windows 7 or 8 is illegitimate, you are still able to upgrade to a copy of Windows 10 for free. On the surface it seems insane, but examined closer, the reasons start to become clear.
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Even though Microsoft has long struggled with piracy issues, licensing is becoming an increasingly less important part of their revenue model. It’s dropped from 23 percent of revenue to 16 percent, year over year, between Windows and Office licenses. The idea here is that with a legitimate copy of Windows in hand, even pirates may be more likely to shell out for Microsoft’s other products like Skype and Office 365.
The move is also seen as an olive branch to China, where as much as three quarters of all PC software, including Windows, is pirated. In one clean sweep, Microsoft can convert millions of pirates into legitimate users. It’s an amnesty program of sorts. Rather than spending a fortune trying to develop anti-piracy measures that pirates will inevitably crack within a week of release, Microsoft is giving everyone a clean slate, and making it much easier to become a legitimate customer of their other products if they so choose.
Past China, where piracy is the norm, Windows users worldwide sometimes find themselves with pirated copies of the operating system purely by accident, given how widely circulated they are, and that can make buying or upgrading legal software difficult. Sometimes pirates aren’t pirates at all, but simple sailors who got on the wrong boat and are confused when they look up and see a Jolly Roger.
The counter-argument to all this of course is that Microsoft is encouraging piracy by offering amnesty with Windows 10. But it’s unclear how that logic holds up after closer inspection. If you’re still running Windows XP, chances are you are not the type of person who knows how to properly pirate an entire operating system. And if instead you’re a pirate who installed an illegal copy of Windows 7 or 8, chances are you’d figure out how to do the same for Windows 10 if it wasn’t free. This mythical group of tech-savvy pirates still running Windows XP, waiting to jump on an opportunity like this, would seem to either be incredibly tiny or not exist at all.
With that said, the final piece of the puzzle is why Windows 10 isn’t just flat-out free. It’s a free, automatic upgrade for Windows 7 and 8, yes, but the type of people who actually are stuck using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 and such are either tech illiterate, or working for companies who have no interest in spending the time and money to upgrade, despite being under siege by malware and decaying programs. These are the users who need the upgrade the most, yet they seem like the only remaining group that are still being charged for the upgrade under the currently announced system.
Obviously Microsoft is still making Windows 10-themed announcements ahead of its launch this summer, so the OS may very well go fully free by then, but right now, the issue could be that while Microsoft can rig Windows 7 and 8 to jump to 10 through an update, the process can’t be that automatic for Windows XP or earlier, and would still require a more standard install, which is why these users still haven’t done it in the first place. The difficulty and many of the costs are still in place unless the upgrade is fully automated.
Or it could just be that Microsoft isn’t ready to make their flagship product completely free to all, and right now they’re content to hand it out to those who are with-it enough to at least have a Windows 7 or better machine, even if they’re pirates. Chances are those users are more inclined to buy other new Microsoft products than those still running XP. Still, if this is meant to be a fresh start for their entire user base, Windows 10 should probably consider taking the asterisk off of “free* upgrade” eventually for all their users.
You can’t win the war on piracy, so in a lot of ways, this move makes sense. No one is going to start giving away all their products, but by setting even pirates up with a legal base of operations, Microsoft may convert millions to become legitimate users. You’re no longer a criminal if the store hands you a receipt for the item you stole, and you just might want to actually shop there in the future, after that.
Update: Microsoft has clarified that even though pirates will be able to auto-upgrade to Windows 10, the version they get will still be considered unlicensed.
“Although non-Genuine PCs might be able to upgrade to Windows 10, the upgrade will not change the genuine state of the license. This applies across geographies. Customers that are improperly licensed before the upgrade will be improperly licensed after the upgrade. We will provide a mechanism for non-genuine Windows 10 PC devices to “get genuine” via the new Windows Store, whether they are upgraded versions of Windows or purchased. We will have details on this as we get closer to launch.”
So, not outright amnesty or a fresh, legal start for all, but a free upgrade to Windows 10 all the same. Hopefully "conversion" licenses will be affordable enough to be attractive.
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