Why is Windows 11 free?

Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11, a free upgrade from Windows 10. Before that, Windows 10 was also upgraded for free from Windows 7 users.

That is, Windows 7 license buyers did not have to pay extra for updates to get to newer versions of the operating system.

That's the theory, but in reality no lunch is free. Because Windows is free to help Microsoft make more money. Indeed, it took the software giant 33 years to hit a $1 trillion market cap, but just two years to hit the $2 trillion mark.

This means that, when nothing is lost, Microsoft gives more in return for the following very simple reasons:

Free first, earn later

Free software first, monetization after service has become a new trend of the software industry over the years. And Microsoft cannot stay out of this race.

What's more, free has proven to be a model that guarantees success in the era of personal data. The more personal information a company has, the easier it is for a company to collect money from free customers, typically Facebook or Google.

In this race, Microsoft was slow to let customers fall into the hands of competitors. Therefore, making Windows 11 free is a strategy to further reach new and old customer groups.

Adding to the Microsoft ecosystem

Free Windows 11 is just a door to bring users to Microsoft's huge ecosystem, which is full of paid items.

But even if Windows 11 is not free, users have very few other options. Linux machines are popular among programmers and Macs are suitable for designers and advanced users.

Only Windows computers are the most popular products. But most of all, an ecosystem centered around Windows has grown to the point where it can be hard to get used to when switching to another operating system.

Microsoft leaves old users with no choice in switching operating systems. Even new users have very few alternatives. Because new computers on the market are sold with a pre-installed package of Windows 11, the same thing happened with Windows 10.

Collect money from businesses

When Windows 11 is free, Microsoft continues to secure a set of customers up to billions of people who have the habit of using services on this operating system such as Office office software, Skype chat software, storage software. OneDrive, Bing search engine, Edge browser…

Once the individual user is familiar with the above, Microsoft has achieved the ultimate goal of the technologist, which is to educate the customer. With existing habits, businesses are forced to choose Microsoft products and this is the lucrative piece of cake that this Big Tech aims at.

Microsoft makes its revenue mainly from its rising cloud service, while its personal computer business fluctuates and has to rely on games to save it.

For example, game developers are forced to use a Microsoft programming library called DirectX or many companies now use the Azure cloud for business administration. As a result, the cloud segment is the largest revenue contributor to Microsoft, while the PC and Xbox businesses combined are also growing well.

Currently, Microsoft has 145 million daily users of Microsoft Teams online meeting software, 1.3 billion active Windows 10 devices, 300 million paying Office 365 service users and 23 million games. paying players using the Xbox Game Pass service.

And with Windows 11 ahead, it wouldn't be surprising if Microsoft was able to reclaim lost things like the search array, the browser, and the instant messaging software.

Micah Soto

Update 27 June 2021