Microsoft is planning to make Windows Phone and Windows RT free
Microsoft hopes the free OS can help the company fight Android
The company is currently considering a couple of major changes in its OS policy. Among them are free versions of Windows Phone and Windows RT for the OEMs and future OS updates including a “Threshold”. According to The Verge, Microsoft is planning to bring back the Start Menu and give more flexibility to the users. As far as the operating systems, Microsoft is considering to make both Windows OS free of charge for the OEMs. By eliminating the license fees, the company will try to compete more aggressively against Google’s own OS which is currently free of charge for the device makers.
Windows RT and Windows Phone will be offered for free as a part of the new strategy including the Threshold update. As yet, Microsoft licenses its all operating systems but the large portion of the revenue is being generated from Windows 8 and RT. Since Nokia is responsible for 90% of the Windows Phone market and its smartphone business is expected to be acquired by Microsoft in Q1 2014, Microsoft will remove a large portion of potential license revenue. To compensate the possible revenue drop Redmond is experimenting with ads, paid apps and other services such as built-in Bing search results, Skype, SkyDrive and Office.
It’s clear that Microsoft will try a similar to the Google’s own policy – to make the OS free and push the device makers and developers interest toward Windows. At a later stage, Microsoft will try to generate ad revenue from its increased market share and popularity. Of course, this is just one of the possible scenarios and the company could take another direction, completely unexpected.
Source: The Verge
