Microsoft: From Windows to Services

           Windows 10. It ushered in a whole new era to the PC. It fixed the seemingly unlimited complaints that came from Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 days, where former CEO Steve Ballmer had attempted to steer the company into a 100% unified ecosystem by making all operating systems exactly the same, between desktop, tablet, and (almost) phone. However, this turned out to be a huge flop, as it was not properly optimized for mouse and keyboard usage, and it took away the nostalgic Start menu that had been in use since the turn of the PC era in the early 1990s. However, with the inauguration of the new CEO Satya Nadela, Microsoft began its new journey down the road of a new mission. Nadela decided to turn Microsoft into a services company; no longer would Microsoft turn the majority of its profits from Windows, but instead, would give away the new version of Windows, Windows 10, for free for one year, and would instead make money off of monthly licenses for products such as its cloud Azure program for business, Office subscriptions, OneDrive subscriptions. and later additional Windows 10 licenses.
           While many believed that this strategy would fail, it has actually turned quite a success for the company. Office is bringing in more revenue than ever, and better yet, Microsoft is almost guaranteed a certain monthly revenue, instead of the shady releases of Office every 2-5 years that may or may not sell a million copies, or maybe 200 million copies. The numbers were never for sure, and company profitability would greatly fluctuate year to year, making the success of the company very hard to determine from stock brokers' perspective. Almost everything in our lives is turning into monthly payments, from cell phone plans, Office subscriptions, electricity, mortgages, cars, Spotify, Amazon Prime, etc. Everything is turning into monthly subscriptions, so I was not surprised with this transition to giving away Windows 10 for free for a year in an effort to claim more consumers for their other products, almost like a subsidized trial that gives you the basic foundation to work with, but then lures you in with temptations of productivity and efficient cloud storage! AHHHHH! Its a trap! Just kidding. It really is a quite intelligent way of going about business, and so far, Windows 10 has been a large success. It has taken over 9.96% of the Windows marketshare (which Windows claims roughly 90% of the total operating system marketshare, so its 10% of 90%, or 9% of the global OSes, for people that like to do math), and its marketshare and reach is still spreading. While it may not sound very exciting to have 10% of Windows users updating, that just happens to be 75 MILLION upgrades in just 5 months- that's roughly half a million people clicking the download button a day! So while many may question whether Microsoft should have given away Windows, I believe it was a smart choice, because it will, in the end, ensure that customer's both 1) feel happy for getting a free gift (a Windows upgrade), 2) will ensure that consumers are up to date and protected from malicious attacks, and 3) ensure that Microsoft can better control and market its products to its Windows 10 users.

-547 words