Re: Windows 10
"I guess they just assume that only Enterprise Edition customers use their computers for "real work," and the rest of us just play Candy Crush Soda Saga."
I don't think it's about assuming that only enterprise customers do real work with Windows. I think it's more that MS doesn't really care what the rest of us want or do.
Throughout this entire Windows 10 debacle, I (and many others) have often wondered what MS could possibly be thinking. Are they trying to kill Windows? Is Satya Nadella secretly a Google or Apple plant sent in to eliminate the competition?
All the while, we've been trying to figure out how Microsoft can so misread the mood of the computing public and do something so incredibly cynical and tone-deaf that it alienates most of their customers to some degree, or at least those who were subject to GWX, forced upgrades, adware, and all of that bad stuff (non-enterprise and non-educational customers).
A comment over on Infoworld, though, really got me thinking. What if MS really IS trying to kill off Windows (at least in the consumer market)? The other poster remarked that while nearly all PCs run Windows, Windows itself is only responsible for ten percent of Microsoft's profit. It could be starting to look like a huge drain on development resources to develop a product for a market they're no longer interested in servicing, using a business model they no longer wish to pursue (that is, the classical "software in a box" vendor). It's clear the direction they're going... they've even told us: "Cloud first, mobile first."
Microsoft is moving toward being exclusively a cloud services company, and the more that happens, the less traditional operating systems matter. We've seen MS embracing platforms they've previously shunned; while non-Windows devices used to be a sign that they had more work to do in crushing the competition, now they're potential customers for their cloud services. That's why we've been hearing about the "kinder, gentler" Microsoft; now they embrace their former enemies and try to sell them stuff rather than destroy them.
Of course, "kindler, gentler" is a matter of perspective. MS has never been more rough or unkind with its non-enterprise Windows-using customers. It's treating us the way it used to treat its competition. What could be a clearer signal as to where we stand with Microsoft than that? When they start treating us like they treated all of their former "enemies," at what point do we stop and realize that we ARE the new enemy?
As such, this thing they call "Windows 10," aka "the last Windows ever," could be a combination of an exit strategy from Windows (at least in consumer space) and an effort to milk it for all it's worth until then.