Microsoft mulls cheap PCs supported by ads, subs
- Reference: 1667412043
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/02/microsoft_windows_pc_ads/
- Source link:
For Microsoft, part of the answer might lie in low-cost, cloud-connected systems paid for through subscriptions and ads.
We know, we know. A lot of Reg readers must be very excited and want to be the first to grab a cheap Windows machine that is ad-supported. You'll have to calm down. They're just at least thinking about it at this stage.
[1]
A number of job postings – including this now-closed [2]ad from late September for a principal software engineering manager – are looking for engineers and others to become part of the "newly formed Windows Incubation team" whose mission is to "build a new direction for Windows in a cloud first world."
[3]
[4]
The lofty goal is to "move Windows to a place that combines the benefits of the cloud and Microsoft 365 to offer more compute resources on demand and creates a hybrid app model that spans from on-premises to the cloud." According to the ad, it also includes "building a Web-based shell with direct integration with Windows 365."
[5]Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs
[6]Microsoft brings Cloud PCs and local desktops together in Windows 365
[7]Microsoft's Cloud PCs debut – priced between $20 and $158 a month
[8]Take the day off: Windows Autopatch is live and can even fix cloudy PCs
From 2016: [9]Microsoft explains Windows as a service
Included in the possible models are low-cost PCs available via subscriptions, with advertising helping to offset some of the costs. (Also mentioned in the job are direct-to-cloud devices.)
This is something that CEO Satya Nadella alluded to during [10]comments to financial analysts following Microsoft's October 25 release of its [11]Q1 FY23 numbers .
Answering a question about Microsoft's three to five-year plan for advertising – Microsoft in July said its technology will power Netflix's first ad-based subscription model – Nadella said the goals include focusing on moving ads through its own offerings.
[12]
We're reminded that Windows 11 already has promoted apps and other marketing [13]sprinkled in the Start menu and other places. And in March, ads in File Explorer [14]showed up briefly as an "experiment."
Nadella pointed to the 20 percent growth of active Windows devices during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that "one of the big opportunities it opens up is for us to take our own owned-and-operated inventory, right, whether it is Bing and Search, whether it's the feed... We are share takers in the browser. We are share takers in terms of the engagement of the feed."
Putting ads in front of Windows business users and consumers may be part of that engagement.
[15]
For Microsoft, there was a 15 percent year-over-year decline in Windows OEM revenue for the quarter. However, revenue for Windows commercial products and cloud services jumped 8 percent, helped by demand for Microsoft 365 E5 suite of cloud-based apps.
Eyeing more of a cloud-based future for Windows might makes sense to accountants in Redmond, enabling Microsoft to rely less on expensive PCs to sell the operating system and appealing to investors by adding another option in the cloud with Microsoft 365.
Windows 365 launched a year ago and is available to professionals and business users. It could be extended to consumers, who may then access the cloud applications through an internet connection and experience the pleasure of accompanying ads. Don't all rush. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y2L2jRoK7EQxhF3UbLmSUwAAAEU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/1436861/Principal-Software-Engineering-Manager
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y2L2jRoK7EQxhF3UbLmSUwAAAEU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y2L2jRoK7EQxhF3UbLmSUwAAAEU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/windows_11_statcounter/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/06/microsoft_365_cloud/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/03/windows_365_cloud_pc_pricing_and_first_look/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/windows_auopatch_live/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2015/02/09/microsoft_explains_windows_as_a_service_but_how_many_versions_is_too_many/
[10] https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://c.s-microsoft.com/en-us/CMSFiles/TranscriptFY23Q1.docx?version=133e9c66-ae13-63c3-aad8-1bcfd5c6f0d4
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/26/microsoft_q1_2023/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y2L2jRoK7EQxhF3UbLmSUwAAAEU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/microsoft_windows_start_menu/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/17/file_explorer_windows_ads/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y2L2jRoK7EQxhF3UbLmSUwAAAEU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It’s more honest
Less dishonest*
So the poor get served ads for things they can’t afford while the rich get to opt out. Welcome to the 21st Century.
The poor will get the appropriate suggestion to finance anything they want at fantastic prices and preferable conditions (*) .
(*) preferable conditions for the money supplier, of course
More landfill
Cheap PCs subsidised by ads only work if you can only use them with the delivered software. So these machines will have to be Pluton'ed to the max to ensure only the Microsoft cloud client OS will run - no sneaky Linux install for you!
So when the sub runs out, or they "expire', many will just get chucked out.
And good luck with that lockdown
One of the main reasons ad supported PCs don't work, exactly as you say, is that if they don't suck people will strip them to remove the adware.
Or they are terrible hardware, and are miserable and useless in all cases. Those have almost no useful service live and will form the geographic strata in the landfills over all the netbooks and then Chromebooks. All over the basement layer of the e-machines that should still be the cautionary tale here.
This idea doesn't work. The math doesn't add up, and it won't. Because the company that makes the hardware can just sell the same machine sans crapware at a better price. There are also too many other stakeholders you have to deal with that will drain most of the profit off the top. Tech support costs eat up whatever's left, and how well are people going to treat these things. You wind up with nothing but a pile of toxic liabilities, including a literal hill of ewaste.
The only people that are in a market position to do something like this are a company like Nvidia, and only by doing something like releasing a version of one of their new GPUs that forces adware for a year(Technically MORE adware, as their POS driver already has an ad sever built in). It would trash their brand even more though, and is still a terrible idea in the long run.
Re: More landfill
This could be true if MS produced a well designed OS, rather than buggy, rushed out messes to try and capture markets first. If the OS receives regular updates, which it will have to because MS, the likelihood of brickage becomes very high. And the vulnerability that lets you install Linux only has to be discovered once.
Chromebooks let you install either Linux extensions, or full Linux because Google realised that somebody was going to find a way sooner or later if they tried to defeat it. If the "cheap" adware PC is genuinely cheap, rather than just a bit cheaper than a standard laptop, this will happen quite quickly to the MS machine.
Of course, they wouldn't have to try and prevent this if they genuinely believed that they were offering something better that nobody would want to replace.
Whoohoo
An ad sponsored terminal… can’t wait.
Why?
Also mentioned are direct-to-cloud devices.
Ah, so the return of the dumb terminal?
Ad interruptions when you are trying to get work done.
Looks like fun.
And in about 12 yrs
time
"Be the master of your own data! New windows 25 , will store your data locally to ensure you have instant access to it when its needed regardless of your internet connection and cloud subscriptions.
Dont rely on other people to store your data for you... store it locally and work on it locally.
Followed a few years later with windows 33.1 with new local network abilities for when you need to talk to your colleagues...
etc etc etc in an ever depressing cycle
oh and I missed out the GUI changes in every version....
Re: And in about 12 yrs
And something like one version in three (or is that two?) being an even bigger steaming pile of faeces that anything before it.
Re: And in about 12 yrs
More like Windows 12 build 35718.6167394_ww_release and Windows 12 build 57274.16828_za_release 35H2 Insider Build.
Or whatever genius versioning scheme they end up following, now that their versioning postmodernism has killed any meaningfulness of the version and build numbers.
Re: And in about 12 yrs
Huh?
Did you miss the memo where Windows 10 is the end of versioning and everything thereafter wil just be continuous updates ...oh, wait
"the benefits of the cloud and Microsoft 365"
Being what, exactly?
> Being what exactly?
About ten days a year off work during outages, if current trends continue!
I'm as appalled by everyone else by this idea, but it just might work, at least in selected markets. After all, it's the same idea behind crappy entry level Android phones subsidized by ad-slinging bloatware. They are lousy phones that give a lousy experience, yet at least where I live most buyers go for those.
Around the turn of the century, there were a few vendors doing this same thing - cheap PCs, subsidized by advertising on the desktop. It was a dismal failure then, and it'll be a dismal failure - one hopes! - this time round.
Of course back then, as someone above alluded to, there wasn't the likes of Pluton and TPM and SecureBoot to ensure that the PC only booted what makes the vendor money the best, most exciting software optimized for the user with carefully selected premium offers...
The icon is because I think I just threw up a little on my keyboard typing that last phrase.
Cheaper to buy refurbished kit
and you get the same performance from mid-range used PCs versus brand new low-end. I suppose in some markets it may be difficult to find decent refurbs or just-off-lease but here they are plentiful.
Re: Cheaper to buy refurbished kit
I live in a country where off-lease laptops aren't a thing because laptop leases aren't a thing anyway, and at the same time, laptops get used until they die (in order to save costs), so the secondhand market consists of used consumer-class laptops and grey-market imported business-class ones. And taxes are high, so importing is only an option for those who travel often or have connections to officers at customs.
Bad times ahead.
EdgeBook?
Terminal
A couple of posts here refer to Terminals, rather than PCs.
I think that we should return to the use of the word Terminal. It gives some kind of indication of the life of these devices.
Hold on: 'low spec hardware'?
Windows OS's can't run on low-spec hardware. For that, they'll need to use an OS that isn't bloated and runs well in limited resources.
The irony: MS will wind up selling boxes that can only run *nix. Shame they'll be tightened up to /only/ run their modified *nix but even so.
How is this any different from their current model?