Windows 365: a future premium alternative to Windows 10?

With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of the Windows 365 trademark, speculation abounds as to what the software giant is planning, in connection with Windows 10.

While it’s extremely unlikely that Microsoft is thinking of turning Windows 10 into a yearly subscription service, Microsoft Windows 10 could eventually pave the way to a premium experience, in a similar way as Office 365 did.

Microsoft is obviously playing this card very close to the chest. In what we can only speculate as being Microsoft’s long term vision, Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users will be accustomed to a completely new perception of Windows, one that is more about Cortana integration, cutting edge web technologies and device agnosticism, than it has in the past about everything users loved to hate about Windows.

Microsoft Windows 365

There is a way to look at Windows 10 as a “freemium” service. In Microsoft’s Mobile-First strategy, one could see the logic behind offering Windows 10 for free. As previously mentioned, users will have a whole year to truly appreciate Windows 10, at the end of which they will be faced with the question of whether to stick with their “vanilla” Windows 10, which will continue to serve them for the lifetime of their device, at no additional cost, or pay for the Windows 365 premium experience.

Being nothing more than speculation, so far, It’s hard to tell what an ideal yearly cost of such service would be, and whether it requires a radical upgrade on an existing Windows 10 installation, or a simple flip of a switch, similarly to other services like Adobe Creative Cloud. The words “Windows as a Service”, have been thrown around quite a bit since Windows 10 was announced. Microsoft’s biggest source of revenues in previous years has been primarily software licenses, but that is a business model that is becoming less and less relevant to regular consumers, and more applicable to enterprise customers.

The Office 365 Theory

Some have also commented on the possibility that Microsoft may not be planning subscription services related to Windows itself, but rather bundled software subscription services, such as Office 365, which is not entirely far-fetched.

Filing for copy protection of the name Windows 365 could very well mean for certain software and services to be made available as part of targeted bundles, either specifically designed for segments of users, or sold within the context of mix-and-match subscriptions.

To further corroborate the theory, the current trends of software sales, involve promoting software bundles that include only a percentage of the software a consumer actually needs, as in the Adobe CC example, individual applications sold by subscription can cost almost four times as much as a more comprehensive bundle. While this might seem to lead to a wasteful expense, we must remember that the quality of the software being sold at a premium is what counts, and those who are truly invested in the software, have very valid reasons to pay for what they consider the best tools they can get, industry-wise.

Office 365 has made strides as a product, many of which lately, that involve expanding Office integration with third party cloud services, effectively making the suite very attractive to consumers from ecosystems other than Microsoft Windows.

By the end of 2015, or the beginning of 2016, we can only assume Office 365 will be further integrated into Windows 10, offering the seamless experience consumers will find truly worth of a 365 subscription model.