Recent reports suggest Microsoft is currently in talks with various notebook brand vendors about a possible hike in Windows 10 licensing fees.
According to a report on Digitimes, citing unknown “sources from the upstream supply chain,” Microsoft is planning to increase Windows 10 licensing fees for PC makers that want to install the new operating system on for notebook models with high-end hardware such as Core i7 processors or Full HD display.
Windows 10 is scheduled for a commercial release on July 29. While Microsoft is planning to let Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users to upgrade to Windows 10 for free in one year, the company’s new licensing plan for notebook brand is aimed at earning more licensing income from high-end models.
Manufacturers are now concerned that Microsoft’s licensing fee changes in the future could impact their profits on the short-term, especially as the final pricing is expected to remain the same when their high end devices hit the market. Since demand for notebooks are unlikely to see any major improvement in 2015, the vendors are likely to absorb the extra costs to maintain their products’ end prices.
Sources claim that vendors including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo are all expected to see their new high-end notebooks being impacted by the Redmond’s new strategy.
Free Windows 10
Microsoft took the internet by storm over the last weekend over how it will provide a free license of Windows 10 to users. In a blog post, Microsoft first mentioned that anyone testing Windows 10 preview builds will be entitled to a free license. This meant that anyone not holding any copy of previous Windows OS can also benefit from a free license offer as long as they install one of the preview builds on one of their systems.
However, soon after media got hold of the blog post and the Windows 10 license giveaway, Microsoft retracted and said that it will only provide free license of Windows 10 to those having a genuine copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.
This means that all hopes of free Windows 10 license for non-Windows user have been crashed.
