Windows 10 may be subscription-based after all

Last spring, the idea of ‘Windows 365’ popped up several times and the logic behind it was that Microsoft would soon offer a subscription based Windows service. Much like Office 365, the rumors hedged that Microsoft would charge an annual fee for the OS instead of a typical one-time fee that is generally quite expensive. But, seeing that Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will be free, for anyone upgrading from Windows 7 or 8, ‘Windows 365’ did not materialize in the way that many had speculated. Even though Microsoft has not fully detailed its Windows 10 pricing strategy, such as what does a license cost for someone building their own PC and after one-year, what is the upgrade charge for Windows 10, we do not believe that Microsoft is targeting an annual subscription charge for Windows, at this time.