Lunatic Idea

Ok, so insane ideas are becoming my M.O. by hey, if you've got something going...

The problem as I see it is that MS has difficulty pushing innovative products, or products they'd like to sell in immature markets - because of the problem of being accused of being anti-competetive.

The other problem is that some people are opting for Linux because of the cost of purchase.

The final problem is that people don't see that Windows is worth the purchase price. (i.e. they may not switch to Linux, but they see the purchase price of Vista and balk.)

Here's my lunatic solution:

Give a totally pared-down basic version of windows away for free.

Then charge for everything else, make everything cheap, and create bundles which pretty much correspond to the current SKUs. I mean charge for everything, Media Player, Media Centre, Remote Desktop, Snazzy Aero shells, everything. All cheap, but all for money.

It should silence the Anti-Trust, Anti-Competetive accusations because they can always point out that you can get windows without whatever it is you're complaining about. So MS would be free to create any sort of programs and push them without worrying about any legal ramifications.

It should discourage people from going Linux solely on price, so they'll be back to competing on technical merit solely.

It may mean that OEMs choose to replace all the pay-for software with free software, but if an OEM want to put themselves in the situation of supporting media / browser / e-mail apps from different vendors then that's their choice. MS should be able to make a pretty good case that they're good value for money, and dealing with a single vendor should be a good saving for OEMs.

Some money would be lost, but probably nothing huge as most money seems to come from OEM sales, and I'm not sure how many OEMs would get away with selling PCs loaded with free advertising supported software - people would complain, plus - as I said - giving the OEMs a single point of support would probably be quite a saving for them logistically.

Charging people for support would probably recoup a lot of money from giving away Vista. (Don't they do this anyway?) So I can see a little lost revenue, but a lot of good feeling bought this way, and a certain amount of freedom from constantly having to legal-proof everything they do.

Anyway, it's a lunatic idea - but I like to throw them out every now and then. Feel free to rip the proposal to shreds. (or hire me! I've got some lunatic ideas for music sites / services which could do good things if I could get around to them.)

That's actually a pretty interesting idea.  It would require all of the various extra features to become more modular than they are, but this would also be a good thing.

Of course, the debate on what is and isn't part of the 'free' OS would last for years

There'd be a lot of overhead 'adding' the features we want to a bare bones OS, wouldn't there? Anti-performant?

I wouldn't be too worried today about pushing the OS, if I were MS.

I wonder if people will actually buy the stuff that MS will try to sell on top of the free OS. Like, there will be a lot of legally free softwares/enhancements over the basic windows from the OSS community, because of which people may never pay for the extra upgrades unless they want it critically. But, now there is no way someone can play < 99$ for Vista even if they're not going to use the flashy things that it has. MS may actually lose a lot of revenue if they implement your idea.

- loads free windows

- loads winamp, firefox, open office, adaware, winrar, etc etc

= ms broke

also mom's are going to do this?


I think a better way is free ad supported windows (like photoshop is doing)

want to get rid of the ads?  click here

*edit:  i meant partner supported - not ad supported (My Pictures -brought to you buy Kodak - click here for prints) etc 

<Shameless Self Promotion>

More thoughts along these lines from my blog: (June '06) & (July '06), and from a Softie named Stephen Broadwell.

Enjoy! 

</Shameless Self Promotion>

jamie wrote:

- loads free windows

- loads winamp, firefox, open office, adaware, winrar, etc etc

= ms broke

also mom's are going to do this?


I think a better way is free ad supported windows (like photoshop is doing)

want to get rid of the ads?  click here

*edit:  i meant partner supported - not ad supported (My Pictures -brought to you buy Kodak - click here for prints) etc 

The "could your mom do it" issue is always going to be there.  My mom couldn't install a full version of windows anyway, so there isn't much worry that this would make it worse.

In fact, it appears that this idea was actually implemented fairly in XP when they began to notify you that you didn't have any virus scan software.  They take you to a page that will allow you to choose from a number of competing AV/AS products which all have 90+ day trial periods.

In ideal conditions full window kernel would be free and open and there would be some basic tools like command prompt, editor, basic file browser. Then you could buy different packages like 'aero desktop', 'media suite', 'server suite' and similar.

The problem is that only for kernel ms employs probably over thousand developers, linux devs would steal kernel code and people would not be all that interested in buying additional packages..

I do like the idea, but I forsee a huge problem.  As a developer if I want to use the new APIs in Vista it could pose a deployment nightmare.  For example, say a user buys my application - how would I convince them that it is worth buying say $50 in OS upgrades from Microsoft just to run my application.

Of course this would be cheaper than buying the OS now.  But the problem is that Microsoft would be shifting the perceived OS cost from Microsoft to higher application cost from ISVs.

I mean, there is nothing requiring me to use the APIs.  I could use open source libraries, or just roll my own.  But then how does Microsoft innovate the platform?  If they rolled new APIs into Windows developers would be afraid to use them.

Maybe its not as big a problem as I think?

nightski wrote:

I do like the idea, but I forsee a huge problem.  As a developer if I want to use the new APIs in Vista it could pose a deployment nightmare.  For example, say a user buys my application - how would I convince them that it is worth buying say $50 in OS upgrades from Microsoft just to run my application.

I liked the idea until you made this point.

I don't think it would inconvenience the power users, but it would inconvenience ISVs and normal users. Developers cannot make assumptions that certain Windows features exist. The ISVs have to create even better products to convince users to purchase any needed dependencies. It is also more confusing to the user because it is one more requirement to fullfill in order to get an application installed.

The only way I see you being able to address this problem is to make the adding of features a seemless experience for the user. Perhaps ISVs can work with MS to bundling any needed features directly into the installer. If that can't be done, Windows should prompt the user when a feature is required and allow them to QUICKLY purchase it.

I dunno