Originally Posted by whs

If MS has to rely on the new PC sales, they will go broke. The OEMs get the OS for pennies. Only with the retail editions can they make money. I once read that one of their biggest revenue contributer are the office products.

"Pennies" - a little exaggeration, maybe?

PC makers don't have to disclose what they pay for Windows licenses, but I believe that it's tens of dollars at least. (A semi-attack article at Wikipedia suggests that a 30 euro refund for the "Windows Tax" is low.) There should be nearly zero marginal cost to Microsoft for each copy of Windows installed by a PC maker.

I can't find an online breakout of retail sales of Windows versus PC sales, but I'll stick with my original statement. It'd be nice if Microsoft depended on PC enthusiasts/hobbyists for their profits, but I think that Microsoft's business model is based on the millions of commericial PCs sold each year.

Originally Posted by bobkn

Originally Posted by whs

If MS has to rely on the new PC sales, they will go broke. The OEMs get the OS for pennies. Only with the retail editions can they make money. I once read that one of their biggest revenue contributer are the office products.

"Pennies" - a little exaggeration, maybe?

PC makers don't have to disclose what they pay for Windows licenses, but I believe that it's tens of dollars at least. (A semi-attack article at Wikipedia suggests that a 30 euro refund for the "Windows Tax" is low.) There should be nearly zero marginal cost to Microsoft for each copy of Windows installed by a PC maker.

I can't find an online breakout of retail sales of Windows versus PC sales, but I'll stick with my original statement. It'd be nice if Microsoft depended on PC enthusiasts/hobbyists for their profits, but I think that Microsoft's business model is based on the millions of commericial PCs sold each year.

Well, I wish that OEMs were getting Win7 (or other versions) for pennies, but they do not. The cost to OEMs depends on volume but it ranges between $30- $50 per license (for the Home version, the Professional versions are slightly more expensive). Considering the fact that MS is selling about 40 -50 million licenses per quarter (or probably more), this is not small change. Usually, MS gets very little money from upgrades because only a very small number of users upgrade their OS. 95% of users get a new OS with a new computer.

Yes, the MS Office 2010 proved a major seller and, so, of course have been the server products and business services. Microsoft is hardly going out of business by selling Windows. In fact, it has sold something like 450 million licenses of Win7 in two years, far outstripping sales of iOS devices, for example. The problem is that MS sells only the OS, while Apple makes huge profits by selling the hardware. MS only sells limited hardware, mainly the Xbox, keyboards and mice. As things stand, it is still one of the most profitable corporations in the US.

In fact, Microsoft can junk the whole "consumer" series of products and remain greatly profitable. So far, MS has been driven by the enterprise, not by consumers.

Well, sorry guys. By 'Pennies' I meant a low price - very low compared to the retail version.

Originally Posted by whs

Well, sorry guys. By 'Pennies' I meant a low price - very low compared to the retail version.

Actually, this is not true as well. Microsoft would happily sell you 3 licenses of the Home Premium version of Win7 for about $130 or thereabouts. It is all volume based, the more you buy, the less you pay.

Name does not matter as long as it works as per my requirements.

Yep.

Originally Posted by whs

If MS has to rely on the new PC sales, they will go broke. The OEMs get the OS for pennies. Only with the retail editions can they make money. I once read that one of their biggest revenue contributer are the office products.

whs, that is certainly true along with the separate components as well. Also over the last 5 or so years, Microsoft has been in the
gaming business, and starting to see a rather large profit line there, so it WOULD make sense to get better sales with Windows
make it compatible with Xbox games. It won't hurt their retail sales of the Xbox 360, and it will give them a bigger crowd to make
more money off of.

Originally Posted by Mike Lonewolf

Originally Posted by whs

If MS has to rely on the new PC sales, they will go broke. The OEMs get the OS for pennies. Only with the retail editions can they make money. I once read that one of their biggest revenue contributer are the office products.

whs, that is certainly true along with the separate components as well. Also over the last 5 or so years, Microsoft has been in the
gaming business, and starting to see a rather large profit line there, so it WOULD make sense to get better sales with Windows
make it compatible with Xbox games. It won't hurt their retail sales of the Xbox 360, and it will give them a bigger crowd to make
more money off of.

exactly, i think it would be in Microsoft best interest to allow win8 to play Xbox titles. sure a percentage of people with not buy the next console because they can play on PC, BUT those people now have to buy win8, AND every game they want to play.

Microsoft makes LITTLE money on the console itself, in fact when the next console first comes out they will be selling it for a loss. why? because they make money off the games... its an investment, they give you the console for a loss and you pay them back by buying lots of games, so if people JUST buy the games to play on PC, they could actually IMPROVE profit of the gaming industry.