Yes, you’ve heard right. According to a recent article from an Indonesia news website “Detik.com,” the Windows Indonesian president Andreas Diantoro said, rather confirmed, that Windows 9 will be available for free to users of Windows 8(8.1). According to Andreas, the “update will be automatic” for Windows 8 systems. Whether this update will occur also for Windows 7/Vista users is yet to be announced nor confirmed.
While this can surely be just rumors, we might get the 101% confirmation when Microsoft unveils its new OS at an event at San Francisco tomorrow (September 30th, 2014). This all comes ahead of an announced “preview edition” of Windows 9 which is expected to come round October of this year.
Why would Microsoft make their new OS free?
Well, some should take in account of how much negative feedback that was received to Windows 8, their OS that released two years ago; reason of the hate to it happened to be that Windows 8 removed the traditional start menu popup, and gave everyone a “Retro Start Menu” in its place. Not only that, but it is an OS solely aimed at mobile systems, and I think it’s safe to say that the design may have been a wrong choice, given the stop coming to the production/support of Windows 8 and Windows 7.8 phones.
Anyways, with the hate, their blunder of the Xbox One reveal, and more; Microsoft is letting fan and/or user loyalty slip away and they do this even more by not standing for support of free OS support. Apple’s updates to OS X’s are always free to owners of previous versions, however with Microsoft’s “Windows,” the case hasn’t been the same. No one got a free update from Windows 7 right to Windows 8, or from any other versions that preceded it. Some believe that giving Windows 8/8.1 a free update to Windows 9 or “Threshold” (official name still unknown) will be an incentive of Microsoft saying something like “sorry we’ve screwed you over recently.” This could also be them contributing to being more free on OS’; this can definitely gain them some big media points, along with their names eventually hitting all game systems thanks to their acquisition of Mojang: the creators of Minecraft.
So, all-in-all it’s only right to give some incentive back to their users that stayed with them even through the muck of the buggy, unattractive to most; Windows 8.
What are your thoughts on the announcement of the free upgrade? Let us know in the comments below.
Sources:
PC World – Microsoft Indonesia president; Windows 9 will be free to Windows 8 users
PC Gamer – Windows 9 will be free to windows 8 users, according to report By Jake Brunton, 2014.