Redmond made waves this spring by announcing a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users, and at this point most people who actively want the upgrade have taken advantage. That’s not stopping Microsoft from trying to “convince” more users to upgrade to the latest version. They’ve pushed Windows 10 as a “Recommended Update,” and some users who didn’t want the upgrade ended up with it anyway.
It’s clear that Microsoft really, really wants you to install and use Windows 10. And as a site, we think that you should. But, as PC World editor Brad Chacos pointed out recently, Microsoft plans to make money off this upgrade. Here are a few built-in money making schemes that you might’ve missed.
Windows 10 is a massive ad for Windows Store
When you buy a game on Steam, or grab a discounted copy of Photoshop on Amazon, Microsoft does not get a cut, despite the fact that you’ll use Windows to run the software. Apple and Google, meanwhile, get all kinds of revenue from their mobile app stores.
Which brings us back to Windows 10. Microsoft wants users to browse the Windows 10 Store. It’s one of the very few icons included by default on the taskbar, alongside Edge and the file browser. There’s also a prominent icon in the start menu. Fire up Edge and you’ll likely see a row of Windows Store apps advertised on the home page, and you’ll also find them constantly while searching for things with Cortana. If you managed to miss all that, don’t worry. Occasionally, your computer’s entire lock screen will turn into an advertisement for an app sold in the store.
Occasionally, the entire lock screen will turn into an advertisement.
It’s all part of Microsoft’s quest to build Windows Store into the go-to place for applications, the same way the mobile app stores have become. In some ways, this is an uphill battle. PC users just don’t think to use the Windows Store, and people who do explore it often can’t find the applications they’re looking for.
When Digital Trends talked with a frequent best seller in the Windows Store, he admitted his four-man team usually nets around $2,000 in monthly sales split between several applications.
The Windows Store is not yet the go-to place for Windows users to buy applications, but Microsoft stands to profit if it does. For that reason, users should expect Windows 10 to keep pushing the Store, hard.
Cortana funnels users to Bing
Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s now-dead browser, long defaulted to Bing, MSN, or whatever Microsoft’s search engine happened to be at the time. Anyone who wanted to use something else either switched to another browser or changed the default search engine in Internet Explorer.
Windows 10 users can still do that, but there’s a huge caveat. Microsoft put a big box to the right of the start button, a box which implores users to “Ask me anything.” This is Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri, Alexa, and Google Now.
Search for something using this box, or by hitting the microphone button and asking out loud, and you can quickly get all sorts of information instantly. The current weather, for example, will show up right there, as will the score for last night’s game.
But if Cortana doesn’t know the answer, she helpfully runs a web search for you. That web search will be through Bing in Microsoft Edge. Your default browser, and default search engine, have no power here.
There used to be workarounds for this, allowing users to re-direct Cortana to any search engine in any browser. Microsoft intentionally broke these workarounds in an update, citing potential technical problems. These concerns might be valid, but it’s also true that this decision funnels millions of Windows users towards Bing, helping increase that search engine’s user share and market leverage. If a giant search box on the taskbar of millions of Windows computer can’t make Bing a player, nothing will.
To be fair, this isn’t any different than Google’s Android, which places a Google search bar on the home screen of millions of phone users. Google gives away Android in part to drive people to use their search product. Windows, it seems, is taking a page out of that playbook here.
OneDrive is free until you use up your space
For a long time Microsoft tried to convert Dropbox users over to OneDrive by offering tons of free storage space. That apparently didn’t work out, and the company has since backed away from this strategy. These days Microsoft offers 5GB of free storage space (the same amount as Dropbox).
Does that mean Microsoft is giving up? No, they’ve simply moved on to a new strategy: leveraging Windows 10 users.
Set up Windows 10 and you’ll see notifications encouraging you to set up OneDrive and sync your files. It’s easy enough to follow the instructions, and once you do OneDrive will helpfully offer to automatically sync all sorts of files. Take a screenshot and OneDrive will offer to store it. Plug in your camera and OneDrive will offer to store your photos. Try to save a file in Microsoft Office and OneDrive will be the default folder.
It can all add up quickly, and once you exceed 5GB of data, OneDrive will ask you for money. Some users will simply move files outside of OneDrive, sure, but Microsoft is betting more will pay $2 a month for 50GB of cloud storage, or $7 a month for 1TB.
Dropbox grew its userbase with word of mouth and affiliate links. Microsoft is betting it can grow a sizable userbase of OneDrive users by prompting millions of Windows users to try out the service, then ask them for money once their folders are full. It’s probably not a bad bet.
Office might be included, but it’s not free
Many new laptops come with a version of Microsoft Office, but launch it and you’ll be asked for money. This is not new with Windows 10: it’s been offered on laptops for a long time now. But what is new is the wording, which heavily implies that an Office 365 subscription is the best idea for users. That service starts at $7 a month, or $70 a year.
The default folder for Microsoft Office is, of course, OneDrive.
Other laptops will include the free, “mobile” version of Office offered in the Windows Store. Features here are limited, and applications will regularly asks users if they’d like to upgrade to the full version or purchase an Office 365 account. Some users will, no doubt, stick with the free version, but if a few opt to pay for a subscription that’s a win for Microsoft.
And there’s more synergy here. Many Office users save files into whatever the default folder offered might be, which is why the “Documents” folder on your parent’s computer is an absolute nightmare to find anything in. The default folder on recent versions of Office is OneDrive, which as we already outlined will inevitably ask users for money once it fills up. Some of these revenue streams are connected.
Microsoft still needs to make money
This is far from a complete list. Users help train Cortana every time they ask her a question, which will no doubt help Microsoft compete in the virtual assistant race to come. Windows 10 asks for user feedback in a way previous systems didn’t, allowing Microsoft to turn its entire userbase into beta testers. Ads have already shown up on the lock screen, and are starting to show up in other places, like the Start Menu.
But none of these moves are unprecedented. Siri on iOS favor a particular search engine, and Google has been clear from day one that they see Android as a means to promote their various services. Microsoft isn’t giving up their traditional revenue source of selling Windows to computer makers, but at the same time they’re watching other companies closely and trying to replicate a few revenue streams.
And that’s probably no small part of why the company seems so pushy about getting you to install Windows 10. The more users who upgrade, the more money they could make.
