
Introducing Windows 10 Editions - rufus42
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/05/13/introducing-windows-10-editions/
======
chasing
Dear Microsoft,

Windows 10.

Just release Windows 10.

No one knows the difference between Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise
and Windows 10 Extreme and Windows 10 Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Supreme. Your
customers actually don't care.

And as long as you keep selling a baffling array of variations on the same
product, no one will believe you've turned over a new leaf.

Windows 10.

With love,

Guy on the Internet

PS: There should be no "it's even more secure" version. They should all be
"even more secure."

~~~
dsg42
This is information for IT people, and you're treating it like it's for
consumers. Consumers will only ever know about Windows 10 Home. The other
options are important because:

Windows 10 Enterprise costs roughly ten times as much.

Windows 10 Education is the discounted version that they sell to schools
(Apple has a similar program, they just don't tell you about it.)

Windows 10 Mobile because, well...

Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise because, again, they want to make money.

Windows is one of the top 5 most profitable software products in the world.
Trust that they know how to make money.

~~~
bhauer
You might be right, but does Windows 10 Pro include any features that have
previously been exclusive to Windows 8/8.1 Pro, such as Bitlocker and Remote
Desktop? The wording of the blog post is intentionally obfuscated to not name
the technologies that are added to Windows 10 Pro, but I think it's clear they
are keeping Bitlocker and Remote Desktop exclusive to the Pro edition from the
following:

> _Windows 10 Pro helps to effectively and efficiently manage their devices
> and apps, protect their sensitive business data, support remote and mobile
> productivity scenarios..._

I use Bitlocker and frequently remote from any of my Windows PCs to any of the
others. So I have Windows 8.1 Pro installed on (nearly) all of them, at non-
trivial cost to me.

I agree with the grandparent that for any home user, there should be one
edition, and that one edition should include Bitlocker and Remote Desktop. And
any other feature that home _enthusiasts_ and _evangelists_ are likely to
want. Microsoft desperately needs to stop punishing its evangelists.
Evangelists should be courted and treated well.

------
ghshephard
I realize Microsoft has to price segment, which requires they call out an
"Enterprise" category for Mobile and Laptop/Desktop, but sometimes I wonder if
they really need all of these categories.

For example, do they really get significant financial value from having a
Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Education, Windows 10 Pro? _particularly_ as they
are offering it as a free upgrade to Windows 7/8 users.

Notice they don't have a Windows 10 Mobile Home, Windows 10 Mobile Education,
and Windows 10 Mobile Pro - just plain, "Windows 10 Mobile".

My suspicion is they would have managed to avoid customer confusion, and
captured pretty much all the same economic value, with a simple list of:

    
    
      Windows 10
      Windows 10 Mobile
      Windows 10 Enterprise
      Windows 10 Mobile Enteprise

~~~
bskap
"Pro" is for people that don't have volume licenses but want the business-
specific features like domain joining. Remember, Windows 10 may be a free
upgrade, but it's not free and I imagine they still make quite a bit of extra
money from businesses buying Pro.

"Education" looks like it's a discounted volume license available to schools.
Not sure what extra features it's going to have but it's not something that
anyone other than a school administrator will ever care about.

~~~
Spooky23
Education exists because Microsoft provides cheaper licensing to schools as a
marketing exercise. They also let you buy the license entitlement through
volume licensing, so smart schools will buy PCs with FreeDOS or Linux and BYO
Windows.

This creates a problem, because the Federal government requires that it
receives the lowest possible price for a particular product. So they carve out
the education market as a separate SKU.

------
ausjke
Please Microsoft, just one Windows 10, the technical side sounds great(one OS
runs everywhere) but your marketing guy is messing things up, the list of
various window10 flavors made me dizzy and I had to quit reading quickly.

~~~
fl0wenol
There's really only two versions here for people buying it for themselves. One
for mobile, and one for non-mobile.

Everything else is variations for the hows and wheres.

The list is really for the IT pro getting ready to figure out what SKU he/she
needs come next fiscal.

They don't call it all the same thing because you're not being priced the same
way; there's other considerations.

------
jeswin
OK they messed it up, again? Anyone with a laptop preloaded with the crippled
Home edition (meaning most laptops) will not be able to take it to the work
place and connect it to the domain. Then there's Pro and Enterprise, and most
people don't know why they need Enterprise.

~~~
cp9
why would you take your home computer and connect it to the workplace?

~~~
jeswin
You should Google up and see how common this problem really is. My example, I
am a consultant. But I do have domain accounts in companies I consult. The OS
that came with the machine (windows 7 home) had to be written over since it
won't let me log in.

The point being, it's such an artificial restriction. Most PCs are laptops,
and this really restricts mobility.

~~~
scott_karana
For clarity, are you talking about _joining your laptop to the domain_ , or
merely logging into domain accounts using a non-domain-joined laptop?

------
hysan
And suddenly I feel a lot less excited about possibly switching back to
Windows. With 10, I was hoping for a single version for everything going
forward. But if Microsoft is going to continue splitting their product lines
and making it a headache for me to know which versions have the features I
need (ex: RDP), I'm just going to not give them a second chance no matter how
much they open source. It's just extra grief that I don't need as a normal end
user.

------
sizzzzlerz
One thing I haven't discovered yet is whether the installation of 10 is going
to be a brand new install rather than an upgrade. In other words, will it be
necessary to reinstall all my applications after moving to 10?

~~~
wvenable
An upgrade; the underlying technology in Windows hasn't changed significantly
since Vista.

~~~
stephengillie
It reminds me of the Model Year - We're still on Windows Model Year 2008.

~~~
wvenable
Windows 10 was version 6.4 internally but it sounds like they're going to go
make it 10.0 on release.

(Windows 8.1 is 6.3 and Windows 7 is 6.1 and Vista is 6.0)

~~~
stephengillie
I haven't used Win10 yet. I'm curious if they've rewritten some of the core
components like they did for the 2003-2008 jump. Things like IIS, Task
Scheduler engine, & Security (UAC elevation).

------
hendersoon
Hah, Microsoft's DNA returns with a vengeance.

They tried to change, but couldn't /not/ segment their market, even if it
impairs the customer experience. That's the MS we all know and love!

~~~
Erwin
Why can't it be as simple as Linux?

If I want Redhat commercial support I simply have to decide between Standard
or Premium Subscription with, or without Smart Management, normal or Entry
level. Or the version for virtual Datacenters (if you want to run VMs with
RHEL inside them the pricing is of course different). That's for x86 32/64 bit
-- of course, if you want IBM POWER processor support, that is a different
product with different pricing -- can't expect to use the same licensing model
for a different CPU!

And if you want to run Red Hat on a Desktop, that too is a different product.

So in a total, 18 different versions of Linux:
[https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html](https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html)

~~~
bad_user
While for _support_ packages you might be looking at multiple options, Linux
distributions generally come in the Awesome edition only.

~~~
4ad
Correct, it only impacts support, not functionality, while for Windows
functionality is impaired.

------
ed_blackburn
There's (quite rightly) been a bit of a fuss of late regarding the modular,
paired down kernel. Why not offer the features above Home via the app /
business store? CAL can still work. Then you have Windows, Windows Mobile and
IoT?

one presumes inertia and marketing are the biggest drivers behind these
editions.

------
tdicola
No mention of Windows 10 IoT? Is it still going to live in some weird
licensing limbo zone where it's only for preview and not for normal people to
buy and use?

edit: Oh geeze I missed it, it's appparently part of 'Windows 10 Mobile
Enterprise'... seriously?

~~~
chadzawistowski
No, I think you misinterpreted it.

> There will also be versions of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile
> Enterprise for industry devices like ATMs, retail point of sale, handheld
> terminals and industrial robotics

 _conversational pause_

> and Windows 10 IoT Core for small footprint, low cost devices like gateways.

------
jarjoura
There was an earlier impression (desire?) that Windows 10 was going to do away
with this marketing mess of a bazillion different versions. Yet in reality,
nothing has changed. All this blog post is doing differently is finally
explaining what each version is.

------
mcintyre1994
So if Windows 10 home and pro are both free upgrades, why are they separate? I
get the rest is so they can call their mobile OS the same as they call their
desktop OS and segmenting enterprise, but why the home/pro distinction?

------
dman
This is not granular enough. I wonder if the following features are still
missing from Windows 10 pro

1\. Multi monitor support in RDP

2\. Support for mounting NFS mounts

Of course as in the past the compare windows editions will omit important
actual differences like these.

------
bad_user
I don't get it - can you upgrade a Windows 8.1 standard to Win10 Pro?

------
makecheck
Unfortunately this kind of complexity isn't just questionable marketing, it
propagates to everything else. It makes seamless user experiences needlessly
difficult.

For example, imagine trying to create a supporting product, or simply writing
_instructions_ on how to do something. You're trying to make sure that the
user will see what they're supposed to see but with all these versions you
can't _assume_ anything so you have to consider _everything_. A simple list of
bullets suddenly becomes a series of "if you have X, do Y" statements.
Everywhere.

When products and companies become this big, a simple and arbitrary choice is
all it takes to create unnecessary costs for thousands of organizations around
the world.

------
coryl
Blech, this is not sexy marketing. How do you do a press announcement with no
pictures of said greatness? Its pretty pointless to describe your software
product with paragraphs.

------
rurounijones
> We are also bringing the Xbox gaming experience to Windows 10, giving games
> and gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community, enabling the capture
> and share of gameplay and giving Xbox One owners the ability to play their
> Xbox One games from any Windows 10 PC in their home.

I do not like the sound of this. It looks like another attempt at the loathed
GWFL (Games For Windows Live)

------
mattdeboard
Hey so what does everyone think of them releasing multiple versions of Windows
10?

------
forgotAgain
They are too focused on the one OS for everything meme. Apple does it better
with iOS and MacOS. Yes you will (presumably) be able to run Office across all
devices but they're not really the same programs on each platform. The UI will
still be different because it has to be.

~~~
guardian5x
The UI will adapt on the Universal App Plattform as well, because it has to.
So not really sure where the argument for Apple is here. A good analogy is
responsive design for websites. It can have a few advantages to have a mobile
and a desktop version seperate, but i don't think its always better, and i
don't think its the future.

------
bkurtz13
I was expecting to see a gold version for $10,000...

~~~
stephengillie
Why were you expecting this?

~~~
nandhp
Title reminds OP of Apple Watch Editions, which are gold and cost $10,000:
[http://store.apple.com/us/buy-watch/apple-watch-
edition](http://store.apple.com/us/buy-watch/apple-watch-edition)

~~~
adam12
Good lord, those are ugly.

------
g051051
> everything from elevators to ATMs to heart rate monitors to wearables

I've never been more frightened in my life. Forget the zombie apocalypse, this
is the W10 apocalypse.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
I can't believe people are downvoting this!

Everyone is OK with Windows running elevators? What's next, pacemakers?

------
joshstrange
Good lord... With all the stride MS has made and they STILL insist on
releasing 1 million different versions of Windows... How stupid do you have to
be to continue to do this?

~~~
blumkvist
Has it ever occurred to you they know better what to do then you?

~~~
HCDevid
You're crazy man. Where do you get these ideas?

Next you'll tell me that my opinions formed after 10 minutes of perusing a
forum are subject to cognitive bias.

~~~
joshstrange
No, but I will tell you that over 10 years of watching this unfold and using
Windows for about half of that time I think I've got some ground to stand on.
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with this move and playing right
into Apple and friend's hands. They are over complicating something that
shouldn't be complicated (Desktop, Mobile, and Server are the only valid
"flavors" to be releasing at this point).

