I assume selling Windows to consumers at the retail price is a loss maker to Microsoft and they make up for it via the ads and product monetization or subsidized from enterprise subscriptions.
Looking at the data, in 1995 Microsoft charge consumers $210 for a retail copy of Windows 95. That's $434 in today's money adjusted for inflation. Windows XP Home retailed for $200 at launch, which is $356 in today's money. Meanwhile Windows 11 Home today retails for significantly cheaper at $140 for a product that's hugely more complex than Win 95 or Win XP were, while requiring way more staff and dev effort to build and support.
The finances just don't work out for me to see how the sale of a Windows 11 copy alone for $140 could make a profit at price given the 10 year lifecycle dev and support of a major Windows version.
I would guess a copy of Windows today would have to be sold for probably $500+ in order to be remotely profitable for Microsoft without ads or promotions, which no consumer would ever pay so I assume Microsoft is subsidizing it with ads/data collection or even taking a loss just to keep the retail price low to avoid loosing market share to Linux.
That would be true if the sales volumes remained static, but somehow you seem to have missed the fact that there are somewhat more Windows licensees today than there were in 1995. Also, you're discounting the enormous differences between Windows 95 and its predecessor, versus the relatively small differences between Windows 11 and its direct predecessor.
A difference so small that Microsoft initially intended to market Windows 11 as a new version of Windows 10. Other than those two massive, almost insurmountably significant errors, your reasoning was sound.
>Also, you're discounting the enormous differences between Windows 95 and its predecessor, versus the relatively small differences between Windows 11 and its direct predecessor.
You're omitting the fact that earlier versions of Windows were more or less a one and done deal and not required massive continued development and updates modern Windows requires. Plus the much more numerous workforce Microsoft has on the payroll now versus back in those days on the Windows teams.
Your argument is factless and only based on the subjective opinion of "Windows 11 doesn't seem to different to me compared to Windows 10, so it can't cost too much to develop" which is silly and childish and shows your lack of understanding here.
No my argument was based on the fact that Microsoft themselves were going to release Windows 11 as Windows 10X and decided at the last minute to rebrand it.
That my friend is what we call a fact.
Just because you don't like being wrong doesn't mean you arent, and resorting to calling me childish for arguing with me reflects more on you than it does on me.
Looking at the data, in 1995 Microsoft charge consumers $210 for a retail copy of Windows 95. That's $434 in today's money adjusted for inflation. Windows XP Home retailed for $200 at launch, which is $356 in today's money. Meanwhile Windows 11 Home today retails for significantly cheaper at $140 for a product that's hugely more complex than Win 95 or Win XP were, while requiring way more staff and dev effort to build and support.
The finances just don't work out for me to see how the sale of a Windows 11 copy alone for $140 could make a profit at price given the 10 year lifecycle dev and support of a major Windows version.
I would guess a copy of Windows today would have to be sold for probably $500+ in order to be remotely profitable for Microsoft without ads or promotions, which no consumer would ever pay so I assume Microsoft is subsidizing it with ads/data collection or even taking a loss just to keep the retail price low to avoid loosing market share to Linux.