Austin Holdsworth

London

Freelance Consultant

I think Microsoft has to rethink its Windows licensing strategy.

It's fair to say that most consumers, including SMB and home users, are knowingly using hooky versions because the combined price tag of Windows and Office is too high. But this also includes students and self-learners everywhere. Granted, there are discounts to "official" students. Most student techies will learn their trade by dabbling with software at home.

Eventually, open source alternatives will become de facto for those people who want to increase their knowledge and skills.

Pricing out this next generation of IT decision makers is not great strategy for maintaining market share. I think it's possible that MS may need to move to a free-for-non-commercial use licence to keep this important user base for the future.