The last few years there already was changing a lot at Microsoft, there were free licenses for Windows on a mobile phone and the free Microsoft mobile app on your phone with the total Microsoft Office experience. That was a really good step which fits better in the time we are in right now, they want to compete with their competitors so they are doing things a customer wants. But after all of that, how are they making money? The answer for that question is freemium.
As they’re giving their software for free to their customers they didn’t stop selling Windows and Office to OEMs and businesses. During the first year of the existence of windows and now there is a huge difference. At the beginning the world of computers and tech was really small, but as is grown up Windows became the most popular system for on a computer. During 2010 and now (2015) a new player became bigger and bigger, the mobile phone is something growing during the years so Microsoft is now finally hooked so they can start looking over the wide market to let itself grow and offer more services where consumers can pay for.
Chris Caposella who is in charge of the marketing of the company revealed the full freemium plan for Microsoft. The plan involves four parts: acquire, engage, enlist, and monetize. Acquire is getting people using the free Microsoft programs. Engage is their plan to hook up people to a product and leverage the other parts of the ecosystem to make someone using their services. Enlist is the plan to find friends to keep the whole circle going and monetizing is looking who is going to pay for subscription versions of the service they’re hooked on. It may sounds easy but it really isn’t for them. It is a total new plan and something they never succeeded at.
The talk of Caposella marks the first time Microsoft has clearly signalled exactly how it will rival Apple and Google’s ecosystems. The former Microsoft CEO hinted at it in his final period, but Caposella made a total illustration out of it. At Windows 10 they are using cortana to hook up people to the bing search which is behind cortana. With the start of outlook.com they have integrated Skype to transform you to a Skype user.
As the mobile market is becoming bigger more people are choosing a ecosystem. They are now also trying to become stronger. Windows 10 is not the solution but a start of the project to break down Apple and Google’s ecosystem to create a new and huge ecosystem around themselves to gain users.
Windows 10 will be rolled out this summer for free to their users in 190 countries if you are running Windows 7 or 8. Even non-official users are getting the update and they will become a official user by that.
Thank you for reading this article! I hope I explained their total vision of earning money in the future. See you next time and #NeverSettle for anything less than the best articles!
