Tech pundits seem to love to dress up in voodoo costumes and point the bone at things. Some days it seems that every other headline is predicting the "death of this" or the "death of that." I think it's driven partly by laziness and partly by a God complex where we feel the need to be in control of things (whenever I've resorted to it, it has always been the latter reason).
Last week it was the turn of Microsoft's business model to die. Writing for USA Today, Motley Fool's Sam Mattera could hear the bell tolling for the Redmond giant's Windows business model.
"The days of charging for an operating system are effectively at an end," wrote Mattera. "With Android, and some extent Chrome OS, Google has forced Microsoft to fundamentally alter its business model. For most of its history, Microsoft's business was built around selling Windows licenses — those days are over."
Sure, this is an interesting idea, and I'm surprised that Mattera didn't point out that Apple has also delivered a few blows to Microsoft's business model by first dramatically reducing the price of OS X updates, and then making them completely free.
Windows is now the only major operating system where there is a tangible cost to the end user, both when they buy it as part of a PC, and then when they upgrade it. So it makes sense for Microsoft to follow suit and slash the price to $0.
Or does it?
On the face of it, the idea is solid. Microsoft gives Windows to the OEMs, OEMs pass those savings onto the end users, the end user saves money on new PCs, and Microsoft makes its money back through users making use of ad-supported services such as Bing and so on.
But there are a few problems with this plan.
So, while it's a nice idea, it's neither necessary nor is it one that is likely to rejuvenate PC sales. All it would mean would be fractionally cheaper PCs and Microsoft having to adapt to an entirely new — and as far as it is concerned, unproven — business model.