Absolutely...In under a year it is likely that 90%+ of everyone now running Win7/8 will be on Win10. An amazing feat of OS consolidation and unification...agree with slave77 that there is simply no other way to do this. In under two years inside the Windows markets--well, as far as Windows goes it'll be darn near 100% coverage for Windows 10 (well, consumers, "small" business and "small" education.) It'll be nirvana for software developers and device manufacturers whose applications and drivers will now essentially be Win10 applications and drivers--specifically--and the other versions of Windows will hardly matter. Win10 will jump so far out ahead of the former versions of Windows that, well...all I can say is what a grand unification scheme this is! I see a "Golden Age" of software ahead...(but then, I've always been somewhat of a ham...)
Android dominates the mobile market, but how much is microsoft for each license of android? It is grow to see the competition and put your hand to receive money without doing anything. Just have to take patents that others use without having to do so and to live of income.
KMS existed a lot longer than just W8, and KMS is not just a tool made for downloaders, it's used by a lot of legit businesses as well. If MS kills KMS activation they're essentially shooting themselves in the foot, because large companies would never upgrade to 10 if they can't use KMS to activate their in house systems (just like they've been able to for several product cycles now). Don't confuse the two....apples to oranges. People can and do exploit it, but it's there primarily for legimate users and legitimate means.
improve, not kill, the KMS activation system improve the KMS activation that will not affect legimate users, ie. official KMS server improve the KMS activation that will block un-official KMS server, ie. KMS emulator
Microsoft has always used rather soft and diplomatic language when referring to those who infringe on their copyrights. Phrases like "non-genuine customers" for example. Now, they're perhaps aligning their actions with such soft language. Even during the worst of it, when being non-genuine resulted in forcefully being logged out and eventually the system becoming unbootable, they considered infringers "customers" and now because of the Windows Store there exists the possibility that indeed an infringer could be a customer that brings revenue into Microsoft through Windows Store purchases. I think it's one of the things that plays into the Windows as a Service era. Then you consider the wealth of data they can put to good use - from infringers and properly licensed users alike. Cortana will improve as there's more voice recognition diagnostic and telemetry data. Know why Google has such awesome voice transcription algorithms? Because of Google Voice which gave everyone in the US the ability to call phone numbers for free from their web browser - and it still does. They used voicemails to gradually improve their products. The same thing will happen with Cortana, and the more people using it - legit or not - will mean more telemetry data.
Yeah even Daz loader can get you a free copy of 10. There's a few more steps but you get there in the end.
Maybe they are just reprioritizing their developments efforts and making some rational choices? After all, whats the point of sticking in a bunch of anti-DRM crap?, whatever system they put out will get cracked and there giving away the free insider version anyway. If they really stopped piracy I suspect most pirates would just stick with the outdated stuff. They could use all that development effort they would have spent on DRM to make their OS better. Plus there is always the possibility of their long term plan to be giving away Windows for free in future (or even open sourcing it, they might have started doing that with the compiler components) and making money off the App store, Azure, Holo, Minecraft etc... I suspect the decision would largely be about how well the appstore does. 'the PC is dying' (at least according to tech journalists) and people are moving towards tablets and so on and Microsoft isn't doing well in the mobile department. Linux has always had the server space and it will be getting much worse with all the modern development methodologies such as webapps, agile, Continuous integration/development/deployment, containerization all of which are much more integrated into the Linux eco system. The Linux desktop keeps evolving.
There is no new version of Windows Server. Might be the reason there is no new version of KMS protocol either. And from now on they will they will use windows as a mean to introduce customers to their services more than a product that brings profit. It's obvious.
I paid full retail prices for Windows 3.x, W95, W98, W2000, WXP, WVista, Windows 7 over a period of 2+ decades. The upgrade to Windows 8 was US $15 (IIRC). And now the upgrade to Win 10 is free. Notice the trend? I think it's only a matter of time before MS makes their OS free for personal use and only charges businesses for licenses. Business/corporates are more easily caught and penalised for using pirated software while individuals are firstly too numerous and are able to sneak away. I think MS has seen the writing on the wall as did Apple. MS will probably bet on making money through other services and the app store.
They could also get people hooked on Win10 first, then at some point introduce a new DRM method which invalidates all illegal copies so they don't work properly or at all. Until that new DRM is cracked or bypassed, people won't be able to use their Win10 machines, so at least some of them will feel coerced into obtaining a valid licence. This is the last Windows ever according to MS, so they could pull off something like that whenever a new DRM workaround has spread too far for their liking.
I think with the competition its more important to microsoft that more machines have there os, then trying to stop piracy overall. Its not a luxury microsoft can afford any more, ie going after piracy. I think they would rather people just using there os, and they still get enough from legit sources.
Just an observation to all this information. Since I replicate many devices with the same software and keys, whether it's a KMS key or a Microsoft Retail key, I have been able to replicate all my Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 Pro's with both types of product keys and all of the replicated devices are all now Windows 10 Professionals.