It’s already no longer their golden goose. It’s about 6% of total revenue (see http://bullfincher.io/companies/microsoft-corporation/revenu...).
replyMicrosoft could give Windows away for free and be fine. Of course it’s still a lot of money, so they’re not going to leave a multibillion dollar business on the table. But strategically, preserving its revenue is not their priority.
How many percent of their revenue funel are dependent directly or indirectly on windows beeing the peoples workstation funneling them towards their subpar products?
replyIn the Enterprise, they'll fight tooth and nail to maintain that synergy. In the small business and consumer markets, people are having a very slow divorce from Windows, and Microsoft is well aware. MS365 is an ok product and can absolutely thrive on its own without Windows.
replyProbably some amount. I agree Windows is strategic, but do definitely could see them giving it away and/or fully open sourcing it.
replyIt is most likely impossible, given the amount of code that is probably still under contractors copyright, or other kinds of licenses.
replyThey don't have to provide the source to give the OS away for free.
replyThe difference between BSD and GPL in one sentence.