- I'm in New York City this week,
but we're still doing episode of Ask Dan.
And on this one, we're gonna talk about, what else,
Andromeda, Surface Studio 2.
And should Microsoft start charging for Windows 10?
All that and more, stay tuned.
(upbeat electronic music)
All right, what would be an Ask Dan series (chuckles)
without another Andromeda question?
Now, you're asking for very specific info, here.
I will say we are still hearing a 2018 schedule
for this device.
As to when, well, we are hearing October.
Microsoft does do October events in the past.
In fact, one of it's most legendary ones was October 2015.
And we're expecting sort of a similar event,
maybe this year as well.
Now, this is all, of course,
internal information we're hearing.
Things could definitely change.
This is a moving thing.
We don't get daily updates from Microsoft
on their progress with Andromeda,
so if we're not exact on this, please forgive us.
But we are hearing October, this year.
All right, Luke is basically asking the question, here:
"Should Microsoft revert back to its old model,
"where they would charge users an upgrade fee for Windows?"
The idea behind this is that if Microsoft brings in revenue
through Windows directly, instead of license fees
that are indirect when you buy a laptop or a new PC,
that we can get rid of those sort of targeted ads and apps
that you get when you install a new build of Windows 10.
Or you buy a new PC, so the Candy Crushes of the world.
In fact, HP, Lenovo, and Dell and all the other companies
do this as well and add even more content.
So would adding a license fee get rid of that stuff?
Or would we get at risk
from the targeted Binging advertising, maybe?
I agree in theory that that would be kind of nice.
But once you go to a free model, it's really hard
to roll it back.
Ask anything on the internet,
where they give away news for free,
Twitter is free, Facebook is free.
Everything is free.
Once you start doing that,
then to start charging a fee is kind of bad.
And I don't think that would go over well for Microsoft.
Don't forget, they're in a struggle, right now.
Windows 10 is doing pretty well for them.
But Windows 10 is also in a transition.
We're in this weird world, right now,
where PCs are changing from these desktop things
that we use to laptops to now, even smaller devices.
And you'll see more of this in the coming weeks as well.
Windows 10 and ARM, all this is transformative
to bring PC to the modern world.
You can think of it as PC 2.0.
I think now, to slap a charge on that,
well, you're just gonna drive people towards Chrome,
which is slowly building steam in the market.
And sure, it may not be as powerful as a PC,
and people may not like it.
But if you start charging for Windows,
and you give Chrome for free,
well, people will go to Chrome.
So no, I think this is a bad idea,
and I don't think this would work at all.
So the last time we spoke about Surface Studio 2
was in January.
And in that video, I said it was expected in the fall.
What's John asking here is: What year did I mean,
2018, 19, or 20?
And I do mean 2018.
We are still hearing, or at least expecting this to be,
again, at that October event.
That could shift.
We don't have that as an official confirmation.
But that is what we're expecting at this point.
And since that video in January,
we have heard it's co-name, which is Capitola,
which is a city in California.
And that's only interesting because down in California,
there's evidently a secret surface lab,
where they develop a lot of their hardware.
So they don't do it all at Redmond,
but they do some stuff down there as well.
I imagine maybe that is some place.
Well, but anyway, for that device,
we are expecting a lotta of the same.
They're gonna keep, I assume, the display the same
as well as the base.
But we expect internals to be, obviously, improved.
There's a lot of issue with the one in the past,
in terms of performance.
They're basically laptop components in there
instead of full desktop ones.
We are also hearing, actually, a lower tier price point.
So they're gonna bring down some of those components.
So it'll be more affordable.
We'll have to wait and see what happens.
But it should be a very good device.
I expect it to go more consumer, now,
instead of just pros and artists.
We'll have to see what Microsoft does, of course.
It should be an exciting device.
But yeah, Andromeda and Surface Studio 2 in the fall,
it could happen, folks.
Okay, so that does it for this episode.
Remember, if you have a question,
use #AskDanWindows on Twitter.
Or drop me an email at askdan@windowscentral.com.
Maybe we'll pick yours.
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Thanks for watching.
Take care, everybody.