On the showfloor of Computex 2015 in Taipei are dozens of tablets, ultrabooks, and 2-in-1s that run Windows 10. Now Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has an answer of when Windows 10 will be available for everyone else: July 29.
“Consumers will have one year from July 29th to take advantage of the free upgrade. Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device—at no cost,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The OS will be available globally in 190 countries.
Right now eligible users running Windows 8/8.1 can pre-load Windows 10 on their computer and start the instillation process.
Microsoft is releasing Windows 10 for free for many users as it plans to transition its Windows business model to be service based. The more users it can get using Windows 10, the more revenue it can generate from things such as Bing and App store sales. It also hopes that this free approach will help drive adoption of Windows 10, as adoption of Windows 8 still lags Windows 7 and XP.
In late April Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, spoiled the release date of the operating system when answering a question from an analyst during an earnings call.
“With the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we’re watching, sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season, and expect that it might have a bit of a delay to the normal back-to-school season inventory build-up,” she said during the call.
