Free Microsoft Windows?

Microsoft is now considering giving away its popular software applications such as Works, Money and even the popular Windows FREE, by making it advertising-supported (News.com – Microsoft Eyes Making Desktop Apps Free). Well, it’s just in the planning stages which may or may not see the light. Anyway, it’s an interest concept (although not new) where advertisers will pay for the software that we’ll be using.

The first thing that crossed my mind about such ad-supported software was the Opera browser. During the browser war between Internet Explorer and Netscape began in the mid-90s. Opera has no choice but to join the crowd and offer their browser for free but with an ad-supported model. Well, I must give some credit to the developers at Opera for making such a great and light-weight browser in the midst of the browser war but the ads were just too annoying for most users which may have also took a toll on its popularity and its low adoption rate. In the recent release of Opera 8.5, they eventually decided to remove the ads from the browser and release it for free with no strings attached. Perhaps ad-supported software just doesn’t cut it among users. I know there are still a number of other softwares out there that are also ad-supported, but its popularity among users are generally negative, not because of the software’s functionality but for its annoying ads. There are also several other softwares that are cursed with adwares which have gain a bad reputation in the ranks of viruses and Trojans.

Just a thought that came across my mind, perhaps the ad-supported Windows will start to display ads as our wallpaper instead (something like ActiveDesktop). So we’ll have a new advertisement on our desktop each time we boot our computers or after a certain duration. If that’s the price that I’ll have to pay (sacrificing my beautiful wallpaper) in return for a free full version of Windows, I guess I’ll be more than happy to give it. However, the effectiveness of such advertising model may be questionable and advertiser may not pay the premium that Microsoft would demand in return to cover the cost of the softwares we use.

Perhaps a more annoying mechanism will be made to display these ads. Something like TV advertisement? A window displaying ads every few minutes? And there goes my last refuge, the desktop, from the bombardment of advertisement in today’s media. Ironic as it may sounds, even this blog has advertisements. Perhaps Microsoft would overhaul its user interface and design a better way to display the ads without annoying the users but yet produces the effect that advertisers demands. So can Microsoft do it without annoying us with the ads? Well, these are just my speculative ideas of what we could expect of a free ad-supported software from Microsoft.

Well, advertising has been a good source of revenue for many companies today. Google is one good example with its successful AdWords advertising model. Perhaps Microsoft is thinking of taking it a step further by putting ads on their software applications instead of just the Live releases that they’ve just announced recently. As in the recent Sony DRM case, taking a step further may not always bring positive results. While there may be greater revenue beyond the horizon for such ad-supported model, the risk is equally dangerous and challenging. A failure to properly implement the ad-supported version of the software would definitely benefits Microsoft’s competitors, especially the open source softwares.

Perhaps Microsoft is experiencing a midlife crisis which by the way, Microsoft turns 30 this year. As Google is currently the leader on the internet arena with its web advertising model, Microsoft the biggest software company on earth may have felt challenged and thus re-evaluating its business model and products to capture a piece of the market. It’s been some years since Microsoft have been challenged anyway. Well, every successful company re-evaluates its business strategy after some years to remain competitive and successful, so does the 30 years old Microsoft.

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