Comment by raw_anon_1111

2 days ago

And why would they care? Not even Microsoft really cares about Windows licensing for consumers and businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows.

There is no real business case.

14 comments

raw_anon_1111

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sznio  2 days ago

>businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows.

why not? If it's cheaper and compatible, why not?

  • johnnyanmac  2 days ago

    The value in software at that scale isn't the product. It's the support. And Valve's support as is is really shaky.

    Businesses will happily throw a few million to make tech support another businesses' problem. Cheaper than maintaining a team in-house.

  • raw_anon_1111  2 days ago

    That’s not how Big Enterprise works. “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft”. Can you imagine the reputational risk of whoever decided that when something goes wrong they didn’t go with Microsoft? No one is going to trust a gaming company when it comes to their entire IT infrastructure.

    Besides businesses have an all in one contract with Microsoft for Windows, Active Directory, probably SQL Server, Office, a certain number of seats for MSDN for their developers, Azure DevOps (separate from Azure - it’s the modern equivalent of Team Foundation Server), and the list goes on. They don’t care about saving a couple of dollars on Windows license.

    • cromka  2 days ago

      I don't think they'd target businesses. I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps.

      7 replies →

randyrand  2 days ago

Here’s an idea, charge money for it?

I’m sure there are lots of businesses that dislike Microsoft and the freemium model they’re using.

  • raw_anon_1111  2 days ago

    Business don’t “dislike” Microsoft enough to go with a game developer and revalidatd all of their software over their entire organizations. The people making the decisions don’t go around worrying about nerd wars.

    They definitely aren’t going to trust the long term viability of Valve over a company that has been releasing operating systems and supporting business for almost half a century.

    $20 a seat is a nothing burger to basically make sure you support every Windows APi forever. You’re not going to tie your horse to valve