Raspberry Pi 2 and Windows 10

There is no official date when the Microsoft will release the Windows 10, but it is sure the world most famous (and cheap) development board will get an version of it, and that also for free!

Raspberry Pi recently recently upgraded it self with :

• A 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU (~6x performance)
• 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM (2x memory)

The above configuration does not seems a lot, but in the embedded world it is almost a super computer, Apollo 11 used a less powerful computer for the lunar mission.

And this little chip will run a Microsoft Windows 10 for free!

It is strange that a company which is the definition of the paid commercial software suddenly taken the righteous  path of free and open source, though Windows (OS) code is not release as open source but Microsoft did put once of its biggest asset like Dotnet Core code as open source on Git hub (Same Git which is create by Bill Gates arch enemy Linus Torvald! ) 

I am not surprises that Windows 10 is coming free on Raspberry Pi, because Microsoft already announced that it will be free upgrade for Windows 7 and above users, and will be really dirt cheap for new adopters. But it (Windows 10) is going to be subscription base, as it will be free for a year, not sure how that is going to work out in a OS space, you will be literally have to pay ransom to Microsoft to use your own content after one year (hmm... something is fishy here)?

Now why Windows chooses such a small platform like Raspberry Pi, which is not going to pay much to the giant software churning machine much?

It will  be answer by how Microsoft redesigned the financial model around the Windows 10 because in the internet age the technology is changing too quickly and it is more profitable to be service base rather than product base, which mean two thing :

1. Give away the platform on which your service is going to be based for free with essential services. 
1. Google does it with Android.
2. Apple has Mac OS, and iOS
2. Charge for the premium features.  
1. Play store, Google Drive, Google music, movies etc
2. itunes. 

Windows tries to Achieve the same but, it has no platform which it was giving away for free, sure it comes with your computer (forcefully), but at an price attached with it and for a simple user, it does not matter whether he uses Ubuntu Linux or Windows. 

So why give out Windows for free? Why go an extra mile and make it compatible and free for Raspberry Pi 2 ? 

• One reason that Microsoft other projects in embedded space failed miserable, that the reason most of us never heard of Galileo development board, developed my Microsoft and Intel combined effort. A 100+ Dollar board, with a graphical OS to do embedded work? That is really not the dream of the geeky ones. 
• Second reason that, raspberry pi is really designed to for Kids! Don't be surprise, it real purpose is to make kid more aware about embedded and electronics system, and if a Kid grows up using Linux, he will be comfortable with and probably use Linux rest of his life, because lets face it Windows may be little easy to use, but has no real advantage over Linux. This way Microsoft is investing in its future (customers).
• Raspberry Pi 2 is up for the challenge now, the B version of Pi (1) did not had enough memory to support Windows 8 operating system, but now with 1 GB DDR 2 Ram and 4 core processor Pi 2 will be able to handle the modern operating system. 
• Raspberry Pi is successful, even you are not in electronics much, every computer enthusiast have one, tapping Pi OS is tapping all those computer geeks. 

End of a day Microsoft is a corporation not a "Non profit organisation" hence, what ever it gives as free, can never be free in its true sense.

But for now Window 10 on raspberry Pi 2 seems more like an investment from Microsoft, so you buy Windows when you are able to pay for it.

Windows 10 is still not out yet so only time can tell how that will work out with Raspberry Pi.