except that you’ve already announced the end of primary support for Windows 10 as October 13, 2020, with extended support ending on October 14, 2025 – something that would not be the case if you really were shifting Windows into a single operating system service from this point forward. (Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet) So, unless you’re selling off your operating system business within the next ten years (which seems unlikely), there’s another operating system coming in the next 2-4 years.

We are skipping Windows 10 as well. This however, is a bit misleading. Every Windows OS starting in 2000 has had a 5 year active support where new features are added, and a five year period where they fix security issues but do not add new features. This is why Windows 2000 has USB2.x issues; it came out after that first 5 years. XP was different in that they supported new features until Vista came out. One of the reasons given for Vista sucking so bad was they poured all their OS talent into Service Pack 2, which make XP phenomenal, IMO.

If they make the OS a service, we go Linux. End of arguments. I'll take the expense of training and implementing to make that happen as it will be less than the cost of leasing an OS every year.