Steve Ballmer On Microsoft’s Future
Most analysts think the price of Windows to our hardware customers, people like Dell Inc. (DELL ), is about 50 bucks. If you stop and think about it, most people are going to own their PCs for four years. So do we offer $12 a year of value where you can run tremendously more applications, it’s tremendously easier to take care of? It’s $12 a year when people are spending $90 to $100 a month on cell-phone bills, and we’re talking about saving you hours and hours of time. I think it’s a pretty good value proposition, myself.
Which assumes that the customer is the consumer when in reality it is Dell. Now $12/year for how many MILLIONS of desktops, laptops and servers. So the real question, Does Windows provide $12,000,000 of value each year to Dell?