Microsoft Is Changing Windows 10 Roadmap With 5 New Consumer SKUs

Other than bringing S Mode as the default (upgradable) option for Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions, Microsoft is about to bring another big change to their roadmap in April this year.

The site Thurrott.com, which has seen internal documents, reported that Microsoft is working on five new Windows 10 SKUs (stock keeping unit) for different hardware configuration which will be offered for Redstone 4. These consumer SKUs are Entry ($25), Value ($45), Core ($65.45), Core+ ($86.66), and Advanced ($101).

Entry and Value SKUs, for example, would come with laptops, hybrids, and tablets running Atom, Celeron, and Chips with 4GB RAM. Advanced SKU would require Intel Core i9, Core i7 CPUs, or AMD Threadripper or Ryzen with tons of RAM and 4K display.

Choosing between Home and Pro editions is itself a task. But the consumers don’t have to make any decisions here as these options are available to OEMs. It won’t be surprising if these options differ slightly in terms of features. The different license fees could allow OEMs to optimize costs for devices and possibly pass the benefit to the consumers.

As per the report, the new Windows 10 SKUs would be available to partners from April 2, 2018. The new pricing for the Home Advanced variant would be valid from May 1. Microsoft is also trying to convince its partners to pre-load their systems with Office apps, the LinkedIn UWP apps, and promote the use of UWP apps.

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