http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... 10-1276304

It's always just came with whatever machine I bought - it's been bad enough that MS even got money there, never mind buying a copy outright

If they're think of making it an annual fee to use, then they can go forth and multiply.

The talk earlier this year was that it would be free for consumers and businesses would pay for the business features, like domain membership, Bitlocker etc.

Probably Media Center would be a paid for option on the consumer version.

They are also talking about cloud access (Microsoft Cloud) being paid for - much like Office 365 and OneDrive at the moment, you get basic access and a couple of GB for free. Pay a monthly fee and you get unlimited storage and Skype minutes, for example.

So Windows should come with the device and work for no fee, but if you want the additional services, you pay for them - and those additional services are also cross platform.