A few years ago software giants Microsoft and Apple were toying with the idea to make an ad-supported operating system that allowed their customers to upgrade to the latest software at no extract cost but it meant you had ads showing throughout the day. According to some sources, they have stated the ads would have rolled on a 10 minute interval and it would appear near you clock.

Now, let me point out the biggest flaw in this concept… You need the internet to even have ads running and if you have the internet, you run the risk of leaving your system potentially open to more attacks than normal. All it takes is some smarty pants to override the ad API and it could be used to take your personal information or what your browsing throughout your computer.

I can see why this concept came to light, many users don’t want to pay the high prices for operating system upgrades because in some cases it can set you back around £100 or more each time, depending on the software vendor it could cost you less. In a practical world this concept would have paid off for the vendors because software upgrades would increase and the revenue obtained per install would leave them with a higher profit margin.

There is one thing that needs to be highlighted and that is the chances of the software vendor launching two versions of its software, ad-supported and no ads. In todays application world this is seen widely on mobile applications where you pay a small price to remove the ads but personally I don’t think this would work in operating system environment purely because the upgrade prices would be around the same price as buying it ad free.

Overall the concept is tangible but to the average user they will just dismiss the concept and pay full price for the upgrade, which means the concept is flawed. Depending on the ratio of paid and ad-supported installs it might not generate the right profit margins to cover overheads and other running costs to make it worth while.