The launch of Windows 10 is around the corner, and Microsoft just offered consumers a glimpse at what’s in store for them this summer by unveiling the six different editions of its upcoming operating system.
People who are already familiar with Microsoft’s previous edition pricing will be right at home with Windows 10. Windows 10 Home is the edition of the operating system that’s targeted at consumers, while Windows 10 Pro contains some professional-grade features targeted at small businesses and companies supporting users who bring their own devices to work with them.
Windows 10 Mobile is designed to run on smartphones and smaller tablets, and includes support for ARM chips, which the larger desktop versions of Windows do not. As Microsoft promised, all three editions will be available as a free upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 for the first year following Windows 10’s release. After that, it’s not clear what sort of pricing scheme will be put in place, however.
Meanwhile, the last three editions of Windows 10 are targeted at large businesses and educational institutions that need to manage whole fleets of devices. Windows 10 Education is targeted at schools that use Windows, and includes an upgrade path for those people running Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Home.
Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise are built for businesses that need to manage massive numbers of computers. One of the marquee features is Windows Update for Business, which provides a bunch of functionality including the ability to set up distribution rings that keep new software to a small number of people before sending it out to the rest of the company.
In addition, Windows 10 Enterprise will also give system administrators access to “Long Term Servicing Branches,” which will allow them to deploy a version of Windows to mission-critical infrastructure and then only get security updates for that hardware moving forward without any new features.
Like their more consumer-focused siblings, pricing isn’t yet available for these editions of Windows 10, though Microsoft says that they’ll be available on a volume pricing basis.
