29 July 2015: Windows 10 arrives as a free upgrade
Microsoft released Windows 10 and offered it free to many Windows 7 and 8 users, a striking break from decades of selling each new version. The aim was to get as many people as possible onto one modern platform and earn money from services, cloud and the store instead. It reflected a broader shift at Microsoft toward subscriptions and the cloud, which investors came to appreciate a great deal.
The lesson: Giving away the old product can be smart when it locks customers into a bigger, recurring business.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Microsoft at the start of 2015 → $10,435 today, vs $3,301 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2015, the year it happened. That is 10.4 times the money, and $7,134 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Microsoft teaches: A great business bought at a silly price can still deliver a lost decade; Microsoft's profits grew for years while its 2000 valuation slowly deflated.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $46.00 | $10,435 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $86.00 | $5,581 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $160 | $3,000 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Microsoft? Every starting year and the full story →
More Microsoft history
- 30 January 2007: Windows Vista launches to consumers
- 13 March 1986: Microsoft goes public
- 4 April 1975: Microsoft is founded in Albuquerque
- 25 April 2019: Microsoft reaches a $1 trillion market value
- 27 June 2008: Bill Gates' last day as a full-time Microsoft employee
- 4 July 1996: Hotmail declares independence from your ISP
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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