Free Windows 10 is not an upgrade … it's marketing

can someone explain how this is supposed to work? i don't mean what MS is doing with renaming an upgrade to a promotion but rather i want to know what causes a free upgrade to require that earnings be set aside and be counted later?

what kind of rule is that? it sounds to me like someone decided that "we need a loop hole where we can report less earnings now, and instead count them later as earnings for the upgrade, so that maybe we can pay less taxes"

and everyone liked the rule and now MS discovered that they don't like it so much after all because they need the higher sales numbers now to make them look better.

i can't imagine any other reason for such a rule. earnings are earnings when they are made, regardless of why...

greetings, eMBee.

I' guessing some trick inherent in the difference between a cash basis and accrual accounting method... Maybe MS gets to count the future discounts against present earnings... ?!?! I don't know... Doesn't matter to me though... I only have one machine that would be eligible for the Win10 upgrade,... and that machine is going to have its HD wiped and Linux installed after I don't need it to run Window anymore for the CS degree program I am in.

Well, it had to happen one day -- it's funny though, that in the end it was the minutia of tax accounting standards is what lead to this breath of honesty.