Inside Scoop: What to expect from Microsoft's Windows 10

[MUSIC] Hey everyone, welcome to the Inside Scoop. I'm CNET's Kara Tsuboi, joined by staff writer Nick Statt. On Wednesday, January 21st, Nick, myself, and a few others from the CNET team are travelling to Redmond, Washington, to Microsoft's campus, to cover the big launch of Windows 10. Nick, what do we know about this event so far? So, it's gonna be called Windows 10: The Next Chapter. Microsoft named the operating system, or revealed the name back in September, and it was a big surprise, cuz they jumped over 9. They went right from 8 to 10. Okay. Now, it's the first opportunity to show why that's such a big change, and why it deserved that, that name jump. So they're gonna be showing some more sharing some more details about what it's gonna look like on phones, on tablets. Blitz and how it's gonna all work together. And this is a big press event. I mean, it's expected to be a few hours long, a big deal for Microsoft. Yes, it's a big deal. this is gonna be the really long one where they, they really dive deep. It's gonna, expected to be maybe over two hours long, [UNKNOWN] will, will be in attendance. We're unclear, it's unclear if he's gonna be on stage speaking, but he'll. It will definitely be there. Okay, and what do we know about the product itself. You mentioned that it's for, for mobile. For tablets and phones. What else? Right, the big change with windows 10 is that it's gonna be the only operating system for windows. It's gonna be universal. So it's gonna work on your desktop, it's gonna work on your laptop, on your phone, on your tablet. There's gonna be no windows phone anymore. As we know it. It's gonna be all windows ten, it's supposed to work using what Windows Microsoft calls continuum across all devices. Just depending on what how big the screen is, whether there's a mouse or the keyboard it's supposed to automatically move. [CROSSTALK] seamless yeah Microsoft hope helps at least Okay, any other features that we know of thus far? Too early to tell? It's kind of early to tell, too early to tell, but we, we do know that besides Continuum, that Microsoft is kind of bringing it back to basics. They're going away from the, the heavy touch, dependency they had in Windows 8 that turned off a lot of users. They're trying to make it look a little bit more like Windows 7, but still pushing it forward. Still trying to incorporate touch cuz they can't ignore. It's now on their, their Surface tablets and obviously, on phones. So they're gonna work really hard on trying to make sure this is this makes sense to people whether they're using their, their fingers or. So wether they're using a mouse and a keyboard. And what do we know about the release date, and the price point? It's expected to release later this year. We don't know when, but developers have been using it since late last year. Okay. In terms of pricing, they are going to charge for it, we think. Hm. We don't expect Microsoft to switch to a free model, like Apple has in the last few years. Mm-hm. So after this release, after Windows 10 we're unsure if Microsoft might go free, they could go free and that would be a big change for them. What does Microsoft need to do to ensure that this release is, is a success and can actually you know, get the attention of the broad public? Microsoft's big job is to just not ,. Turn people off. And to, to ensure them that they can be trusted to create something good, they are gonna do a lot of work trying to simplify things. They're going from a, a number of different operating systems, very confusing, product specs, all into one universal thing. If they can pull that off, I think they'll, they'll really, turn it around for Windows. All right. Thank you, Nick. You can tune into CNET's coverage on January 21 to follow what is new with Windows 10. Nick Stadt, Kara Suboy. Thank you so much for watching CNET's Inside Scoop. [MUSIC]