OEM manufacturers have told ChannelNews that the price of a
Windows OEM license for 14″ and over PC has been “increased” and that they will
have to charge consumers for the new Windows 10 OS license.

When ChannelNews approached Darren Simmons the CEO of Acer
on the issue he said “Windows 10 is not free for people who buy a 14″ notebook
or workstation. We are actually acting as the revenue collector for Microsoft
as we have to collect that revenue from our retail partners”.

An ASUS executive at Computex said “Actually the price of a
14″ and over notebook will go up as the price of a Microsoft license has gone
up specifically on notebooks that are 15” or larger.

An Acer Europe executive said “One minute Microsoft is
telling us that they don’t want us to deal with Google or develop Chromebooks
and then in the next breadth they are telling us that OEM manufacturers are
expected to bundle the cost of Windows 10 into the price of a PC, they have
also lifted the cost of the license to OEM’s for certain PC’s”.

Earlier today Microsoft said that people who upgrade to
Windows 10 for free during the first year of its release will be able to erase
and restore their devices later and keep the free operating system.

The free element of the Windows 10 offer only applies to
people who have purchased a PC and paid for a Windows OS license. Once this
license is installed the upgrade of the OS going forward will be free.

Gabe Aul, an engineering general manager for Microsoft’s
operating systems group, said in a tweet that people who upgrade a device to
Windows 10 during the first year of its existence will be able to perform a
clean reinstall of Windows 10 on the same device “any time

He said that people won’t need to hold onto their Windows 7
or Windows 8.1 product key in order to perform the restoration. Their devices
will reactivate themselves after being upgraded to Windows 10, Aul said.