You thought unified meant one OS across all devices, right? Wrong, or ‘Unified OSino’.

Window10 will ship in three consumer editions and three Enterprise and education editions. Now that’s ‘unified’.

Translation: The three consumer editions Home, Mobile and Pro are designed for the demands of end-users, professionals and small businesses. Home is the equivalent of the Windows 8 edition, a basic edition of Windows 10 that will most likely ship on the majority of devices the edition and it will ship with Microsoft Edge, the new internet browser iteration, Cortana, the personal assistant, Continuum, a tablet-friendly mode for touch-devices, and Windows Hello, a biometric authentication service and universal applications.

Windows 10 Pro, the second desktop version ships with all the features that Windows 10 Home ships with and extra features designed for professional use. It will have ‘Windows Update for Business’ namely: Peer to peer delivery of updates, maintenance windows, distribution rings to prioritize deployments and integration with existing tools like System Center.

Finally, Windows 10 Mobile is the mobile version of the operating system which will be on smartphones and small tablets.

As to which will be “free” for 8.1 folks? No word yet.

Now then, as to that “free” misnomer: While it’s true that they will not charge for the upgrade, get ready for the “Rent-an-OS”…probably along the lines of the Adobe model.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Source:

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/14/microsoft-reveals-windows-10-editions/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1608%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e1o2q

Update: What's known and what isn't regarding the update to W10 (5/29/15):

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/27/clearing-away-confusion-about-windows-10s-free-for-a-year-offer/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1621%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e1ola