Kevin Turner discussed Windows 10 pricing options at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference last week, hinting that the company might adopt a new pricing model for the upcoming operating system.

As we revealed in our first story on Turner’s statements, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer refused to provide any new details regarding Windows 10’s price, but he did explain that the software giant needed “to be creative” and was “learning” to do new things.

Obviously, there’s a lot of ambiguity in all these words, but if we put together all pieces of the puzzle, it’s easy to understand that Windows 10 might in the end drop the traditional pricing model used by more than 90 percent of the software solutions on the market and go for something that already exists in Microsoft’s offering: subscriptions.

Turner’s words

First and foremost, here’s what Kevin Turner told the audience at the conference:

“We've got to monetize it differently. And there are services involved. There are additional opportunities for us to bring additional services to the product and do it in a creative way. And through the course of the summer and spring we'll be announcing what that business model looks like.”

Does this mean that Windows 10 could switch to a subscription-based pricing model? Certainly not, but it’s definitely an indication that Microsoft is at least considering such an option.

“Finding new ways to monetize the lifetime of that customer on those devices, again, I would tell you we're learning, we're growing, and we're smarter and wiser every day,” Turner pointed out.

Obviously, Turner cannot disclose too much information at this point, not because the company wants to keep everything secret, but rather due to the fact that Redmond itself is still trying to figure out the best way to market Windows 10.

The upcoming operating system will mark a really important milestone in the history of the company, so getting it right is really critical, especially after the Windows 8 flop which pushed many customers to rival platforms.

More speculation

This isn’t the first time when a subscription-based Windows version makes headlines and it’s no wonder why. Microsoft is already using a similar pricing model for Office 365 and everything seems to go really well, which is pretty much the main sign that the company should look at its cloud-based productivity suite in order to improve the desktop operating system.

People close to Microsoft’s development plans said earlier this year that the company was considering a project they described as “Windows 365” and which was inspired by Office 365.

Obviously, details were missing, but as you can figure out by simply reading its name, the subscription-based licensing model is the first one that comes to mind.

There’s no doubt that Microsoft is considering every single option for Windows 10 as we speak, so a lot could change until the operating system hits the market. According to information coming from within the company, Windows 10 could debut in late summer/early fall 2015, so more information on everything related to the new operating system should be provided very soon.