>businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows.

why not? If it's cheaper and compatible, why not?

The value in software at that scale isn't the product. It's the support. And Valve's support as is is really shaky.

Businesses will happily throw a few million to make tech support another businesses' problem. Cheaper than maintaining a team in-house.

That’s not how Big Enterprise works. “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft”. Can you imagine the reputational risk of whoever decided that when something goes wrong they didn’t go with Microsoft? No one is going to trust a gaming company when it comes to their entire IT infrastructure.

Besides businesses have an all in one contract with Microsoft for Windows, Active Directory, probably SQL Server, Office, a certain number of seats for MSDN for their developers, Azure DevOps (separate from Azure - it’s the modern equivalent of Team Foundation Server), and the list goes on. They don’t care about saving a couple of dollars on Windows license.

I don't think they'd target businesses. I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps.

> I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps.

Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it?

I guess improving compatibility with general-purpose Windows apps might help them sell a few more Steam Machines, but it's hard to think that it's really going to move the needle.

> Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it?

Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store. SteamOS is presumably free to install on your own hardware once it has a general release.

> Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store.

Right, so my question is how does better compatibility with (non-game) Windows apps help them make more money?

A better Linux desktop experience means it's more viable as a daily driver, which makes it more likely to be used for gaming instead of Windows.

Valve wants independence from Microsoft Windows, a better Linux desktop is part of that.

It's also possible they'd strike a deal and sell the software via Steam platform. I don't see why would developers object that, after all it would be a new market for then previously out of reach. Doubt Microsoft would agree, but smaller devs for sure.

The big thing is that the current SteamOS image is incomplete and missing a lot of key features that the Steam products have, since it's optimized for that. That's been the one big sticking point for it as of now.

So Valve will finally make it the “Year of Linux on your Desktop”?

Here’s an idea, charge money for it?

I’m sure there are lots of businesses that dislike Microsoft and the freemium model they’re using.

Business don’t “dislike” Microsoft enough to go with a game developer and revalidatd all of their software over their entire organizations. The people making the decisions don’t go around worrying about nerd wars.

They definitely aren’t going to trust the long term viability of Valve over a company that has been releasing operating systems and supporting business for almost half a century.

$20 a seat is a nothing burger to basically make sure you support every Windows APi forever. You’re not going to tie your horse to valve