Or maybe they will launch Win 12 with optional TPM support.
Imho making the OS(es) TPM only cannot be good for their business, many people are still on Win 10 with no intention to switch, since their motheboard does not support TPM and do not want to upgrade PC / waste PCI-E slot on TPM extension.
Sorry, Profitable, brain fart.
Is there a source on the OS not being profitable?
No, the source is my ass, but I work in IT sales and am specialized on MS licensing, and IMO there’s just no way Microsoft can finance the constant development and cloud infrastructure needed for Windows updates on a one-time-payment of a few bucks for an OEM license.
Meanwhile, businesses are happy to pay several hundred dollars per user and year for M365 licenses if they’re in the ecosystem. And for the licensing costs of large enterprises, Microsoft basically just sends in an analyst who looks at the environment and quotes a number with a lot of zeros. Which you either pay or go out of business.
It’s not that Windows isn’t profitable, it’s that Office is insanely profitable. There’s a running joke inside MS that Office pays the bills, everything else is icing on the cake.