If a hardware refresh is on your list this year, budget for it to cost more than it did last year.
Taiwanese newspaper United Daily News reports, citing a PC brand executive, that Microsoft has lifted the price of Windows OEM licences by 7 to 10 per cent from July 2026. Microsoft raises that fee most years, but usually by a low single-digit percentage, so this is a noticeably bigger jump than normal. Microsoft has not publicly confirmed the change.
An OEM licence is the copy of Windows that comes pre-installed when a manufacturer builds a machine. You do not pay it directly, and the price of a boxed retail copy of Windows has not changed. What changes is the cost of building every new laptop and desktop, and that lands in the sticker price.
The timing is the painful part. It arrives on top of a global memory squeeze, where demand from AI data centres has soaked up DRAM supply and pushed RAM prices up sharply through 2026. Two separate increases are now stacking on the same machine.
What that means in practice for a small business:
- Quotes go stale faster. Ask for a validity date and order inside it, rather than sitting on a quote for a month.
- Spec the memory you need now. RAM is the component rising fastest, so adding it later will likely cost more than ordering it up front.
- Do not stretch old machines past support to dodge the cost. Windows 10 stopped receiving free security updates in October 2025. An unpatched PC is a cheaper machine and a far more expensive problem.
- Replace in planned batches. Spreading a refresh across a couple of quarters is kinder to cash flow than an emergency replacement when something finally dies.
None of this is a reason to panic-buy. It is a reason to map out the next 12 months of hardware now, while the timing is still your choice rather than a fault report’s.
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