It is curious to see how a good part of Apple's policies change their strategy little by little without us hardly perceiving that change of course, so much so that if you remember the last keynote, Greg Federighi (SVP of Software at Apple) finished confirm that the upgrade to Mavericks it would be free and that is over spending hundreds of dollars to get the most out of the system unlike the competition, clearly referring to Windows.
Even iWork and iLife, creativity and productivity suites Apple also become free with the purchase of a new Mac or an iOS device, although as I said, the really good thing is that subsequent updates to these suites will be equally free.
According to Tim Cook, this strategy responds to the need of users to use these applications where 'others' charge $ 199 both by the system and by said applications.
We are now releasing iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Numbers, Keynote as a free download for customers who have purchased new iOS devices […] We are also releasing Mavericks and its future updates which will be free for Mac customers.
From my point of view, what Apple wants is to promote its equipment with the appeal of selling a computer with all this software already available from the first moment, making the use of these applications increase and therefore cut some quota to other more famous and standardized solutions such as Office.
Even so, all the development that this software entails without having income in return will have to pay investors with Apple's word that hardware sales will make up for this lack of 'payment' in software.
More information - Free upgrade to OS X Mavericks?