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Windows Vista Prices and Release Date Leaked
Nieske writes "Prices and the release date for Windows Vista have leaked online. Ed Bott's Microsoft Report has information on pricing, and the release date is currently January 30th, 2007. Are they really going to make the deadline this time?" From the ZDNet article: "In Canada, at least, the rumors of a 'modest' price increase were true, based on this list. Will these same relative prices hold true in the U.S.? Who knows? But if they do, then it's mostly good news for Windows customers. There's no price increase for Home Basic. Home Premium, the Vista version that maps most closely to the OEM-only Windows XP Media Center Edition, will finally be available as a retail product for a slight bump over the Home Basic product, similar to the $39 premium typically charged by large OEMs for Media Center upgrades. And Vista Business buyers will get a break with a small discount relative to XP Professional."
I work at a VAR and went thru a very long and convoluted email exchange with Microsoft about this.
The end result is: OEM is tied to a computer. However, you can change anything except the motherboard, and it's still the same computer. You can also exchange the board if it's due to a 'defect'.
And 'defects'... well, accidents happen. It's a dangerous world.
Only drawback is that once you do change motherboard, you are required to activate the copy over the phone, and if it was a big-name OEM (those that don't normally ask for product key when you use the recovery disc), you may have to replace the key that's on the OEM sticker with a replacement issued by MS phone support. But in the end, the license is still valid - as long as the board swap was due to 'defect' (or, essentially, if you lie it was due to a defect). So in reality OEM is transferrable, if you know what you are doing.