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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."
So our "authority" is a man from Microsoft Monitor Weblog that is owned by Jupitermedia, not Microsoft. And he's speculating that these are the leaked prices. Has anyone stopped and thought that if Amazon is posting these, that they probably weren't leaked? Or maybe the fact that Amazon constantly offers products and pushes back the release date means that these aren't the real release dates?
What I'm guessing is that these are estimates for the release date but it will most likely be pushed back and that these prices are correct and direct from Microsoft. Intentional, though, not 'leaked.'
My work here is dung.
FULL versions (all prices Canadian)
Windows Vista Ultimate $499
Windows Vista Business $379
Windows Vista Home Premium $299
Windows Vista Home Basic $259
UPGRADE versions (all prices Canadian)
Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade $299
Windows Vista Business Upgrade $249
Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade $199
Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade $129
I didn't do the conversion to real money.
That's the important one!
My sig sucks.
Enjoy your DRM.
whether its the stellar video driver support, or the fantastic sound card support, to the plethora of games and business apps that all work flawlessly without hours of tweaking.... you're right, linux kicks ass.
FULL versions
Windows Vista Ultimate ~$450
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 ~$387
Windows Vista Business ~$342
Windows Vista Home Premium ~$270
Windows Vista Home Basic ~$234
Windows XP Home w/SP2 ~$234
UPGRADE versions
Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade ~$270
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 Upgrade ~$234
Windows Vista Business Upgrade ~$225
Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade ~$180
Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade ~$117
Windows XP Home w/SP2 Upgrade ~$117
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
Does anybody outside of Microsoft actually care about Vista? WinXP is fairly stable, it runs all the software (or nearly all of it) developed for every version of Windows since Win95. Also, WinXP does not have perverted-control-freak class DRM embedded into it, like Vista does/will. Personally I view Vista as a significant downgrade from WinXP - it will negatively affect the utility offered by a Windows computer.
that way they can release all the required patches on the same day.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The windows pricing is a classic example of what marketeers call "market segmentation". When deciding how to price a product, you ask "How much will people pay?", and the answer is different people will pay different prices - some people actually want to pay more for essentially the same product.
It is an increasingly unpopular pricing method because people resent it. Note, for instance, the rapid growth of budget airlines (in Europe at least) - a lot of their popularity can be put down to the fact the traditional pricing model for flights was highly segmented - customers have come to resent paying different prices for essentially the same thing and so the budget airlines, with their simpler pricing model, have grown in popularity.
It is interesting that Apple do not do this, they don't even have separate "upgrade" prices. If you want the latest version of their OS or basic software (iWorks or iLife), then you pay one price. As a customer I like that.
When all the competitors (sun, ibm, mozilla, etc..) join to make a giant Linux advertising campain, on all tv channels.
Well, they're announcing January 30th now. So I guess they still have time till next Christmas.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Do you have any, ANY proof of or even hint at the validity of that claim?
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
They want me to pay $450 for something that will almost certainly force me to upgrade some bits of hardware to give it a chance of running, will potentially fail to run some of my software and in return does what exactly? Look pretty whilst constantly asking me if I'm sure?
Call me negative but I'm not exactly in hurry to join that particular queue.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Tom, come now. First, the ultimate pricing is $399/$259 (full/upgrade) USD. And can you point to an example where a MS product has been not "fully" working because it is running on a "lower" version? I cannot think of any off the top of my head at least. I have Office professional at work (XP Pro) and at home (XP Home) and I get the exact same functionality. Same with my games, development tools, etc, etc. Now I cannot say for sure there has never been such a case, but as I cannot think of any I'd be very interested to hear any examples.
There are certainly some applications which require a certain version (Media Center, IIS, etc, etc) but I cannot think of a single example where a MS application supported by both Home and Pro versions have ever had the Home version crippled in some way. I may well be wrong and would be interested to hear examples if I am.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Amazon.com is taking orders for Windows Vista.
r t=rss&tag=6110494&subj=news
http://news.com.com/2300-1016_3-6110494-1.html?pa
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be particular about who it makes friends with.
to figure out Vista's release date.
i was just going to watch the Weather Channel and check for frost warnings for Hell and its surrounding counties...
How about remote desktop? It deliberately disables the ability to have multiple users connect to anything lower than Windows Server 2K3 (that's right, even with XPPro, you don't get useful things like that).
Palm trees and 8
Are they really going to make a release that will resist to cracking more than 15 minutes?
You all know both answers, however.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
What is the real worth of Windows? Is an OPerating system really worth $129 for a BASIC stripped down version?
,etc )
Essentially a single-user operating system:
For:
-NO BACKUP Utility (Even *NIX has tar/gzip) and crond
-An integrated Web browser, inseperable (or with great effort) from the core OS
-NO Support for Firewall (I don't trust Microsoft's FireWall)
-NO NATIVE DVD Player (due to "licence" cost)
-NO Ability to set permissions on files for multiple users
-PISS-POOR Command Line Interface (try renaming 10 files, under Windows)
-PISS-POOR User Management (try creating more than 10 accounts)
-NO SECURE AUTOMATION of COMMON TASKS (user management, file management
No Thanks, I don't like any OS that attempts to Dictate what I can and can't do on my own files. I'd rather spend the 40-50 bucks and get a commercial Linux distro.
I'm a computing die-hard, I dual boot, running XP for Half-Life II, thats about it.
Office 97 still runs on my system, I paid the microsoft tax since I bought a laptop, thats all I'm willing to pay for Windows, about say $50.00, what a normal Linux distro would cost.
For the "PRO" version, I would pay about $100.
There is NOTHING in XP that is worth 129.99.
No, clearly nobody cares about Vista. This is obvious when you look at the total lack of coverage it receives on sites such as Slashdot.
I'm confused why Microsoft would make a move like this. Their pricing scheme is not competitive with any other OS's on the market that I can think of. Retail boxes of most Linux distributions are between $50 and $100 USD. A new copy of OSX costs $129 (and people still complain about that!). But at least with OSX you can buy a 5-pack "family" license for $199. And yet, Microsoft comes out and expects people to pay $199 minimum to run Windows on their non-Dell/HP/SONY prebundled computer. I mean, if Microsoft is right about the number of pirated copies on computers then they can't count on "upgrade" customers cause there must be some check to prevent it from being upgraded on a pirated copy.
A good question to ask is what they consider an upgrade to be? Can you upgrade Win 3.1/95/ME? Cause I'm sure you can find a copy of one of those for less than the $100 difference between retail/upgrade. Does anyone else think this pricing scheme will fuel more people to switch over to Mac/Linux computers? Or will it have no impact and people will just buy their Dell/HP/ computer with it prebundled and not care?
* Windows Vista Home Basic, $199/$99.95
* Windows Vista Home Premium, $239/$159
* Windows Vista Business, $299/$199
* Windows Vista Ultimate, $399/$259
* MacOS X Tiger (single user) $129
* MacOS X Tiger (family license) $199
* MacOS X Server $999
I suspect that Windows Vista Ultimate is not the server edition, which will almost certainly be more expensive than $399. So... assuming comparable hardware prices for Apple x86 PCs vs. the generic market, Microsoft has now priced themselves above the competition. I seem to remember Microsoft taking the market by _undercutting_ their competitors some decades ago. It would appear they have forgotten what competition does to the market leader. Perhaps it's time they relearn that lesson?
The biggest deal is that the ability to rip a DVD is only in the home upgraded version, and the ability to use non-M$ networking protocols is only in the pro.
Starter is a joke and will only run 3 pieces of software at once. This version of Vista is like an "upgrade" back to Windows 3.1.
Vista Ultimate: $399
Mac OS X: $599. To be fair, there is a Mac Mini bundled with.
1. Will the upgrades work w/the volume licenses that were flagged as pirated?
2. Why is Vista Ultimated the only one that lists Remote Access as a feature?
Anyone know?
For that much money you can buy 5 gallons of paint from Home depot and paint the whole house blue.
..... best things in life are not so free..........
whether its the stellar virus support, or the fantastic spyware support, to the plethora of trojans and malware that all work flawlessly without hours of tweaking.... you're right, Windows kicks your ass.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
The prices he lists are for canada only. The information for America is just him guessing what the prices will be.
"Based on current U.S. prices (which I wrote about last week), I would expect Windows Vista to sell in the U.S. for the following prices (full/upgrade):"
"Of course, these are guesses only. Some discounts will probably be available in the retail channel"
This isn't leaked information, it's guesses made by the guy.
TruePunk | Games
vista is the first of many to come for sure. Here's a breakdown of the brokenness of each version
Starter Version: Really REALLY broken (supposedly for developing nations)
Home Basic: DVD burning is broken, Eye-candy is half broken. Desktop search is broken
Home Premium: Desktop search still broken. Will it be able to join a domain? I bet it won't. You'll have to pay extra for that. FYI: it appears that if the OEM PC has a DVD burner, you *must* buy home premium so they can protect you from your own entertainment media.
Ultimate: Media playback is broken. (DRM) Protects you from your own media.
It is reasonable to assume this is the first step towards even more segmentation.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=12
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Mark January 30'th on your calendar, the date of the next internet Pandemic.
You are not very well informed. If you had invested in a interstellar subspace communicator and listened to the cosmic news channels every once in a while you would know that January 29th 2007 is be the day the Windows Vista development servers, all the backups along with the Vista development team it self and Steve Ballmer's entire collection of hand made throwing chairs is scheduled to be abducted by they grey aliens.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
No, the reason budget airlines have grown in popularity is that they are undercutting ALL of the segmented prices of the major airlines.
That is incorrect, at least in North America (I know firsthand about Canada and I'm told the US it was the same). I remember when WestJet began operations (it was the first truly viable independent budget airline in Canada). It was less than a week before the competition had seat sales that often matched or even slightly undercut WestJet's offerings. If price alone was a factor then WestJet would've gone out of business in its first year. This is especially true because the biggest airline (Air Canada) was a recently privatised Crown corporation that was still run by a management team with very tight connections to government departments. For many years after Air Canada (nicknamed "MapleFlot") was sold by the government it received hundreds of millions (perhaps into the billions) in guaranteed loans, grants and other subsidies and used its favoured posistion to undercut competition regardless of actual operationg costs. Air Canada destroyed or absorbed WardAir, Canadian International, etc this way both in its days as a crown corporation and afterwards. However the competition tried to run their businesses like traditional airlines, especially Air Canada. WestJet "broke the rules" so it was able to withstand price pressures based on other factors.
Trust me, if British Airways had a 'Cargo Class' flight that was cheaper than all the 'budget' airlines, I'd be packing myself into a suitcase and going on a cheap holiday.
No you wouldn't, unless you were lucky enough to have a flexible schedule and were willing to compromise. If British Airways had the option of "steerage" then you'd have to be willing to limit your travelling options to certain destianations, fly off-season, take overnight flights and so on. There would be no flight attendants at all, no in-flight movie ore even music to listen to, no in-flight meals, snacks or beverages, except for bottled water which would be extra-charged. You'd be limited to continental flights (no trans-oceanic flights) to non-vacation destinations. This is because universally-available "cargo class" would break the whole segmented pricing model because it would undercut their own segmented offerings and turn British Ariways into just another discount airline.
WestJet and other discount airlines trim costs by limiting on-flight food options and other such extras, however they still have friendly and convenient service (still superior to much-improved Air Canada) and were first to offer extras like live in-flight sattelite TVs on every seatback, and have the most modern fleet in North America. You can fly to vacation destinations like Las Vegas, Orlando, LA and Hawaii (Air Canada's successful discount service does NOT fly to such destinations). Their change-booking charge is very minimal--usually $10 unless it is same-day, which is still considerably cheaper than Air Canada (if you chood their discount segment and you need to reschedule the fee can be as high as $150). For WestJet there is always ONE price offered per flight at any given time. Air Canada's simplified segmented system STILL has about a half-dozen different prices for the same flights, which most often are even for the exact same seating options. Westjet's pricing is only a minor factor in its success. The two biggest reasons by far are the high-quality service and the LACK OF SEGMENTED PRICING.
The reason that Apple don't have seperate upgrade prices, is because their market is loyal enough that they can be meticulously gouged, and will still come back for more.
That is also incorrect. Apple has gained marketshare, and given that how can someone be loyal to Macs if they have just bought their first Mac? Also, the one-and-only price for a single copy of the FULL VERSION of MacOS X is IDENTICAL to the UPGRADE price for the MOST BASIC edition of Windows Vista or XP Home. It is hard to argue that Apple is goug
This will probably end up only for the people who read at -1, but here's a list of some of Vista's main improvements:
.NET better integrated in, nicer interface all around (yes, lots of stuff from OS X, but that's a good thing), lots of bundled applications are much improved (IE7, Outlook, Task manager, Windows update, etc), new WIM deployment image stuff to make multi-installs easier, NFS client support for better UNIX integration (no more being forced to support SMB on Linux), improved program installation API which should make things cleaner, etc.
Lots of security features (drive encryption, much improved firewall, address space randomization, users aren't admin, lots of IE security improvements), loads of revamped new stacks (audio, print, network, video), IPv6 by default, new memory manager,
As for the DRM; I'd rather have it built into the OS where all developers can re-use it, so media will hopefully be easier to transfer between apps which use MS' DRM. Worst case scenario; it'll be one DRM scheme to break instead of a million different ones.
Whether you like Windows or not, Vista will be a very nice and much needed improvement; businesses will be upgrading, and I expect the vast majority of XP users will be too.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!
"But that trick never works!"
"This time for sure! Presto!"
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Slightly modified to mantain it on topic
[Th3No0b] Im going to be the next hitler
[Th3No0b] Im going to burn all the MS-Windows servers and 1 BSD server
[RageAgainsttheAmish] why the BSD server
[Th3No0b] See? no one cares about Windows
[RageAgainsttheAmish] lmao
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
You'll still have the ability to rip a DVD the old-fashioned way, without the DRM. Just use the programs you do now to decrypt and rip. You just won't have it built into Media Player/Center. And you won't have Media Center at all if you get Home Basic. Home Premium is essentially what is currently Media Center Edition.
Also, I wouldn't think you'd need non-MS networking protocols unless it's actually a work laptop, which would necessitate getting one of the Pro versions. Unless Novell can ship their own driver or something.
Starter Edition isn't really even worth mentioning in this country. It's a POS.