Slashdot Mirror
Time For Anti-Trust 2.0?
An anonymous reader writes, "PC manufacturer Acer is complaining that Microsoft has jacked up the price of Vista, and that the basic versions are so basic no one will ship them. Since the collapse of the Microsoft anti-trust case under the Bush administration in 2001, manufacturers have no choice but to accede, adding hundreds of dollars to the cost of each PC. With Gates now proclaiming victory over European regulators, Microsoft once again seems unstoppable. But Microsoft had drawn itself
close to the Republican Party.
With the Republicans now evicted from the House and Senate, is it time to
look at the Microsoft anti-trust suit?
Could Microsoft be compelled to lower its inflating Vista prices,
or to open their tech or even supply funding
to Linux-flavored Windows such as Wine? What do Slashdot readers think about the likelihood of another go at breaking up the Windows monopoly?"
The submission takes a bunch of half truthes, wishfull thinking and hope for revenge and throws it altogether to make a stew designed to rile up the /. reader. Don't bite.
The truth:
1. OEM Windows licenses are nowhere close to "hundreds of dollars". You'll still be able to buy $500 PCs
2. Force to open to WINE?!?!?! Are you smoking crack? The judge migh, literally, laugh.
3. Microsoft has not "won" over EU regulators yet. This is only one battle.
4. Just because we have a democratic congress is no reason to look for revenge "killings." Yes, MS is a Monopoly that totaly abuses it's position in a way that's damaging to its competition, but have you heard we're at war? The new congress should look at MS again before too long, but definately not right now. They have far more important work to do.
I'm glad people are still interested in this subject, but you definately need to start looking at this realistically. This isn't so much a start as an unrealistic rant.
TW
Although it's true that many people can do without the bundled Media Centre in preference of alternatives and will probably experience *better* performance Aero-free, that's not all they've stripped out. Laptop users with basic may be feeling a little chilly without Windows Mobility Centre. Sure, you don't *need* it travel, connect wirelessly and work, but in this day and age of mobile communication those are pretty basic OS features they've decided to limit to enhanced editions. The other issue is that Aero is not purely aesthetic and does offer some functional usability features too. Just how long it will be until a developer of one of those Open Source apps you love decides to utilise a cool element of the Aero interface, forgetting momentarily that not everyone has it. After all, he doesn't code for Macs for exactly that reason...
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulhu..."
It would be nice if it was true but you can only price yourself out of the market if there are alternatives in that market. Much as we love Linux, as far as most consumers and businesses are concerned, it's still not in that market.
So Vista's real rival is...WinXP. What inflated prices will do is simply delay the roll-out of Vista. Companies will almost certainly wait until their next hardware upgrade cycle at which point they will have little choice but to go with Vista anyway.
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulhu..."
Nobody has mentioned the fact that within a few months of release, Vista will be the ONLY Microsoft operating system you can get on an OEM PC. You won't be able to buy an XP machine anymore because Microsoft doesn't want you to. In a free market, Windows XP would become cheaper and due to the fact that it's battle-tested, will probably be more desirable for some time, than Vista.
But there is not a free market, is there? You can't buy an OEM PC without paying some sort of windows tax, with few exceptions. And the latest windows tax is Vista.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
This story is overflowing with FUD and misrepresentation. A routine fact-check will demonstrate this. Let's pull this apart:
According to Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president of the Taiwan-based company, the issue is simply that the basic home edition of Vista, Home Basic, which is available for preorder on Amazon.co.uk for 154.99 pounds ($293), is so basic that users will be forced to move to Vista Home Premium, at 189.99 pounds ($359).
First of all, they got the prices of Vista wrong: Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is 185 GBP; Vista Home Premium is 224 GBP.
Second, price-conversion. Everybody knows that you don't take the street price of a product in British pounds, run it through xe.com, and come out with the street price in USD. Microsoft's MSRP on Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is $199 USD, -not- $293 as given in the article. Vista Home Premium (non-upgrade) is $239 USD. Note that the MSRP on XP Home Edition is $199 USD, the same as Vista Home Basic.
Third, Microsoft has never sold an edition of Windows with the Media Center included on the retail market, so in a way there isn't really any good point of comparison.... of -course- it's going to be more expensive than XP Home.
"The new (Vista) experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," Wong told PC Pro magazine. "There's no (Aero) graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."
Yeah well, guess what? some people just don't want or need that stuff. Actually, I'd hazard a guess and say that the vast majority of users don't want or need Media Center functionality or a remote control. That's not what's worth harping on about. Home Premium does have a lot of neat things in it, especially for mobile users, media centers, tablet PC owners, etc., but it's useless for a lot of people who just use their computer to get stuff done.
Wong also said that the manufacturer's license for Vista Home Premium is 10 percent more expensive than for XP Home.
It's also got far more functionality (Media Center, new mobility features, XBox 360 connectivity, Tablet PC features) than XP Home Edition or Vista Home Basic Edition, the latter of which Acer is refusing to sell to its customers.
"We have to pay more but users are not going to pay more," Wong said. This would mean an increase in the cost to PC manufacturers of 1 percent to 2 percent, according to Wong, in a business where the profit margin is around 5 percent or less.
Quit your bitching, Mr. Wong. If the price of Windows is going up by 10% because you are choosing to force a higher edition on your customers, you pass that price increase on to users... it's not your job as a company to absorb price increases from Microsoft.
At the top of the Vista lineup is the Ultimate Edition, which can be preordered for 325 pounds ($614) and, again, is significantly more expensive than the XP operating system it replaces.
Ultimate Edition is covers a lot more ground than XP Professional. The thing comes with Media Center, twice as many games (good ones, too, like Chess and Majongg), backup software that doesn't suck, a bunch of extra software and add-ons analogous to the XP Plus! Pack, and even a friggin' UNIX stack to boot -- and that's not even going into