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Microsoft Cuts Vista Price To $66 In China
narramissic writes "Microsoft this week cut the retail price of Windows Vista Home Basic in China by 67% — from 1,521 renminbi to 499 renminbi ($65.80). This is a steep discount compared to what users in the US and elsewhere are charged for the software. The reason for the price reduction? Battling piracy, of course. The new pricing 'narrows the price gap between original versions of Microsoft's software and pirated copies,' making it that much easier for consumers to 'do the right thing.'"
IT's silly, why pay $66 bucks for a copy of watered down Dista when you can steal Ultimate? I mean, if you are in a country that has no IP enforcment, why not just steal the best one?
This is my sig.
Does this mean we need more piracy in the US to bring the price down?
Maybe we'd like to do the right thing here for a dollar amount that gets closer to 0, too.
Fortunately for me, I'm happy enough with my games in XP - it's just a platform, after all.
Does this mean that if we all start pirating Vista then we'll get discounts too? Let's go for it!
So what is that, like 2 months of a person's income there?
Reduce it to two or three day's income like it is here for the average person. Then you'll hit the point where they can afford it instead of stealing it.
more money for MS. Its not like actually creating a copy of vista costs them anything-- but getting someone to spend *any* money on windows in china is good news for MS. I kinda wish they would do a better job at preventing piracy though-- it would give poorer countries a reason to look elsewhere.
"This is a steep discount compared to what users in the U.S. and elsewhere are charged for the software." It's still about $65.80 more than what many people are paying all over the world. Didn't somebody comment on the last article about Vista piracy in China that it was good for Microsoft because it established them in the market? So what happened to that? From their point of view, how is being ripped off for $65.80 any better than being ripped off for over twice that?
Somewhere between a super nerd and a rock star...
who says piracy is a bad thing?
It seems to be drumming up competitive pricing for the legit items.
Wish other companies will take note.
If you're dumb enough to pirate a copy of vista basic (as opposed to ulimate) then there's a pretty good chance you're also dumb enough to "legalize" it by paying the reduced price.
The piracy of one is a tragedy. The piracy of millions is a discount.
The real question is why will users allow this? And can businesses and gov. make use of this
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
MS does it in China; yet here in the western world, the software companies use piracy as an excuse to need to raise prices. (To recoup alleged losses from e-shrink)
Depending on where you go for the data, that's still 1/2 to a full month's wages.
I'm very interested to discover how that price decrease decision was made. e.g. was it just not selling? Did the government "recommend" it?
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Cowards! You're letting the terrorists^H^H^H^H software pirates win! You're supposed to fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here. You concede one battle, and what happens? The bastards got illegal and baby-raping MOD CHIPS into every single XBox in North America! Do you remember the raids? Do you remember the stacks of DVDs stored inside clear plastic jewel cases, instead of their majestic neon-green and white ones?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
At that price, assuming it is the same as other versions sold elsewhere, it is almost at a point where bulk purchasing and shipping make it worthwhile to sell on the gray market.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Microsoft needs to start doing 'the right thing' and stop charging extortionate prices for its shoddy ass products? That might be a step in the right direction for them. The Gates foundation should really just provide corporate and end user refunds for Windows 1.1 - Windows 98.
i am running Linux, i installed a pirated copy of Debian...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It's good to see someone using a common-sense approach to tackling piracy. Whether it'll actually work or not is another matter, but it can't exactly be much less successful than any existing anti-piracy measures, can it?
"A deadlock has been reached. One task must die. We must now choose between murder and suicide."
When will these asshats realize that if they dropped the high cost of their software, that would go a long way to eliminate piracy? I mean, come on, I never too economics in college, but even *I* realize this.
Didn't they increase the price of their software to compensate for the so-called "loss due to piracy"? This seems counter intuitive. If they drop prices, all they are doing is giving people more reason to pirate it.
I read a very interesting article on Microsoft's policies in China in the latest Fortune magazine. They were talking about how for years Microsoft would try to battle piracy in China, and realized it was a losing battle, so they gave up. Instead, they opened up research institutes and kissed the ass of the government. This made the government more apt to enforce IP policy, and MSFT had a big hand in dictating it.
I remember reading that Windows + Office was about $3 US to students. In fact, in China, pirated Windows is often less expensive than Linux because Linux has more cds, which increases the cost dramatically.
Also interesting was when the interviewer asked Gates about China's policy on suppressing free speech, and Bill Gates had an internal BSOD and basically froze. After an uncomfortable period of time, the interviewer said "That's quite a pregnant pause" and Gates said "I don't think I want to answer that question."
The great thing about capitalism is that CEOs like Bill Gates who wants to make hand-over-fist in terms of money, doesn't have to give a rat's ass about basic human rights, he can choose to hide behind his business like a coward. Craig Mundie's answer was "I don't think that is my area of expertise." Cowards.
But the distro only contains free and open-source pirates. We can't have any of this proprietary pirate bull crap.
So uhh... what's preventing the Chinese online vendors from selling this back to the US?
I know it is the "less money is better than no money" mantra that they are trying to apply, but I still find it fascinating that a relatively non-free market is getting a better price for the same product than a supposedly free market like the US and European countries. It looks like "illegal" activities can be an artificial competitor when no direct competitor exists. The question is, will people in China buy it, even at this price? I really doubt it. I wonder what the EULA looks like...
No, that's the left thing.
Vista Ethylene Glycol Edition
Hello ... RIAA ... you catching this?
and from the start ?
if you had done that, entire world would be using your licensed crap right now.
good thing that you didnt, though. else there would be no linux. for you ms fanbois out there who will go ablaze when reading what i post, im not a linux fanboy, and despite that i think that way.
Read radical news here
So are we saying there is a good side to piracy? Shocking!! You mean the music industry could have just reduced their prices to compete with piracy instead of sueing every single person?
If you import Vista, does it have a language selection ala Mac OS X or Linux gdm? If so, that is one sweet deal! I don't believe XP had it, but it was much closer than previous versions of Windows to having good built-in international support.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Hmmm, just like a drug dealer cutting his prices to match competition.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
With this big of a discount, how long before people buy in bulk to ship and sell overseas, or even just sell the number online, and let you worry about the media? I'm willing to bet M$ has the COA numbers regionalized, and the good ole' WGA won't activate if your number is one set for china and you IP isn't.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
No. I wouldn't pay $66 for it, even at American wage standards.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Proving that if a large enough amount of people do it, then there's nothing they can do about it except lower the prices.
I am sure this is going to encourage piracy even further in China for Microsoft, not prevent it.
Yes :)
;). Thanks Microsoft!
You are 100% right! MS does it in China and here in the US prices go up. MS has to recoup the money lost selling their software at a major discount in China, so jack it up even higher in the US to make up for the losses. We Americans will buy it anyway. We'll flock to the stores and buy it up regardless. After all, think about all the features it has that are SO important we just GOTTA get Vista. I'll start the list...o wait. I can't think of any. Let me call up my buddy Bill and ask him. I'm sure he'll have the list all typed up for me too!
Unfortunately too many people think newer = better, and buy it. I'll admit I was sold about 90% of the time that newer was better, until Vista. Now the light bulb has come on and I'm really having to rethink my thoughts on new software and if it REALLY is better.
On another note I tried out Linux last month, and so far it's pretty damn cool!
--
Linux forever!
is 79 bucks. enable Aero, whack in a few hacks and who needs ultimate edition?
Enjoy Every Sandwich
At least with XP, the keys are language agnostic. A Chinese XP key will work with an English OS and pass Genuine Advantage.
I expect eBay will soon be flooded with Chinese copies of Vista Basic and an English DVD-R.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The currency collectively is called Ren Min Bi, which roughly translates to "The Peoples' Currency". Their dollar-like units are called Yuan. They also have a smaller denomination which I can't remember the name of currently, similar to our US cents. Collectively, both are referred to as Ren Min Bi.
One can pick up a copy of Vista, or the new Simpsons Movie, or just about anything for a little over a dollar in China. Since IP is not enforced or respected there, the sales price is not based on the development cost of the product, but on the cost of the actual materials sold. Thus everything that comes on a dvd, costs about a buck. By Western standards, a 66% discount is great. By Chinese standards, it's still over 60 times more expensive than what they can currently get it for.
So it's $66 in China, the UK retail price for Vista Basic is £160 which is $324. So that's a $258 difference for the exact same piece of software. Shocking.
While in China April, 2006, I bought Windows XP, (Chinese) version for 25 Yuan, thats about $3.50 USD. The product came with a printed manual and it is boxed! Location; Downtown GuangZhou in the "Computer City" district. I never actually installed it, that wouldn't be legal. There is still a great difference between $65 and $3.50 USD. Microsoft continues to demand prices for it's products that generate obscene profits for it's blunderbuss products. Go Linux & Open Source software!
So let me get this straight. Basically Microsoft is rewarding piracy. From a business aspect one can understand this, really it is the only way to combat the problem, short of Bill Gates and his Sweater Brigade showing up at every person in China's door. But the fact is, as an AMERICAN consumer...remember the home buyers microsoft...I feel very slighted by this. There was a slim chance I would buy Vista to begin with, now until I see a price drop in Vista I'm not giving Microsoft a dime. I hope others see the light and don't buy into this either.
A megacorporation convicted of gross violations of various antitrust laws has partnered with the dictators of China, who have committed heinous human rights abuses on live television, in order to slightly increase its own profit margins.
The megacorporation is now lecturing the victims of this dictatorship about how they should not trade their morals for money.
I am a little choked up right now. I'm just so. PROUD. To be. An. Amur. Ah. Cain.
Sniffle.
That's is an irrelevant number. The "average wage" in China might be $135 a month or something like that, but the people who work for that much money would never have a computer in the first place. Therefore they aren't part of the marketing target.
The people who live in the cities where a computers and Internet are actually valuable, make MUCH more than the average wage.
The Big Mac price ratio for China is US 3.22/China 1.41. That's close to the price drop ratio in Vista. Whether Vista is worth it, whether the Chinese consumer will buy it, and whether it will help Microsoft deal with piracy, are all interesting questions, with the latter two answerable only through data. What the price cut does do, however, is set pricing based on the local culture experience of the US dollar. That would be an interesting policy for Microsoft (or other low cost-of-goods manufacturers) to pursue.
Hank Fay
Care to post a citation supporting your argument? I'm interested.
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Are we sending Windows to China in retaliation for the lead-paint and poisonous pet food that China is shipping to us?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
They should sell it even cheaper, but with an advertising constraint: sell an add or two at boot-up, shut-down, and maybe once or twice a day. Not more than that--enough so it's not enough hassle to make someone steal the real one, but M$ gets revenue from advertising and steeply discounted sales on boxes that would be pirated otherwise. 100,000,000 copies at $10 a box plus advertising revenue, and soon you're talking real money for what would be near-zero otherwise.
This whole thread is littered with the words stealing, theft, piracy, yadda, yadda, yadda. Maybe someone can set me strait but I was lead to believe that there are no IP laws there, at least that respect international boundaries. If that's the case then there has been no piracy, theft or stealing, just copying.
So those poor rural Chinese have a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista-Basic for only a few months salary. How many years salary is it going to cost them for the hardware/computer to run it on? That $199 PC we heard about recently is going to have enough power to run Vista?
And if they really think this is about piracy, think again. Those who are pirating are not going to pay $66 for Windows Vista-Home when for the same price, they can get Windows Vista-Ultimate. The difference between $2-$5 for the pirated versions compared to either $66 or $132 is still HUGE. So it's effectively meaningless in preventing piracy over there.
My guess is that this is all part of the recent deals cut between Microsoft and China and probably includes Microsoft kickbacks for the hardware vendors and gov officials making the deal. As someone else mentioned, it would be better to see the Chinese government cracking down on the piracy. Then, the difference between legally free GNU/Linux and even the $66 WinVista-Basic is still too large for most and GNU/Linux wins.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
China should slap 200% duties on Windows. Microsoft dumping it at 33% of the US price is going to harm the Chinese piracy industry.
If you believe the press releases you are led to believe that piracy reduces profits, therefore a company which is affected would need to increase their price to make ends meet.
So why are they reducing prices? it's pretty obvious Microsoft realises it's software simply isn't priced realistically for the chinese market.
So, apparently, the way to cheaper software here in the States is to ramp up piracy. Then we can get legit copies for $75 too.
I don't see how narrowing the price gap between original and pirated copies of Vista makes it easier for consumers to switch to something (anything) else. What's the connection there?
When will these asshats realize that if they dropped the high cost of their software, that would go a long way to eliminate piracy? I mean, come on, I never too economics in college, but even *I* realize this.
$40,000,000,000.00 billion in the bank says they wouldn't care what your hypotethicial econ text books would say anyway.
The first people to take the first steps of writing code were by definition better off doing that then doing anything else they could've been doing at that time, whether it was sleeping, partying, or digging ditches. That's why they chose to do what they did. They were profiting every second of the way. Similarly Leonard da'Vinci was profiting every second of the way with all the desings he conjured, whether or not he was able to get financial backing to implement those ideas or not.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Many books have an Eastern Economy Edition so that people living in developing countries can afford them. I think it does help them make the decision in favor of buying the book and not photocopying it.
Is this price difference unfair ? Hardly. Consider a T-shirt (made in Bangladesh) that sells for say $10 in the US. It costs about the same in Bangladesh. So a bangladesi earning a tenth of what his US counterpart makes pays the same. In this case the person living in a developed nation gets a "discount" because of his location, and in case of books and software the person in a developing nation gets a discount because of his location.
Talking about "average wages" in the industrializing world is pretty misleading.
China is a third world country that contains a first world country. Vista, computers, and internet access is being sold to the first worlders. I've seen $300 / month quoted as the base starting salary for white collar work. Which puts a Chinese office drone at about 1/4 what a US temp staffer makes. This seems about right, given that the kind of consumer price disparities here are primarily the results of China's heavy hand in their own currency market. The government keeps the local currency artificially weak to make sure that outside investment remains dirt cheap.
Now according to basic economic theory, this shouldn't work. It doesn't cost (significantly) less to market a consumer product to the Chinese middle class than anyone elses, so how can they support comparable standards of living with such weak currency, and how does the currency not strengthen as more imports and local consumer spending occurs? The Vista pricing is a good illustration of why basic economic theory is frequently inadequate to describe the real world. Most consumer goods simply don't behave like widgets or pork bellies, advertising and IP law (among many other forces that prevent commoditization of goods) prevent market effects and allow large players like Microsoft and the Chinese Government to keep prices of goods at wildly different levels in some parts of the world rather than others.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
.. should be referenced in this case as yuan, not renminbi.
I posted somewhere else but it seemed to get ignored. It sounds like Vista has no langugage selection (ala Mac OS X or Linux) from your comment. Is Microsoft _still_ regioning their OS that way? Or are you just taking a guess from XP experience?
The Internet Explorer langugage packs don't count. They're really pretty half assed in comparison.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
This is true. Absolutely every single person benefits more from COPYING than doing, creating, inventing, discovering all the things which are invented, discovered, and created on their own. No single person can create more than they freely receive. Ever. Bill Gates has benefited many many times over than the billions he made from selling copyrighted and patented software from all the ideas he was able to COPY or all the things he was able to trade for which were COPIED.
And all those illgotten through monopoly violence billions he received are much less than all the net societal world economy wealth which has been destroyed from being created through violent copyright and patent. He could give absolutely every single penny he ever earned at Microsoft to charity and it would still not come close to making up for the technological are artisitic stagnation which has resulted precisely from just his own copyrights and patents. He wants to fund research for curing diseases? Those cures might've already cheaply existed long ago if patents weren't stifling innovation, and inflating prices for inferior products.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
so we should ramp up our piracy efforts in the US until software becomes reasonable.. check.
This eminates from the economic discovery of the reason trade occurs. Trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. This always has been and always will be true. Any data analysis which says otherwise has a fundamental error miscalculation or lacks a data input of the totalilty of things involved in the transaction, i.e. giving away a free sample increases profit, and is not an expense loss, because the "free" sample is being traded away for a present value possibility of future business which is worth more than not giving away the free sample.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Why not pass on that same attitude towards the US huh? We all want to pirate Windows Vista
Two Words: Grey Market.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I have Vista home premium on a laptop I bought and I hate it. A lot of my apps don't run. Copying files takes a lot longer than my XP machines for some reason. It sucks.
The US is quick to threaten trade sanctions when foreign companies try selling their products cheaper in the US than their own market. How is this different?
Interestingly enough, I purchased a copy of Indesign and Photoshop in the Philippines (for use in the Philippines) The sales woman actually called Adobe up and gave them a copy of my name, address, contact numbers, serial number, and every other scrap of info I wrote on the receipt. Then politely reminded me that piracy is illegal.
I can understand that piracy is a problem, but the second they *reminded* me of this I demanded my money back and went next door - more expensive, but no being treated like a criminal just for actually doing the right thing and buying original software. It is not adobe is demanding this info, more like businesses not wanting to be identified at as the point of sale for some warez kiddie who goes off and prints 3 million copies. I have no idea what the solution is for that, though I do know treating me like a criminal is definitely not the right start. The stupid part is that the serial number on the box requires on-line activation - a small 10 kilobyte keygen creates any number of serial numbers that don't require the software to phone home.
We're just starting to see signs here that say 'piracy is stealing' - I only wish truth in advertising was law here. No wonder people don't think twice about piracy.
There's a pirate, there's a problem. When there's no pirate, there's no problem.
Since Microsoft has shown they will drop price in response to piracy, I encourage everyone to pirate everything you can get your hands on. Spread it far and wide!
Why? Because we now have concrete evidence that software piracy drives DOWN the price of software!
How much could Microsoft actually have in Vista? Wasn't the bulk of it written by Indian coders for $3.70/hr like most software is nowadays anyway?
I think Bill Gates has openly stately that he considers controlling the standards to be msft's most important goal.
If windows could not be pirated, then China would either stick with old versions of windows, or use Linux, or something. In any case, that could catastrophic for msft.
The marginal cost of exposing the movie to another set of eyes is zero until the theatre runs out of seats. Software is different because you only run out of "seats" when every person on the globe has obtained a copy of your software. If the software were in a competitive market, a software publisher's ability to charge various prices is limited by other publishers' prices. If you are a monopoly publisher, and I think Microsoft is one, then you can charge any price that you want to in any national market.
If Microsoft is operating rationally, and I think that it is, it will set a price in each national market that maximizes revenue in that market. Remember, since marginal cost of producing another copy of the software is essentially zero, revenue maximization is also profit maximization.
If MS can make their installation package bigger than 100DVD's capacity, maybe they can compete with pirated DVD vendors directly.
No. Increase the rate of piracy, you increase the severity of the WGA and whatever the Vista equivalent is. You also increase the price, because businesses don't want to be audited and have illegal copies found on their systems, and switching to another OS is more expensive than sticking with Windows.
Increase the competition however, and you not only reduce the cost of Windows very significantly, but you also increase the quality of Microsoft products. Download Linux, make your next PC a Mac, either will do. Even better, stop buying off the shelf computers, and go to local small scale makers, or build your own. No bundled OEM copy included.
Microsoft can charge the price they want because they know that most of their users are not going to go elsewhere. Change that and you have a different Microsoft.
In China and other developing markets, the market isn't all Microsoft yet. And a computer that is running Windows is less likely to be running Linux.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
isn't that what Dell is charging for it?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Did anyone notice that Microsoft's encouraging phrase is generally only seen in old movies, where the protagonist, having royally screwed up, is sitting in an otherwise empty room while his superior places a pistol on the desk and encourages him to, "Do the Right Thing"?
This may not be the revenue-enhancing event Microsoft is hoping for.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Perhaps because in China, stealing is still treated as a serious crime, and is often (I think) enforced quite heavily. A better course of action for people in China would be to infringe on the copyright, which is not seriously enforced.
Unless, of course, you've fallen into the semantics of the stop-copyright-infringement lobby groups, who would love it if everyone saw the complicated artificial legal definition of copyright infringement as being equivalent to horrible crime of stealing. In that case, yes, they should steal the best one.
$66 today. $120 next year. By the end of the decade, one purchase of Vista in China will pay for the entire year's salary for an American programmer.
The real price is $66.6 ...
The new pricing 'narrows the price gap between original versions of Microsoft's software and pirated copies,' making it that much easier for consumers to 'do the right thing'."
I see. And for some unaccountable reason, this approach only works in China?
Spare me.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Living in China as a European and running a company here is quite interesting. In sticking to the subject let me add something on software. Piracy is not a crime here. People don't think so. The vendors don't think so. Most electronic markets have both the original software and the pirated versions available right next to each other. They will sell the pirate version and say "it's a copy" or the original and say "It's the original". It is not a secret market; you do not have to consult with shady individuals who will steal your credit card. This dual option is also available for most other stuff, like clothing, hardware, cars, food etc. We, in my company, have an IT policy. In it, it says you can not install 3. party software. However in China there is a thriving market for "Green software". It is basically all your normal software but running without installation. It means you can run it without administrator rights (it works quite well actually). So ... our employees do not feel they are installing anything when running Green Software. I have told my employees that if I catch them running green software they will be fired. They obey, but don't understand. Before this threat they were running eMule, QQ (a chat/social network) and a host of ad-hoc application. We also spend quite a bit of time re-installing their PC's since they would get all such of nasties and broken programs from our standard platform. For some reason they could not see the link between "broken PC" and "un-authorized software". Now there is no "Green software", they have taken then threat to heart.
However we have now found that several people swap the hard drive of their laptops when at home so they can use the PC's for private use ... It is a never ending story.
...and it's still at least $75 more than it's worth.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
When will Congress pass a law allowing Americans to import life-saving operating systems from overseas? We should all get to pay $66 for that POS OS.
COOL! I'm moving to China!
The smaller denomination is the Jiao, but there are 10 of them to the Yuan rather than 100 (as in cents).
I still don't quite get why it's referred to as Ren Min Bi in a context like the summary though - the numbers they are talking about are quite specifically how many Yuan the software costs (You'd say "50 dollars", not "50 American currency"). I guess maybe it's just their linguistic convention and it sound odd to us.
So? Microsoft has paid the development costs to put together the product from all these ideas lying around on the floor. They put a product together. They did something that so far nobody has been able to successfully replicate - get 90% of the world's computers running the same basic software so there is a market for off-the-shelf software.
Now you might like it if their work counted for nothing. It would certainly make for a different sort of economy. One thing to keep in mind is that very, very few things that have no economic reward get done for very long. There are few unpaid missionaries in the world compared to the number of priests that get paid. These are people that are dedicated and motivated by things other than money, but life today pretty much requires money to have much of a life. Check out the Amish - they don't want much but still do things to get money.
Take the money of the equation and the "thing" disappears. Could it happen to software? Maybe.
The MS users made their choice and now they pay the price.
Will business and gov. also get a better deal in China? I assume so, which can only help advance China's general competitiveness vs the US, EU, Japan etc.
This is interesting... does anyone know how this might affect prices in China of OEM PCs that come with Vista, or how it might affect MSFT's revenues per license on each OEM PC?
This is interesting... does anyone know how this might affect prices in China of OEM PCs that come with Vista, or how it might affect MSFT's revenues per license on each OEM PC? .
San Francisco or Beverly Hills it should cost more? Inter-est-tinggg .