Microsoft Cuts Vista Price In 70 Countries

dforristall alerts us to an odd move by Microsoft: cutting the price of retail boxes of Vista in many markets. Analysts didn't see this one coming, and they are scratching their heads a bit over it; one called it "very unheard of." The price cuts vary by country — they're largest in the developing world where piracy levels are high — and they don't apply to OEM copies of Vista, which account for 90% of sales. "Gartner analyst Michael Silver said the move... is puzzling... [He] noted that the market for such upgrades is fairly limited. Those who bought XP in the fourth quarter of 2006 got a coupon for a free Vista upgrade, while most of those who have bought systems since then have gotten Vista. Machines purchased prior to 2006 probably aren't all that attractive as candidates for a Vista upgrade... 'The whole notion of upgrading PCs has sort of fallen by the wayside.'"

Comments

They need to drop the price of XP

[tritonman]

THey need to drop the price of XP so I can buy it to replace my copy of Vista.

Re:They need to drop the price of XP

[TripMaster Monkey]

Actually, there's no need to purchase a copy of XP to replace your Vista...you can usually talk the OEM into a free downgrade to XP...that's what my company does, as we're completely uninterested in inflicting this wretched excuse for an OS on our systems, users, and network.

Re:They need to drop the price of XP

[somersault]

What's stopping you from getting rid of the unwanted icons on your desktop? I'm not an MS fan but I dunno what you're complaining about here - no OS that I've ever seen (well, apart from cut down stuff like the EEE PC) just has application icons and nothing else - you generally would have either the drives or a 'my computer' equivalent showing.

Most people generally find the ability to browse the internet, see pictures, play music etc quite useful. How exactly do you propose getting new apps onto your computer if you don't have some basic form of web browser anyway? Are you going to order everything on CD? Way to be traveling in the wrong direction..!

Oh, and Mac OS actually includes very good built in software for almost everything you said up there, apart from the drawing pictures (AFAIK). Personally I don't like iTunes though, so as well as Firefox and the GIMP, I downloaded VLC. I see no problem with any OS distribution including applications that can make the thing more useful though. If you don't want all that stuff in Windows, remove it in the Windows configuration bit in add/remove programs.

i know whats coming next

[OrochimaruVoldemort]

vista sp1. that is the only reason retail prices would drop. on a side note, maybe now they will get some more sales

Re:i know whats coming next

[ShieldW0lf]

They got paid by large private and government interests to put Trusted Computing on everyones machines so they can engage in widespread information control. They would LIKE more money from the consumer, but they MUST achieve widespread deployment for this to be realized. If it's realized, they will have a power the likes of which has never been seen before on earth, and money will be the least of their concerns. If it's not, they will become a niche product. It's pretty obvious where their motives lie, and their actions are entirely sensible if you understand their motives.

Re:i know whats coming next

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's realized, they will have a power the likes of which has never been seen before on earth, and money will be the least of their concerns.

Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!

Re:i know whats coming next

[marcello_dl]

If I were representing big interests i wouldnt' bet much on MS. Nor on software. Hardware backdoors are better. Try and detect those in a multi layered nanometer scaled impossibly complex circuit.

Of course, naming a chipmaker INTEL doesn't help reassuring tinfoil hats :D

Re:i know whats coming next

[h4rm0ny]

I don't know why someone marked the parent as troll, but it's unfair as this is a reasonable explanation as it both fits the observed fact and there are groups with means and motive to do this. We also have previous instances of this sort of behaviour from these groups and of private companies complicity in such activity (including Microsoft). As to the other poster who discounted this because a hardware solution would make much more sense, that's hardly a solid counter-argument because a hardware solution would firstly be more difficult to implement, crossing multiple areas of hardware requirements and manufacturers in all probability (including manufacturers in countries such as Germany and China), we don't know what companies behind the scenes are amenable to aiding US spying efforts and a hardware solution seems likely to be less flexible.

This is not to say that this is the reasoning behind Microsoft's desperate attempt to get people to take up Vista. A private awareness that if they don't lock people into their O/S using the drm mechanisms in Vista, that they're in serious trouble. Could also be the reason. Or it could be multiple reasons. But certainly the parent shouldn't be modded a troll because it's a strong possibility. Installing subversive software on people's machines is one of the first things that I thought of when I read this article.

Re:i know whats coming next

[somersault]

It can't be that hard - today's chips are only fabbed using 2D construction, so you just need to get a magnifying glass and a light, and look for the reflections coming off the little door handle or knocker.

This is aimed at power users...

[tjstork]

I have a dual Opteron with a fairly decent graphics controller that would be an ideal candidate for Vista x64 Ultimate. But, for about $400 cheaper, (or $200 if you get the system builder edition), I downloaded Ubuntu and it works great.

Taken together, Microsoft's actions of the last few weeks : decreasing the price of Vista, giving away Visual Studio to Students, publishing specifications, all point towards an effort to attract developers to their platform. Even the channel partnerships that I railed about earlier are structured to attract developers. Clearly, Microsoft knows something that we don't know, and, I think it is that Linux development is starting to reach a critical mass for them to be really concerned about it. I wonder how much trouble Microsoft realizes it is in.

There is a demographic factor going on as well. A lot of we formerly reliable Windows zealots are now in our 30s and 40s, and suddenly money that would be spent on graphics cards and Windows upgrades is now getting plowed into our over-priced houses and our children. It's like, I would have stayed up in line to get Vista Ultimate the day it came out, but instead, I bought diapers, soy milk and a thomas the tank engine train set for my son. Having jonesed for some sort of an upgrade to my PC, I went with Ubuntu instead, and its pretty satisfying.

Linux has hit that point where, it may not be the best in terms of a consumer operating system, but its often good enough, and installing it just works.

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[Jason Levine]

Linux has hit that point where, it may not be the best in terms of a consumer operating system, but its often good enough, and installing it just works.

That statement there might be the scariest thing for Microsoft. Microsoft pretty much based their entire business around "good enough." If Linux is "good enough" also and has the added benefit of being free, then that will take sales away from Microsoft. That combines with Microsoft's main competition (their own older versions which are "good enough" for most people) to make for a really bad situation for Microsoft to be in.

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[aslvrstn]

But what percent of people EVER install an operating system? Microsoft has the advantage of being "good enough" to not have people reinstall another operating system over top of them. That's all they need. Linux, however, needs to be "better enough" to force people to reinstall, or have someone reinstall, their OS.

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[TrekCycling]

I think there is something else going on with that demographic you mentioned earlier that's also germane. If that power user demographic played games they're not gaming as often on a PC. Their kid is playing a DS (tons of those have been sold), they're playing a 360 or a Wii. That demographic (I say that because my friends and I are in it) are largely buying cheap computers and running Ubuntu and then using the money we might have spent on Vista and a new graphics card on a new video game system.

In fact, you could make a pretty solid argument that Microsoft's success with the XBox has severely undercut the PC market. Take out a large chunk of gamers who are no longer upgrading their PCs to play the latest game and you're left with a few enthusiasts and everyone else is running a computer that's "just good enough". Vista is completely unnecessary. Oh, and they did a good job with XP, honestly. Good enough that most people seemingly see no reason to switch. Even if it's given to them.

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[domatic]

Not necessarily. Linux is supplied with things like EEE PCs and we'll be seeing it on more and more phones and portable devices. It isn't going to storm big desktop PCs and full size laptops anytime soon but nonetheless devices capable of running general Linux apps are falling into more and more consumer hands. Furthermore, so-called "Linux Desktop" apps are becoming ever more polished and finding their way onto Windows installs. A multitude commonly using such apps would be very frightening for Microsoft. It sets up a situation where the next new computer might not need to run MS. It's what MS did to the old-line IT vendors as a young feisty company and a situation is developing where it could be done to them.

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a person who has been in the industry about as long as Microsoft, I can honestly confirm that their entire business model was originally based on "very cheap and good enough". Later on, they relied on the fact that "everybody uses it". This made sense, as the original PCs were nothing special from a performance point of view. In the beginning, the IBM name was enough to create a de-facto standard.

From the very beginning, there were better alternatives to MS-DOS. Problem was, they were expensive and not viable on low-end hardware. Microsoft's attempts to move upscale have been a mixed bag. Apple did a better job [eventually] on the desktop, and Linux took over the low end of the spectrum (along with a huge threat on the server side and the possibility to go upscale on the desktop as well).

This brings us to where we are today -- a scary time to be Microsoft. As far as pricing is concerned, how low do they need to go if Linux is free? Is low pricing of any use against OS X? I doubt it.

It may be impossible for MS to maintain compatibility with the installed base AND go upscale at the same time. Either way, they are vulnerable to attack from competitors on all sides. From the customer point of view: If you have money to spend, OS X is great. If not, Linux is cheaper. Who needs Vista at any price?

Re:This is aimed at power users...

[sm62704]

Linux, however, needs to be "better enough" to force people to reinstall

It already is "better enough"; at least, the distro I'm using is. Unlike MS It's secure. Unlike MS it's stable. Unlike MS I can have the thing boot in exactly the state I left it in, with all the programs I was running when I shut it off running when I start it back up. Those are just a few things and there are a whole lot more advantages to Linux over Windows.

What Linux needs is for non-Linux users to be shown the advantages.

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of your sig, that should be "Nazis" not "Nazi's".

Oh yeah

[Pojut]

My computer used to be considered near the top of the pile...2.2 GHz Athlon64 overclocked to 2.7, 2 gigs of Corsair XMS DDR-400, a bios-modded x800, Dell 2005FPW (1680X1050)...even though for games coming out now, it's largely unusable (mainly due to the video card), it runs things like Battlefield 2 and World of Warcraft flawlessly. Seeing as most of my gaming has been done on consoles the past few years, I haven't had a need to upgrade my computer. Spore is actually what is going to cause me to take the dive and do it...but prior to that, I have no reason to.

My system can still browse the net with tons of tabs open, winamp playing, word open, and a few of other things. It's definitely no slouch, and (once again) were it not for spore I still wouldn't plan on doing anything to it.

The advances in speed were much greater in the late '90s/early 00's than they are now...granted, a top notch computer equal in monetary value of my computer when it was new are much faster than what I am using, what I am using is still a fairly decent machine...excellent, if you consider I don't play games on it that are more than two years young.

It's true. It's getting harder and harder to keep folks on the constant upgrade path. I don't know if that's because of changes in the age demographic and levels of disposable income, or what it is...all I know is that I'm MUCH less inclined to drop money every year into my tower than I used to be, even though I can afford it just as easy (if not easier...I'm not living at home like I was 4 years ago, but I'm working full time which I wasn't 4 years ago either. I turn 24 in April, for reference)

Re:Oh yeah

[cordsie]

This is absolutely correct, and it's almost as if the entire OS/hardware industry is grinding to a halt for these reasons.
Though the possibilities of what you can do on a computer are theoretically limitless, but in practice there's now a small set of functionality (web access, email, office type stuff, or media manipulation apps) for which 99% of people need computers for. Most of what we have is good enough. Over the past twenty years a lot of the advancement has been due to improvements in graphics, which led to directly obvious improvments in usability, and vice versa, but this has plateaued at what we have now. Nobody has come up with any convicing 3D GUI designs that have been demonstrated to be any better or more efficient than where we already are.
Even on the gaming front, consoles appear to be slowly but surely taking that role away from the PC. The endless cycle of nvidia-ATI upgrades is getting old, and I've got better things to spend my money on.
Advancement these days appears to be mostly in server side apps and web-distributed content, and it's as if we've gone full circle back to the days of the dumb terminal. If you're an average user, and your machine keeps working, why do you need to upgrade?
You don't, end of story.

still waiting

[TCFOO]

I'm still waiting for Microsoft to pay people to upgrade to Vista. Ever check the resource consumption on the display models, half the resources are being used just to display the desktop.

Re:still waiting

[pherthyl]

That's different. The used memory in Linux is used by disk caches. If you type free you get a more accurate number in the second row where the caches are subtracted.

Vista actually uses lots of memory that does not get reclaimed when apps need it. When I log in to a clean desktop, memory use is around 500-600mb, and that is real memory use, not caches. When I start using apps that require a lot of memory, data starts to be written to swap. As soon as you hit swap, you've already lost the performance game. In linux, when I start using lots of memory in my apps, the disk cache memory is reclaimed for the apps and I don't hit swap. Huge difference.

Why on earth were they surprised?

[sheldon]

In an interview, newly minted Windows consumer marketing vice president Brad Brooks said that Microsoft had been testing lower prices over the past few months and was surprised to find that the amount of revenue lost was more than made up for by an increase in the number of PC buyers willing to shell out for an upgrade.

Didn't they learn this lesson with the Student/Teacher version of Office?

Duh

Re:Why on earth were they surprised?

[orlanz]

They are surprised because, as a monopoly, they didn't think fair market economics would show up on their line graphs.

Re:Why on earth were they surprised?

[Detritus]

If you take Economics 101, you might find out that it isn't always true. Sometimes sales drop when prices are reduced. The Wikipedia article on supply and demand has references to cases where the normal rules don't work.

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[MightyYar]

Wooosh.

The math on this

[Butisol]

A slightly smaller number multiplied by zero still equals zero.

Re:The math on this

[EdgeyEdgey]

Jayne: 10 percent of nothing is -- let me do the math here -- nothing into nothing, carry the --

Not enough

[stoolpigeon]

When Vista Ultimate upgrade costs almost $200 and Kubuntu 7.10 full costs $12 (if you don't feel like just downloading it) - it seems reasonable that some prices are going to have to come down somehwere.

That makes sense since consumers are MS employees

[FromTheAir]

I think Microsoft is doing it out of good faith since so many consumers paid money to participate in Microsoft product development. After a lot of work and headache by customers helping Microsoft debug their Vista OS which resulted in SP1. Which is really the first instance of Vista that could come close to a production release.

I still thank Microsoft should be paying people to help debug there software. In some ways they are smart getting people to pay to work for them.

True other third parties contribute to technical problems.

Collective debugging and product development, which sounds a lot like open source, should result in Free software but I am not sure how that fits into Microsoft's business model.

Remember it is all good and a process of evolution, and everything happens for an intelligent reason.

Not puzzling at all

[truthsearch]

Gartner analyst Michael Silver said the move... is puzzling... [He] noted that the market for such upgrades is fairly limited. Those who bought XP in the fourth quarter of 2006 got a coupon for a free Vista upgrade, while most of those who have bought systems since then have gotten Vista. Machines purchased prior to 2006 probably aren't all that attractive as candidates for a Vista upgrade...

And that's why it makes sense. Dropping the price will not affect Microsoft's revenue. Yet they'll sell a few extra copies. They're hoping to sell it to people who are otherwise upgrading with unlicensed copies. Plus they probably think it'll help their public image.

Of course they could have just made a better product in the first place and not dropped the price, but we'll leave that discussion to other threads.

hardware upgrades

[esocid]

Machines purchased prior to 2006 probably aren't all that attractive as candidates for a Vista upgrade. "I guess at the end of the day anything that makes Vista a little bit more accessible is probably a good thing," he said, but added that a cut in the price computer makers pay would have a far bigger impact, given new PC licenses account for 80 percent of Vista sales. "The whole notion of upgrading PCs has sort of fallen by the wayside."

While that may apply to Joe Blows who aren't tech savvy, I wouldn't say that it applies to all customers. Those who actually build (assemble) their own computers know the importance of hardware upgrades. I recently acquired my brother's old setup (AMD X2 4200+) with a 7900GTOC, which is a pretty good upgrade from my old CPU/mobo/GPU as well as 3 more gigs of memory, but rather than try out the 64 bit version of Vista (which I was tempted to do) it just didn't seem worth it to me with all the lack of hardware drivers, and software compatibility issues so I just did a fresh install of XP Pro (with fedora 8 on the 1st partition) rather than deal with the headache of trying to fix any issues that would arise.
What I think makes the brunt of those new sales is that people who have the money to shell out for what the salesman at best buy tells them to get, will also shell out for the newest thing, which in this case is vista in terms of OSs. I will personally feel fine using XP until Vista's issues are either resolved or it's put in the ground.

Comparison to Apple

[je ne sais quoi]

Lately I've been seeing a lot of criticism point at Apple when they do the same thing Microsoft does. Let's turn it around, eh? When Apple cut the cost of the iPhone, quite a few people were screaming bloody murder about Steve Jobs and his evilness. So where is the outrage over the Vista price cut? Where is Bill Gates promising to send a rebate to all the people who "overpaid" for their copy of Vista? I'm not trolling here, I suspect the reason is that MS waited just long enough for the sensationalism to fade before they dropped the Vista price whereas Apple didn't wait long enough. Since I haven't bought either of these products, I'm going to have to rely on others who have...

Upgrade or repurpose?

[urcreepyneighbor]

'The whole notion of upgrading PCs has sort of fallen by the wayside.' Instead of upgrading most of the old(er) boxes I acquire, I simply repurpose them. Could be something as simple as dedicating a 486 box to playing abandonware.

Did I mention I'm a hoarder? ;)

The price only matters...

[symbolset]

if the product works.

Did they fix that? I thought not. Nothing to see here.

I don't think so

[geekoid]

"I think it is that Linux development is starting to reach a critical mass"

Maybe, but I haven't seen a large trend towards that through the industry.

What I think is happening is that MS as a place to work has been stagnent in the last few years, and MS needs good developers.

There is no opportunity to get rich anymore, there reputation stinks, they have been cutting back on developer perks, but still expect 60+hours a week.

Ballmer is right in that it's about the developers, but MS isn't handling it's transition from skyrocketed company to, a strong but steady market force very well. This is typical. Developers seem more like a commodity that can be swapped around by Accounts. Which is fine,if accountants are tempered with good upper management that backs the developers concerns.

The top management may be deluded and think MS got the great developers it did in the early 90's because it's a great place to work. Instead of a great place to get rich.

I have said this for years, MS will go to an existing OS and brand their GUI on it, or die. You can not turn out a good solid OS in 10 years of development, you also need 10 years of in the market maturity.

I was astounded when Apple did it. Man, that blew me away. It's a good move that will keep you from reinventing the wheel.

Re:Americans and EU should wait until

[Shados]

it makes sense on an economy of scale... people who make 50 cents an hour can't buy a 300$ OS. The thing thats unfair, is that its not completly why those price drops are there. It feels like its rewarding piracy to me.

How can you then blame people for pirating software, when you show them that if they keep doing it, they'll get a 80% discount on legit copies?

Re:Americans and EU should wait until

[Spudtrooper]

The Chinese may get it for $5, but they also have to live in China.

Wireless Ubuntu Works

[tjstork]

So you didn't save as much, and good luck if you ever want to use wireless with that Ubuntu computer.

I am wireless with the Ubuntu computer. I didn't have to do anything. When I installed Ubuntu, I got the little wireless icon on my upper right hand corner, hit connect... to my wireless network, and it completely worked, just like the little wireless icon on my Windows XP does.

Re:Wireless Ubuntu Works

[MrNemesis]

Sssssh! If you tell people that you can use wireless on Linux without having to watch uber-733t text scroll across the screen, no-one here is going to want to use it. I'm sure most people here, like myself, reconfigure X so it only displays stuff in monochrome green and black after being piped through aalib.

The caveat is, of course, that you need a wireless controller with Linux friendly drivers - thankfully, Intel "got it" a long time ago and I've not found a wireless chipset of theirs which wasn't ungeekily simple to get working in Linux; it's companies like Broadcom that give wireless on Linux a bad name, as anyone who's been as frustrated as I have been with ndiswrapper will testify.

There's a (hopefully) useful compatability matrix here: http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

Not odd at all

[gilesjuk]

Vista costs twice as much in the UK as it does in the US.

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[Lumpy]

From what I remember they did the same thing with windows Me. nobody was buying it and they were desperate to sell it so they lowered the price drastically.

People still Ignored it with the low prices. I have a real retail copy matted and framed in my office as incredibly few people have ever seen one.

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[WeeLad]

I've only had two experiences with Vista. Neither one prolonged. In the first, my brother was showing me the really cool 3d window chooser and how he could scroll through it with the mouse wheel. Then he tried to show me a game, which he had previously installed and played, but which broke because UAC got turned back on somehow and forbid him from using it. But at least he could choose windows in a stylish manner.

The other was a Microsoft presentation of Powershell. They invited some of us Unix people, presumably to humble us or get us to see the light. "I don't know why this is so slow" was repeated by the presenter a few times.

Re: Software Antiques

[TaoPhoenix]

So how much before the matted & framed copy of the OS is worth more on the antique market than it was at retail?

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[gallwapa]

You bought a machine preloaded from Dell and wondered why it ran like crap? Microsoft was quoted on Slashdot (and I'll paraphrase) as saying OEM's installed 'crapware' that makes it look bad. It was true of XP, and certainly true of XP.

Should you have to do that for a new PC? No. But OEMs have a responsibility to make it work right!

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[MrNemesis]

I'd appreciate it if you'd follow your own advice and not take the conversation out of context and put words in my mouth. My point about things changing under the hood in that none of these changes were apparent to me when I used it.

The side-grade to XP from 2000 was entirely due to gaming, and the fact that lots of games will refuse to install and/or run on 2000 for no adequately explored reason other than "it's not XP".

What I like about Kubuntu is that it doesn't get in my way. The GUI is simpler and more customisable. Hibernate and suspend are more reliable. It keeps itself up to date without requiring reboots all the time (which, incidentally, are faster than Vista). The battery lasts longer than Vista. Cloning and backing up my partitions and/or home drive is easier than in Vista. No activation. Native support for SSH. A brilliant shell in the form of bash.

I gave up my "I use Linux cos only 733t HaXx0rz like me can use it" years ago, and now I just want something I can do my work in without any hassle. If not liking Vista makes me an MS-hater in your book... well, I don't care. I just want to get my work done.

Re:The whole idea of upgrading PCs???

[knight24k]

I have never had an issue with preloaded machines from Dell. I have been buying their systems for over 10 years both professionally and personally. This is the first time a pre-loaded OS ran like crap out of the box. There was no other 'crapware' on the system, I checked and uninstalled anything that might have been an issue. I even reinstalled the entire thing without the pre-loaded apps so the only thing running was Vista and it still ran like crap until I disabled UAC, turned off Aero and set the system to performance with Windows Classic GUI.

Vista is a bloated, overpriced piece of garbage. It offers absolutely nothing over XP and does not perform as advertised even on a high end dual core system with 4gb of ram installed. BTW, Dell replaced the entire system thinking it was a hardware issue and the 2d system ran the exact same way. It wasn't until I disabled the bulk of the bloat that the system became usable.

YOU ARE A PIRATE! ... Please prove otherwise.

[kiddailey]

Instead of axing all those other features that were supposedly going to be in the Vista, they SHOULD have axed Activation and Windows Genuine "Advantage." Then I might have considered upgrading.

Until that happens, I'll continue using software that doesn't require me to "prove my innocence," and no amount of pricing cutting will make me think differently.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ausus EEE? Vista and Microsoft are over.

[gnutoo]

You have to be sleeping to have missed free software's 2007 surge and proof of concept. Dell, IBM and Asus all did well with it on "consumer" desktops. If the Asus EEE PC meets sales goals, there will be more EEEs out there than Macs. So far, the EEE has exceeded sales goals handily. You only need a few home runs like that to have GNU/Linux break into double didgit market share, which would also eclipse Vista. Microsoft has launched this firesale to prevent that but it's too little too late. Every vendor is going to pile on to the new, profitable model and Microsoft will never recover. They lost their "cool" factor and will soon lose their perception of practicality. Non free software can't compete with free, even when you give it away.

Actually, not a "downgrade"

[jdickey]

The only downgrade available from Vista is to CP/M-80. Anything else - even XP Toy (aka "Home") would be a *significant* upgrade, with major performance and usability improvements. And, in many circumstances, CP/M-80 will also deliver these, compared with Vista. See Mike Cox's MS rep for details.