Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Says No Profit In Vista-XP Downgrades
CWmike writes "Microsoft has denied that it makes money when users 'downgrade' Windows Vista to XP, as a lawsuit filed last week alleges. The lawsuit, submitted last week, stems from the $59.25 fee that a California woman was charged in mid-2008 when she bought a Lenovo laptop and downgraded from Vista to XP. In fact, it's computer makers, not Microsoft per se, that charge users the additional fees for downgrading a new PC from Vista to XP at the factory. For example, Dell Inc. adds an extra $20 to the price to downgrade a PC. However, Microsoft may profit from the way it structures downgrade rights."
It doesn't matter if your machine comes with vista or xp because you're probably going to pony-up the dough for MS Office, and there's the profit. As long as Microsoft keeps you on a Windows platform, be it vista or xp, they've got that Office gravy coming in.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
For something that was readily available not less than a year ago (do you really think that all those unsold XP CDs just vanished into thin air), it makes absolutely no sense to me that people should be charged EXTRA to use something that to many people and organizations is still considered a valued piece of software.
Then again, this is Microsoft we're talking about. It's not supposed to make any sense. Carry on.
Maybe their whole production process is customized with a Vista image. Imagine that you now have an employee that needs to yank out the vista hard drive, throw in an xp hard drive, and then have another employee make sure that it is an XP system before it ships out. Not to mention the cost of changing the OS sticker on the laptop...
Even if Microsoft was making money off a so-called downgrade, why is that grounds for a lawsuit? Are companies only allowed to profit from certain product lines now?
While it is possible that PC makers are capitalizing on what people don't want, I find it is more likely that Microsoft has a lot to do with encouragement to include/install Vista and/or discouragement to install/include Windows XP.
I suspect all that needs to be revealed is the ways in which Microsoft influences this activity.
Windows Vista to OS X. It takes a hardware change, but being able to use an OS that is immune to viruses pays for itself in the long run with little chance of ID theft or your Mac being a client in yet another botnet.
Ballmer would make a TERRIBLE heroin dealer.
Does anyone believe what MS says anyway?
Seems to me they lie pretty obviously to support lagging sales drives.
"98 is no good, use Millenium, it's better!"
"Millenium? Pfft, use Win2k!"
"Win2k is inherently flawed, XP is better!"
"XP is not good enough, use vista!"
"Vista isn't good enough, use Win7!"
And they make "improvements" every time, but the same subset of design flaws remain? What's wrong with this picture?
Why is the 64 bit heroin so much more expensive than the 32 bit black tar? Don't I get the first hit for free?
If you're not happy with Vista (and I can certainly understand that) and you feel you're being winked-and-nudged by the hoops you have to jump through to get XP, maybe you shouldn't still be giving MS the cash.
What if everyone that wanted XP didn't buy Vista to downgrade and instead wrote to MS that they wanted XP without hoops?
Sure, the first few hundred will be laughed at by customer support. The next thousand maybe not so much. And after a hunderd thousand customers called (and sales not made) you can bet XP is all over the shelves again.
Sometimes life can be so easy, but we choose to make it difficult.
I hear you...
I use Windows as well, and Microsoft has become a laughing stock.... This company has become completely incompetent.
A good friend of mine has said things have changed. I asked how so. Well it used to be Microsoft would produce good stuff, now the management is there to do checkmarks.
I again asked, checkmarks?
Yes managers go there do a product cycle or so and then move on. They are not there to see the crap that they produce. They see the other crap and say, "oh this is how things are better and put in something else, thus adding to the crap." Then when they move on in a few years they get the Microsoft name on their resume and do real things...
There is some truth because NOBODY would work at Microsoft to get vested. The Microsoft share price has been doing nothing for the past 8 years. Thus the only thing you could get is a checkmark on the resume...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Microsoft mandates that you must upgrade to Vista Business to downgrade.
So unless Microsoft is selling the Basic and Business versions for the same price, they ARE profiting from the downgrade.
1999 called, and they want their rant back!
Seriously, can we stop with the Microsoft-is-Eeevil and I-had-to-pay-microsoft-tax crap? Or is it a religious mindset that won't let you see the truth? It's impossible to convince a flatearther that the world is not flat, a troofer that 9/11 wasn't an inside job, and a Microsoft-basher that the world isn't secretly being run from Redmond.
We all have choices. If you choose to use Microsoft products, then the only one you can blame is yourself. I built a new computer over the weekend. It does not have any Microsoft product installed. Not Windows, not Office, nothing. There was no Microsoft tax. The computer was CHEAPER than the equivalent Dell.
Don't like that choice? Then buy an Apple. I know it's fashionable to pretend that Macs aren't really computers, but it's not much different from pretending that the world is flat. They're not much more expensive, much more stylish, and slightly more reliable. Don't like that choice either? Buy a computer with Linux, or without any OS. You won't find them at your local BigBox store, but you can find them online. So stop whining and start exercising your choice. If you don't it will just atrophy.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!