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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.
Look, Microsoft, I've tried my best. I've been on Slashdot for going on a decade now and I *still* use Windows. I use all the classic excuses, y'know? I like my games. I like it when things just work. I hate the command line. Hell, I even spent an hour last night fiddling with Ubuntu just so a couple of my *NIXy friends would stop giving me the stinkeye, and even though it took me nine reboots to get the goddamned CD out of the drive I *STILL* went back to XP, just to hear that familiar bootup chime. But y'know what? This kind of shit is getting harder and harder to defend. Seriously. Pick your battles, you jackoffs. Those of us who keep drinking the Kool-Aid are starting to eyeball Mother McGee's Homemade Colon Tonic, if you get my meaning.
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.
Then why dont they start shipping XP? May be there is something else to it, than directly making a profit. May be, they can charge the OEMs more for Vista, since the OEMs can inturn charge the customer extra for downgrades. Guess how much vista would have been worth, if no body could downgrade to XP from vista and XP was available in retail.
Frankly, I dont expect MSFT to do anything that does not directly correlate to immediate profits.
...grade. An XP "downgrade" can only be purchased with a Business or Ultimate version of Vista. So if a customer is looking at a configure-to-order laptop such as with Dell or Lenovo, then in many cases customers have to upgrade their OS from Home Basic or Home Premium in order to get the XP downgrade option.
Is this charging more for XP...in many people's minds, yes. But legally (Full disclosure: IANAL), they are paying for the Vista upgrade, not for the XP downgrade.
For every user that buys a Vista license and then downgrades, MS gets to claim that as a Vista sale. The higher sales numbers serve as marketing copy. It's artificially inflating their sales.
Really, I don't hear many complaints anymore and I see more and more people with computers with a black task bar and transparant title bars. I assumed that after the service pack it would be allright and that system requirements had reached the required level.
Dennis Onstenk
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!