Slashdot Mirror
Dell Indicates Windows 7 Pricing Will Be Higher
ausekilis sends us word that a Dell spokesman said, without giving numbers, that Windows 7 pricing will be higher than Vista's or XP's. "Windows 7 pricing is potentially an obstacle to Windows 7 adoption for some users, though in just about every other aspect the operating system is beating Vista, according to a Dell marketing executive. ... [Darrell] Ward continued, 'In tough economic times, I think it's naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista. ... Schools and government agencies may not be able to afford (the additional cost). Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like,' Ward said.'"
Now if we could just get Dell to put a little drop down option in its OS & Productivity Suite selection to have an option for "Ubuntu & Open Office (subtract $200)" on all of their computers. And then to have it actually be $200 cheaper with the exact hardware.
Then we might be talking about "2009: The Year of the Recession and Linux on the Desktop."
My work here is dung.
Dell is obviously unhappy with the price and they are signalling (Cards. a play that reveals to one's partner a wish that he or she continue or discontinue the suit led.) to Microsoft their discontent.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
News at 11.
Tom Tucker: We now go live to Asian correspondent Tricia Takanawa. ... and that concludes our newscast, from Quahog 5 goodnight everyone.
Tricia Takanawa: *nasally* Tom, I'm standing here in a hotel room with Steve Ballmer and I'm about to purchase Windows 7.
*Steve grunts and starts to rip off her pants*
Tricia Takanawa: Tom, you'll notice that Steve is not even bothering to kiss me first or even lube up. He is going straight for my black cherry. Back to you, Tom & Diane.
Diane Simmons: Gripping story, Tricia. We now go live to Ollie Williams with a fiscal forecast about Windows 7. Ollie?
Ollie Williams: SHITS EXPENSIVE!
Tom Tucker: Thank you Ollie.
Diane Simmons:
My work here is dung.
microsoft is a company sitting on 25 billion dollars. they apparently sold $3-4 billion in bonds? they are *raising* prices during some of the worst economic times that a lot of people of have seen.
it's like they have a pressing need for more than $30 billion?
for a company that needs to sell operating systems to maintain their future, it doesn't make sense.
e
Squeeze it too hard, and what you have is not so much a cow as a pile of hamburger...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
See that won't happen for two reasons. One is that MS gives you better licensing when you bundle Windows with all systems from a line. However the major reason is that Dell doesn't want to put up with the shit it would generate. It would be a tech support nightmare if they did that on main stream, consumer systems. You'd get a great many people doing it because it saves money. However they'd give no thought to if their apps would work or if they were willing to spend the time learning a new OS and so on. They'd get flooded with calls about it and have all sorts of angry people.
That's why when companies do offer things like Linux or no OS options, they do so on business type machines. When they are selling to an organization with their own support, they hope you can figure out what will and will not work for you. For home users? Ya not so much. They'd buy it, try to install a game, then complain because it didn't work.
Also, based on the prices Dell pays, it'd be $100 or less per computer.
Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't hold a true monopoly. You see, Microsoft competes with itself.
Windows 7 has to compete with Vista and XP and even 2000. That's tough competition. When I need to run PC apps, XP does everything I need with the least overhead.
Windows 7 pricing will be higher than Vista's
Oh I'm so glad I bought Vista and qualify for a free Windows 7 upgrade.
Right?
they need to demonstrate to investors that they are indeed a money making business that will continue to make a lot of money in the future. Regardless of their cash position, if the investors leave, who already got shaky feelings from vista, then the market cap of the whole company goes down and ballmer will go looking for a job.
Now whether higher prices will help them make their sales goals, that's yet to be seen. In the short term, perhaps yes, with all the built in sales to the OEMs. In the long term, I bet the retail sales trail the oem sales for a while, so this might have been a pretty good plan overall anyways.
Note that Dell doesn't actually come out and say that. They aren't saying "MS is charging us $20 more per copy." They are hinting at it, but hedging their terms. What it smells like to me is Dell wants a better rate than they've been getting in the past, and this is one of the tactics they are using to get it.
Companies posture over pricing all the time, and sometimes publicly. If Dell can get people mad at MS for their high prices, even if the prices are no higher than they normally are, then maybe they get more leverage.
So while I have no inside knowledge of the situation, that's my bet. MS is keeping 7 prices the same, and Dell thinks they should be cut.
Sometimes if you make it more expensive, people will buy it for that reason alone. They see the higher price, and think that there must be a good reason for it to be a little bit more expensive than the alternatives.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
It doesn't make much sense does it? The old XP and the new 7 costs more than Vista. It's almost as if Vista is being subsidized.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Being forced to run 10.2 is much like being stuck with any machine old enough to have come with 10.2 pre-installed.
You got it free because it is OLD, not because it's inherently bad.
This guy probably has a current Mac these days.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you don't have $150 for an OS X licence, how about $5 to burn a Debian CD-R? Better than leaving it as an electronic paperweight.
When I need to run PC apps, XP does everything I need with the least overhead.
As long as you don't need more than 4GB of addressing space...
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
I wonder what it's like inside Microsoft's little bubble world? It's as if they're oblivious to everyone and everything outside of it. A recession is on but hey!, lets go ahead and raise the price! I mean, after all everyone hates Vista so they should be kicking Microsoft's door in to have to opportunity to pay more for the next version, right?
Meanwhile I just upgraded my laptop to Jaunty and had it completely setup and configured to my needs in under a half hour. For free. It really makes me rethink the whole idea of upgrading my Vista machine.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I wonder if it would be possible for someone like Dell to allow people to choose to have linux and windows pre-installed except leave windows on a 30 day trial. Then people are free to try out linux and see if it suits their needs. If they then decide they need windows, they can purchase a key for activation.
Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like
Translation: They'll buy it anyway, because MS could shit in a box and small Businesses with little to no technical support or knowledge would still feel forced to buy it because they don't know they don't have to.
Fsck that. Seriously. Fsck. That.
Why this mad obsession with checking a filesystem? What is so exciting about sitting there and having your computer make sure that you disks are consistent and not broken and stuff?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
*sees (Score:3, Informative)*
Equally informative: sky remains blue, water remains wet, Pope remains Catholic.
*expects a +5 with some adjective*
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
It's only tough competition because Microsoft hasn't brought anything new to the table with their OSs in the past decade.
The trap Microsoft got themselves into was behaving if they were approaching the classic monopoly endgame. Capitalism requires constant improvement, otherwise customers will buy competitors' products, but once you own the market, there's no point continuing to improve your product. For software, improving your product is almost the ONLY significant cost, so when you want to maximise profit, you stop development.
Microsoft did that. They took their foot off the pedal and relaxed. Now that freeze on innovation is coming back to bite them.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The spent millions just on a four-note "startup sound" that apparently most of us will never hear. Seven years in development down the tubes.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
MS's latest move might bear out my theory about why they sold those bonds:
MS sold bonds at a rock bottom price because they know those bonds are going to get massively devalued when inflation goes bonkers over the next couple years.
MS is raising its prices ahead of this (hyper?)inflation scenario so that they can continue to turn a reasonable profit. Once they set the cost there isn't really any going back. Inflate the costs now for the OS that has to sell for at least a few years.
That's my theory.
-
In reading these comments, its amazing how many of you actually believe that Dell (or any other top-tier PC maker) pays anything even near retail for any Microsoft OS.
I know for a fact that back in the days before Vista when XP was still king that HP was typically paying Microsoft $35 a copy. I'm sure Dell gets a similar discount, and I'm sure they aren't paying any more than $60 or so a copy now.
In addition, the makers of all that shitware that comes preinstalled on your new PC pays Dell a fee for putting it there. That's another reason that getting Linux on a PC from Dell would not necessarily reduce your price.
This sounds to me like Dell wants to raise prices and increase their margins (which are currently very thin in the PC industry), and this is a cool way to blame it on Microsoft. They simply don't have the balls to say "Dell needs to make more profit".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Enjoy the software? Enjoy the Software! I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL BALMER, as soon as i finish toking on this EULA
#turns back to keyboard. types r-u-n-o-n-c-e in breathless anticipation.
#fade to next scene, a forlorn penguin wandering aimlessly somewhere in antarctica, mutters under his breath... What do I have to do? Give this shit away? I'm never gonna get off this island. Looks towards the heavens... STEEEEEEEEEEEEVE!!!
Quite possibly a Windows PowerUser(TM) who discovered that Linux file systems don't require the daily defragmentation that Windows' NFTS does, and is now having trouble finding something to do.
This is just Dells message to Microsoft telling them they will not eat a higher wholesale cost. They are swinging the bat they have to make MS lower the licensing costs.
Good for them.
Chuck