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Microsoft Discloses Windows 7 Pricing
It's the tripnaut! writes "Information Week has posted prices for Windows 7. From the article: 'The full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is priced at $199, with an upgrade from Vista or XP costing $119. The full version of Windows 7 Professional is $299, with upgrades going for $199. Windows 7 Ultimate is priced at $319, with the upgrade version at $219.' In a nod to the global economic downturn, it is interesting to note that prices are 10% lower than Vista."
Yeesh... apple is releasing snow leopard for $29 and microsoft is still pricing stuff like this? When will they learn that a lower price will likely increase the number of people willing to pay for it instead of pirating it.
I'm glad that with Windows 7 Microsoft mostly reverted back to the kind of editions they marketed Windows XP with. It's now much more clear which one to buy when it is distinguised by Home and Professional, then Ultimate for the power user.
It seems to me that everyone I know has a pirated copy of windows: the few people people that have legal copies have them because they were bundled with the computer they bought. When was the last time someone actually went out specifically to bought a copy?
Why should Microsoft care if the Win7 prices are "competitive" or not? They've got a captive audience consisting mainly of new PC buyers and existing corporate seats. I suspect they simply did an analysis to determine the amount that maximizes license revenue from those two fish in a barrel and didn't even consider the cost of other alternatives.
Best,
I agree with you, but to be fair, Apple knows that 99.5% of every boxed copy of OSX thats sold is going to be installed on a Mac which they already made money on. And up until now, every boxed version of OSX (which apple considers to be an upgrade) has been $129.
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Snow Leopards adds no significant (home-)user visible changes - most of the changes are architectural and under the hood, aimed at developers. You won't get developers using features that most users don't have, so you can't sell a platform based on developer potential alone.
Apple has recognised this and priced Snow Leopard to tempt developers, so that they can use the same base in future OSes (Open CL, 64-bit, full Cocoa etc). On the other hand, Vista is that new base and MS doesn't really care if you develop for Vista or 7, although you could argue they should've priced Vista more competitively.
Oh, and you seem to be neglecting the fact that Snow Leopard is only that cheap for Leopard users - Tiger users need to shell out $169 for iWork, iLife and Snow Leopard. And let's not forget that Apple uses software to sell hardware - users will upgrade to Snow Leopard then realise they need a 64-bit processor (so no first-gen Intels) and a recent graphics processor (last couple of years) to take advantage of the most of the improvements. PowerPC users will also need to buy a whole new PC to use the new OS.
MS' pricing may not be as low as we may have hoped, but let's not paint Apple as the angel it clearly isn't.
....And the $120 price is if you already have Windows, considering that Snow Leopard is x86 only and most machines with x86 CPUs shipped with Leopard (a few shipped with Tiger though) its really the most average situation for a Mac owner to only pay $30.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
[flame suit on]
I know much of slashdot would vehemently disagree, but for the majority of users, Windows comes 'for free' with their PC. They buy a computer from Dell or whomever and it comes with Windows, then when the buy a new PC 4 or 5 years later, it comes with Windows again. Virtually no one I know 'buys' the OS - They'll simply get a the newest / latest when they buy a new computer.
[/flame]
Should be a free update to Vista. Given the problems of Vista and the high amount of customer dissatisfaction with the product.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How does MS think this pricing is competitive in the least? Snow Leopard is going to be sold for $30 for upgrades while 7 costs $120?!!?!
Keep in mind that OS X is, to a certain degree, subsidized by the fact that it will only run on official Apple hardware. Apple doesn't need to charge as much for the OS, because you've given them additional money for the hardware it runs on.
I'm not claiming this is the only reason their OS is cheaper. Nor even that it is a major reason why their OS is cheaper. But it is something to keep in mind.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
How many of you zealots have actually used the W7 release candidate? From the look of the comments, not many. It's a fantastic OS already, and I'm betting it will be very successful, increasing Microsoft's market share.
Oh, but this is slashdot. Anything Microsoft = bloat, crashes, unsecure. Get out of the 90's.
If you buy a new computer, it'll come with Windows 7. You'll wind up paying for it whether you want it or not.
According to that pricelist, you're buying Windows 7 and getting a free computer that comes with it.
Personally, when I receive a promise from a company and feel that they didn't deliver, I show my dissatisfaction with that company by no longer buying their products. That is, I try not to support business practices that are abusive or unfavorable or fail to deliver. That works because in most markets there are other companies to choose from.
If there were any real competition in this market, you'd probably be saying "that will teach me for buying Microsoft". Just think about that.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Snow Leopard is going to be sold for $30 [...]
...If you already have 10.5.
Well if you don't have 10.5 already then Snow Leopard is $120 for the non-upgrade FULL VERSION pricing. Compare that to the equivalent Windows 7 Professional at $299. And yes, you compare the regular version of Snow Leopard to Windows 7 Professional. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't cripple their product for the home user. All the "professional" features in Windows 7 Professional are pretty much the same as what's in regular version of Snow Leopard.
Apple has 3 pricing levels for their consumer (non-server) operating systems:
$29 upgrade
$120 home (same as Windows Professional)
$199 family (5 license version of home)
You can get discounts on these if you are a student, an educator, or a developer.
Sapere aude!
I thought Windows was freeware...
Well, I guess there are always those who will bitch and moan about the price, but who cares? There are free alternatives. And in the non-free world, the price is comparable to that of a new release of OS X.
Ultimately it all comes down to choice. If you really want/have to use Windows, then pay for it and shut up.
An OS should never cost more than $80.
Maybe $100, but that's it. An OS is basically supposed to make your computer work - not be the focus of your attention on the machine. It's supposed to more-or-less stay out of your way and let you get work done. I don't want to pay more for my OS than for the application I'm trying to run.
System Utilities should never cost more than $40.
I'd go as high as $50... But again, it's supposed to basically make your computer work and get out of the way. I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars just to keep my computer working correctly. And I sure as hell shouldn't have to pay another $50+ every year to keep getting updates... If I want the new version, I'll go out and buy it. If I just want the antivirus definitions they should be free... Or maybe some nominal fee to cover the bandwidth... $10 or so a year.
Games should never cost more than $50.
Especially not with how little gameplay you get these days... My son bought something for $60 (+tax) last week, played through it in one day over the weekend... I thought maybe he just skipped over side-quests or gave up and quit early or something... Read a review or two on-line... There's apparently about 6 hours of gameplay in the thing. WTF?!
Productivity apps can cost whatever, based on the size of their target market.
Agreed. If you actually need PhotoShop, you need PhotoShop, and it is worth your money to shell out hundreds of dollars for it. If you don't actually need PhotoShop there are plenty of perfectly good alternatives that are much cheaper if not free. The same thing goes for just about any other product... If you really need the features that Acrobat/Microsoft Office/QuickBooks/whatever offers, you can afford to pay for it. If not, use something else.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Unfortunately, there are hardware vendors who don't bother supporting anything but windows, and if you use your computer to talk to the real world sometimes you are stuck with windows if you want to get the work done. Wine is nice, but adding layers of abstraction adds a speed penalty, too, along with the question of "will it work, I don't know, let's spend a week testing it ...", which has costs of its own.
If you really want/have to use Windows, then pay for it and shut up.
Please send me your email address so I can subscribe to your "I have money coming out my wazoo and can waste it on overpriced operating systems" newsletter.
Apple charges $29 for their OS upgrade, but the Mac user who's getting that cheap upgrade paid 50% more up front for the computer that he bought from Apple. Microsoft, despite selling a few keyboards and mice, is not a hardware company, and doesn't make its money by maintaining exclusive manufacturing control of the hardware that Windows runs on.
This sort of attitude is one of the main reasons why anti-piracy lobbyists get so much love from legislators.
If you pirate Windows, why the hell would you care about "alternatives" ? And vice-versa: if you're a linux fan, you don't need to pirate Windows.
One thing is certain: bragging about your hypocritical stance on /. is not going to make Microsoft lower their prices.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Thank you. I was starting to wonder if Windows users had infinite patience for Microsoft or if eventually a point can be reached where they get fed up enough to go elsewhere. People who have enough reason will display a "suck it up" attitude towards the difficulties of moving to another platform, which I won't downplay. You really will have to learn a whole new system and all the complications that entails. It will be well worth your time, however. Especially if you go with a Unix-like system, you will develop a skillset that will transfer to many other environments.
That would be the customer-friendly option, particularly for a company which is certainly not hurting for cash and is well able to afford to do that. Really that just reinforces what sort of company you're dealing with. Now, I don't like Microsoft and I make no secret of that, but this isn't meant to be gratuitous bashing. I think your grievance against them is quite legitimate and that there's nothing wrong with saying so.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Anyone who has been following the development of Windows 7 (and isn't just another uninformed Slashdotter) knows there is a lot of changes from Vista to 7.
I think most of the griping revolves around the opinion that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. IMHO Vista was a stop gap to an already tardy release. Windows 7 should have been Vista SP3. If you look at XP SP2, there were great strides made when you compare it to its gold edition.
For $29 bucks I would heartily upgrade to Windows 7. Now, I'm not so sure. I am, however, ready to line up for my Snow Leopard upgrade.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
> Well if you don't have 10.5 already then Snow Leopard is $120 for the non-upgrade FULL VERSION pricing.
I'm really tired of that bullshit line. If the boxed copies of OS X were "non-upgrade FULL VERSION" then Apple wouldn't have a case against Pystar. It really is time for Apple and you fanbois to stop trying to have it both ways. Either the "non-upgrade FULL VERSION" is what it says or it is just an upgrade that will upgrade an older version than the $30 upgrade does. But being able to run around saying OS X is less expensive than Windows (see the $130 FULL VERSION") yet launching lawyers at anyone who actually believes it is dishonest to the core. Decide one way or the other and live with the consequences.
Democrat delenda est
It's true you can't please everyone, but $300 for the full featured OS is just ridiculous. $300 will buy me a CPU, Motherboard and a couple gigs of RAM. Add in a case and drives (which I have laying around but the average person can just re-use what's in their current computer) and you have a whole new computer. Let's see, what do I want more? A new computer or a basically meaningless OS upgrade?
The only reason MS can price things this way is because they have a monopoly on the OEM desktop market.
Uuuhhhhh....You Do know nobody actually does that,right? They just take it to a guy like me who uses something like driverpack and then uses something like Almeza to install the programs. Makes my job real easy and the customers are happy. I actually use a driver disc on DVD, but the guy puts out updates often on Rapidshare and since I haven't downloaded the last .rar for the latest I'd rather it not be Slashdotted.
And I know the Linux guys will hate me for saying this, but you really want to know why Linux didn't gain squat even with a super turkey like Vista as competition? Because of the trinity of shopping-Best Buy, Staples, Walmart. You see almost nothing you buy in those three stores actually works in Linux. The few things that do will require major research to make sure that you don't get the "wrong" model, and from nearly 15 years in the PC biz I can tell you folks don't research anything that costs less than a car. And no matter how popular online shopping is to us geeks, ordinary folks like walking into those stores and going "Oooh...Sale!" and putting stuff in their cart. And the odds are when they get that stuff home it won't work in Linux.
Which makes sense, actually. Linus can talk about desktops ALL he wants, but as in anything all you have to do is follow the money to see that talk of desktops is bullshit. Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, all the companies that spend major bucks on development and support for Linux spend it on server not on desktop. That is why things in the server market "just work" in Linux. By contrast unless you can write your own drivers a lot of times with the consumer level stuff in Linux just "don't work". And please let go of that "It's not our fault, they won't write drivers for us" because that is also bullshit. It is COMPLETELY your fault, because there is no stable ABI and writing a binary driver for Linux and having it work long term is like trying to hit a dartboard with a bumblebee. And give it up the vast majority of companies will NEVER release their specs and code under GPL, okay? Not going to happen.
So if you want to know why MSFT can release a pile of poo and Apple can "fart in your general direction" while having crazy prices and Linux can't catch a break, that's why. The stuff consumers want to buy won't work without research they'll never do. This makes returns 400-600% higher when selling a Linux machines over Windows, which makes Linux a more expensive proposition from a retail standpoint than Windows. Sorry, that is the truth and that is just the way things are.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Because: :)
1) That OS is built once, then the cost of "producing" it, is nill.
2) There IS a competitor (which gives you the exact same crap); free download.
3) Because your CPU does not FAIL as much as your OS will
4) Because your CPU will still work in 5 years. Will the OS?
Anyone who can add anything to this list?
I read your post as:
Windows 7:
I know nothing about the upgrades that benefit the developer and I barely understand the long list of updates.
10.6 has:
I know more about the updates
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
For example, if you buy a game console when there are enough games for it out already that you can justify the cost even if no other game ever comes out, then you'll never be disappointed with it.
If everyone waits for great games to come out for a console before they buy it, there will be no user base for that console, and no one will publish games for it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!