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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."
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?
Not to mention that most of the people who purchase Windows boxed either A) build their own PCs, B) are a business C) are a computer enthusiast or D) are a MS developer. Charging this much for people who are high up on the technology chain is just insane, especially because these people know of alternatives and they see Apple with a cheap but better OS and Linux with a free OS. Plus, what is the point of ultimate? As far as I can tell its nothing but a rip-off, there were none of the promised features, and you would think that MS would give them a free upgrade to 7 but I guess not.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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,
They don't expect people to buy stuff at those prices. The prices are high so that they can pressure OEMs into making shady deals.
Most of the people who will pay $29 for snow leopard paid apple for their hardware. How many vista users bought their hardware from microsoft?
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.
[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
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.
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.
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
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.