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Windows 7 To Sell In UK For Half the US Price
An anonymous reader writes "In the UK, a full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is going to cost less than half the price Americans will have to pay, and in fact less than Americans have to pay just for the upgrade-only edition. Full details and prices were published in an article on CNet, in which it was concluded that, at least for the time being, Microsoft is honoring the prices it set for the now-discontinued European version of Win7, which did not contain Internet Explorer 8 and was only available as a full-install edition."
I guess they're pricing it for their target market? Surely nobody would ship a copy from the UK over to North America!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We've got region coding on DVDs that does the same thing -- different prices for different markets because we all know that "one market" just isn't right. We must have several markets because different markets will bear different amounts. It would definitely be counter-productive to not take advantage of markets that will pay more or those that will only pay less.
It also makes sense that markets that are more likely to switch to Linux or Mac OS X should pay less and that markets that are less likely to switch should pay more. I have pondered the notion of how a national switch to Linux could work out for any nation and I have to say, it's really hard to imagine. But with that said, the entire globe managed to switch to the metric system, including the U.K. Oh wait, not the entire world... the U.S. is a hold-out... is the U.S. the *last* hold-out? (I dunno) So while the world might switch away from Windows, the U.S. is probably the least likely to make that change.
Is it illegal to fix prices like this? It is in the U.S. It is in other countries. But is it illegal to fix prices for specific countries so long as the whole country is included in that fixed price? I guess so since no one is charging Microsoft with any crimes... yet...
MS, like many American companies, are fleecing the country. We are regularly charged top prices for drugs, Windows software, Iron, Labor, etc. Heck, the neo-cons passed a drug policy that has the US gov paying the TOP dollar for the drugs, rather than the bottom, even though we are the largest customer. Absolutely ridiculous.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It won't cost you anything if you don't buy it. There are alternatives.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
so you might as well just download yourself a copy since you'll be in "violation" of said license either way.
Violation of an EULA is not even the remote equivalent of violation of copyright law.
My pics.
All crimes against Profit are equally serious, comrade citizen...
It's cheaper and you don't have to manually eradicate Internet Explorer?
Where do I sign up?!
This will lead to people indulging in arbitrage.
You say that like that's a bad thing.
so about the same as us oem price?
You need a new hobby. You managed to nail every Microsoft/Win 7 slashdot talking point in one post. What are the rest of us supposed to talk about now?
moox. for a new generation.
It's all simple and intuitive when it's the system you've been taught and used since childhood. Trust me, for someone who's been using metric for all his life, meters and kilograms and degrees Celsius are perfectly easy to use and intuitive, while your pounds, feet, and Fahrenheit are totally weird and incomprehensible. Especially conversions between them.
12 inches in a foot, but 3 feet in a yard - why? And 1760 yards in a mile - gosh, how convenient that must be. Even better when you get to area and volume units - I mean, 1728 cubic inch in a cubic foot sure roll from the tongue, and is easy to remember as well. And 1 acre being 43560 square inch is so obvious! If that wasn't enough, you have separate units of volume, which follow their own, mixed 2/4-based progression (unlike mixed 3/4-based for length) - gallon/quart/pint. I also love how there's 16 ounces in a pound, but then 2000 pounds in a short ton - hey, it's almost metric - yay for consistency!
All the claims about Imperial being more "natural" or easier to use are pure bullshit. The only difference between the systems is that one is decimal-friendly and consistent, and another is not.
lots of alternatives.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
And 1 acre being 43560 square inch is so obvious!
No, it's 43560 square feet in an acre, not square inches though I guess you sort of proved your point as you confused the units while describing how much harder it is to remember conversions in english units versus metric units.
You're asking the wrong question. You should ask yourself what tasks you are trying to accomplish. If it then turns out the only software available to accomplish those tasks runs on Windows, bad luck. But if you're focusing on applications instead of tasks, yeah, you'll never find an alternative.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
So like the TFA says, for once the British aren't going to be screwed over by having to pay Yank prices in Sterling. At a time before the recession hit and the exchange rate was sitting nicely at US$2 for 1GBP this was sadly never translated into the Interenets SUper-Combobulating-Exchange-Calculator that all multi-nationals selling software or hardware in the UK and US seemed to use that seemed to be closer to a US$1 to GBP1 mapping. iTunes store and most Apple products being notable offenders. I for one am sick of being shafted for my lunch money by greedy companies.
Yes. I am British.
Actually for £65 I might actually consider buying a full copy of Windows for the first time as opposed to downloading it. It's always been too expensive to justify before.
Or just plain "WHINE".
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
If you're THAT reliant on a single *application*, you have bigger problems anyway. What if the application breaks, or its creator goes out of business, or become vulnerable to a serious security flaw that doesn't get updated for years, etc.?
If your data is THAT important, you'd at least secure something - whether that be the application (e.g. by bringing it in-house and doing it yourself) or the data (by using more standardised formats, etc.)
"Switching applications", "Switching OS", etc. should be TRANSPARENT to any business that relies on its data that badly. Otherwise the disappearance or modification of those things will break the business, not just the computer system, and permanently, not just for a day or two.