Microsoft Discloses Windows 7 Pricing 821
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the snow-leopard-is-cheaper dept.
from the snow-leopard-is-cheaper dept.
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."
How.... (Score:2, Informative)
Going right after Mac OS X (Score:1, Informative)
Apparently they have noticed their pricing was too ridiculous compared to other systems. Vista was the pinnacle of it, a crappy system that was sold for what... $499 retail?
Mac OS X starts off at $129 as well for new releases (and goes down from there) and $199 for a 5 license pack and I believe that Apple has been eating Microsoft for lunch on the home desktop market and is making inroads on the business as well.
Can be cheaper if you order before 7-11 (Score:5, Informative)
And I do not mean the store 7-11.
Here:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/06/25/cnet.windows7.pricing.upgrade/index.html [cnn.com]
From the article: "From Friday through July 11, consumers in the U.S. will be able to buy an upgrade copy of Windows 7 Home premium for $49 or Windows 7 Professional for $99."
No ultimate and an upgrade not full though. But the upgrade from XP is a full wipe install anyway.
And I do agree with others who said that upgrade from vista ultimate should be free to win 7 ultimate.
Preordering it is cheaper starting tomorrow (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Does anyone actually buy windows? (Score:5, Informative)
Not in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8118749.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Really? (Score:3, Informative)
In a nod to the global economic downturn, it is interesting to note that upgrade prices are still more expensive than a non-upgrade OEM copy with far more reinstallation hassles.
Re:Ultimate Rip-Off (Score:5, Informative)
I ended up getting Vista Ultimate.
Me too.
Never saw ANY of the benefits/Ultimate Content that was promised.
I however knew what I was getting:
1) Disk encryption -- in ultimate only (and enterprise which is only by VLA)
2) licensed dvd codecs -- in home prem and ultimate but not in business
3) ability to connect to a domain, IIS, etc -- business and ultimate but not home
etc
But if you only bought Vista ultimate based on the handful of exclusive ultimate freebies that came at launch, and the half hearted promise that theird be some more cool stuff... that was idiotic. You should have just bought home premium or business as applicable, and then done an in place key upgrade if / when they ever released a bonus feature that made the ultimate upgrade price worth it to you.
For me, ultimate was the right choice right out of the gate. The features I wanted to play with were in the box, and I could only get everything i wanted in ultimate.
That will teach me for buying a boxed, non-OEM version of Windows I guess.
Meh, I did that so I'd have I'd have a legit key, 32 and 64 bit disks, and no grey area about whether I could move it from machine to machine, run it in a VM, etc, etc. Of course I bought the 'upgrade' so it cost the same as the oem version, and I knew about the double install trick for doing clean installs. (And I have multiple licenses for XP to legitimize the Vista upgrade.)
But the lesson that you should be learning is to buy products for what they have today, not to buy them on some vague promise of what they might one day have. That lesson will serve you will in general. 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.
Re:buy Naked (Score:5, Informative)
Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
Where's the part of the summary telling people that they can upgrade for $49.99 by pre-ordering?
"Finally, as a way of saying thank you to our loyal Windows customers, we are excited to introduce a special time limited offer! We will offer people in select markets the opportunity to pre-order Windows 7 at a more than 50% discount. In the US, this will mean you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).
This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. Customers in the UK, France and Germany, can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 starting July 15th and will run until August 14th (or supplies last) to ensure folks donâ(TM)t miss out on this. Act fast if you want to be the first in line to get Windows 7 at this screaming deal! Note: The special low pre-order price will vary per country."
Granted, it's a small window for a bloated Windows, but you have to applaud Microsoft for this. If you hate Vista and are convinced you want an upgrade, it's only $49.99 if you do in in the next few weeks.
Re:XP = Vista for upgrade pricing (Score:5, Informative)
honestly, I haven't seen any features yet that I really consider an upgrade over XP, so perhaps someone could enlighten me about why I would even consider buying an upgrade?
Windows are stored as vector graphics in video memory under Vista and 7. Previously, they were stored as bitmaps that needed to be redrawn every frame. This enables things like viewing a thumbnail of a window from the taskbar (including video) and windows still drawing their last good state when the process locks (unlike XP and before, where the window will be plain white). It's similar to the OS X system.
There are security upgrades as well, but this reason is good enough for me.
Re:Overpriced. (Score:3, Informative)
A developer would use their MSDN Windows license. They wouldn't be buying a box at retail. Unless they're really stupid. That marks D off your list.
From my experience, businesses don't upgrade their hardware to a new OS version any more than the average user does. (i.e. hardly at all.) Meaning, business Windows cost would be rolled-in to the hardware cost, knocking B off your list.
I'd wager build-your-own-ers are more likely to pirate than to buy, unless they know a MS employee who can get Windows at MS Store prices.
I'm guessing the main market here is your C) computer enthusiasts.
Re:The answer is... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How.... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm posting to resist modding you troll, since I think you're serious.
Microsoft:
(a) bundled software
(b) pressured resellers to not unbundle
(c) pressured resellers to not include alternatives
(d) deliberately broke interoperability during "updates" so that working 3rd party alternatives would then break in undocumented ways.
Saying that they got in trouble only for (a) is misleading at best.
Re:How.... (Score:5, Informative)
Following this logic, ancient computer makers should have been sued years ago for bundling their OS on their mainframes. There could have been an independent market for OSes.
Err, that's exactly what happened.
"Then in January 1969 the US Justice Department brought an antitrust action against IBM for monopolizing the computer market. At the time IBM sold its hardware, software, training, and all services as a bundled product. That is, if someone wanted the mainframe software they also had to purchase hardware, training, and everything else from IBM. So in the July 1969 IBM signed another consent decree to unbundle which led to the development of hundreds of companies for supplying software (like University Computing and Computer Associates), hardware (disk drives, memory, and the like)."
cited from Peter Vogel's blog [vogelitlawblog.com].
Re:XP = Vista for upgrade pricing (Score:1, Informative)
Windows are stored as 3D textures on the video card and composited using hardware acceleration. "Vector graphics" denotes a specific kind of drawing that is not being used for the effects you describe.
Re:The answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
If there's more in Windows 7 compared to Vista than there is in Snow Leopard compared to Leopard, I'll eat my shorts.
So, you want salt and pepper with those?
Ignoring the obvious formatting differences, compare Windows 7 changes [wikipedia.org] with OSX 10.6 changes [wikipedia.org]. 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. Whether it's worth a $100 - $200 price tag is an individual choice but regardless of the popular belief around here (the same incorrect belief that nobody uses Vista), Win7 is much more than a service pack.
WINE Is Not an Emulator (Score:2, Informative)
Myth 1:
Windows applications that do not make system calls will run just as fast as on Windows (no more no less).
I will agree on the having to test, but also on Windows, to an extent, you have to test to make sure that the device that says it works on Windows actually does properly.
Re:The answer is... (Score:1, Informative)
MS TechNet provides SHA-1 for all of their isos. Individual files in the distribution can be checked for digital signature of Windows Publisher.
Re:The answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
Wine is not an additional layer of abstraction nor is it an emulator. It is an implementation of the win32 api.
Re:XP = Vista for upgrade pricing (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, how can pointing out good qualities [of Windows] be a troll at all?
You must be new here.
This just in... (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft Vista buyers to get free Windows 7 [msn.com]
Re:Bad summary (Score:1, Informative)
It's legit: quote is from this MS blog [windowsteamblog.com], the pre-order page is here [microsoft.com].
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
- Photoshop (don't dig yourself in further by suggesting Gimp)
That's fine if you are a high-end graphics designer, but if you were you'd be running it on a Mac, not Windows. Apple has always had the creative image market. If you're just mucking around with your home photos, any number of graphics apps will suffice, that $900 copy of Photoshop is overkill for anyone except professionals.
- Any decent audio editing software
That's just bullshit. There is a LOT of good audio editing software out there for Linux, much of it used by professionals.
- Pretty much any software one might need when purchasing a consumer electronics device
Your info is sadly out of date. It's been my experience that with few exceptions, Linux just recognises the devices and they work. One exception is my Logitech keyboard, which works - except for the extra controls, like the volume, play, screoll wheel, etc. But that's Logitech's failing, not Linux's.
- iTunes
Useless for those of us boycotting the RIAA labels. I prefer to buy CDs and rip them myself.
- Media Center
More bullshit; MS's "media center" is far less useful than any number of non-MS offerings (even among offerings that run on Windows)
- Decent accounting software
You're probably correct on this one, I wouldn't know, as I'm a nerd, not an accountant. Didn't accountants ruin the economy? If so, can we blame Microsoft for out economic meltdown? ;)
- Chrome
Are you kidding me??? Chrome is just another web browser!
Re:XP = Vista for upgrade pricing (Score:3, Informative)
Windows are stored as vector graphics in video memory under Vista and 7. Previously, they were stored as bitmaps that needed to be redrawn every frame.
That's totally wrong.
Window visuals in XP and before (and, in fact, in Vista and 7 if you disable DWM) were not stored at all. Whenever part of the window got erased, the application received a WM_PAINT message, and had to handle that and redraw that part. This is why, when a Windows application hangs, you could mess up its window by e.g. dragging other windows on top of it.
In Vista & 7, windows are handled by a composition engine. That thing can deal with vector graphics (if you use WPF, it hooks up with DWM to provide that), but for normal GDI windows applications, they just render the window to a bitmap, and then that bitmap is stored.
his enables things like viewing a thumbnail of a window from the taskbar (including video) and windows still drawing their last good state when the process locks (unlike XP and before, where the window will be plain white).
It's fairly obvious that neither of these are any better or worse whether window contents are stored in bitmap or vector format. The real question is whether they are stored at all.
Re:The answer is... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The answer is... (Score:1, Informative)
And in the non-free world, the price is comparable to that of a new release of OS X.
Really?
OS X 10.5 [apple.com] - $129
OS X 10.6 [apple.com] (coming Sept 09) - $29 upgrade from 10.5
Not my definition of comparable.
Re:The answer is... (Score:3, Informative)
"And in the non-free world, the price is comparable to that of a new release of OS X."
Get outside [apple.com] much?
(Hint: Look to the bottom right of the large grapic)
It's backward compatible with at least as much hardware as W7 will be...at a tenth of the price.
Re:Not in Europe (Score:3, Informative)
Convert them to US dollars and you'll see retail prices are still higher:
Home Premium - £149.99 -> $245 vs $199
Professional - £219.99 -> $360 vs $299
Ultimate - £229.99 -> $378 vs $319
So a more accurate statement would be "upgrade versions will be priced as if it were a retail version", except it'd be a PR nightmare to admit as such.