Windows 7 Pre-Orders Top Vista's In Just 8 Hours 279
Barence writes "In order to ensure Windows 7 got off to a better start than Vista in the UK, Microsoft slashed the cost of Home and Home Professional by a third on promotional copies which were sold on a 'first come, first served basis while stocks last.' The promotion ensured Windows 7 shot to the top of Amazon's charts when it was released yesterday, with the online retailer claiming that 'sales in the first eight hours outstripped those of Windows Vista's entire 17-week pre-order period.' The price of pre-ordering Windows 7 has now shot up to £80, after the £50 copies sold out within a day."
Great startegy (Score:1, Insightful)
Release Vista, a relatively broken operating system, and try to ram it down peoples' throats. When the people gag enough pop out a 'new' OS that fixes the unpalatableness of the old OS and sell millions!
Not that I don't mind using a descent OS, which Windows 7 seems to be at this time. However, I'd be just as likely to use Windows 7 as XP.
What's so exciting... (Score:3, Insightful)
about a new operating system these days. DRM? The idea of paying a wad of cash for something that one already has but for something slightly newer that's had a facelift?
Re:Great startegy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great startegy (Score:2, Insightful)
It's New Coke all over again.
Amazing! (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft slashed the cost of Home and Home Professional by a third on promotional copies ... 'sales in the first eight hours outstripped those of Windows Vista's entire 17-week pre-order period.'
The Microsoft Marketing Machine discovers the laws of supply and demand, and tries to spin it to Microsoft's advantage.
Of course this will be immediately modded troll or flamebait by slashdot's resident Microsoft shills. I have karma points to burn, bitches.
while stocks last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a shortage of electrons?
Re:Every other OS stinks (Score:4, Insightful)
Win7 = TBD - Looking good as of now
Vista = Bad
XP = Pretty Good
ME = Rancid
2000 = Pretty Good.
NT 4 = Good.
BOB = OMGWTF?
Vista isn't horrible. It has some issue that can be solved by turing off some features. SHould the user ahve to tunr off features to stop getting apop up, and having there disk grind all that time? no. Other then that thee only crashes I have seen ahve been due to hardware problems. Something that can impact ANY OS.
IT is getting harder and harder to rag on MS for OS performance. There are business and philosophical issues.
Are there technically better OS's? Yes, but that doesn't matter. While they are technically better, the difference doesn't really add much value to the home consumer. You see it in large scale systems, becasue the cost begins to become very apparent, pretty quickly. I ahve said this many time, the killer app for Linux is wide scale desktop business adoption.
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I would have to say that Windows 7 is still overpriced. Without it being able to be pirated or sold at a reasonable price it will never have the share that XP does.
XP is Windows 7 competition, not Linux or OSX.
Headline Translation: (Score:2, Insightful)
Man I hate Windows! Oohhh I bet Windows will solve that problem!
So what does this really prove... (Score:4, Insightful)
...except that we've had ample time to critique and review both Vista and Windows 7, and the general conclusion is that what we know about Vista NOW is completely different from what we knew about Vista when it was first released. And the general knowledge about Windows 7 is much more positive than current perceptions about Vista
Hmmm. What was that about hindsight...?
Re:while stocks last? (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft and the copyright cartels would certainly like everyone to keep thinking so.
Re:What's so exciting... (Score:1, Insightful)
What about better utilization of modern hardware? What about improved security?
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:4, Insightful)
A $200 OS for a $400 computer is "not too expensive?" What planet do you live on?
Great piece of software? That remains to be seen, and depends on your definition of "great". Kind of meaningless marketspeak if you ask me. What makes it so great?
Best OS Microsoft has put out? Probably.
Re:Long time lurker... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been reading Slashdot for 10 or 11 years (I've never seen a reason to register an account).
Ok, you made a liar out of me, I just swore in my journal that I wouldn't respond to ACs, but damn it, I'm biting just this once.
One good reason to register an account is that you can actually know when someone responds to one of your comments without checking your comment every five minutes. You won't see this comment or even know I made it. Why join a discussion if you're not going to listen?
OK, back to ignoring AC posts...
Re:Every other OS stinks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows 7 finally got me excited about Microsoft OSes again.
You know, I've seen this phrase pop up from a lot of people, I'm sure only some of them all shills. Your OS shouldn't be exciting, it's just a platform to launch a tool on, and those tools are increasingly more platform-agnostic.
Re:It is just Vista SP X (Score:3, Insightful)
I use Vista right now, and it's fairly stable, but it's a little slow, even after I had to turn all the retarded parts off.
What I find strange is that the people that use MS software out of choice continually put up with and reward a company that regularly bends them over a barrel and gives them downright awful or just mostly awful software with every other release.
I'm never first (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm never first to buy any piece of software. I don't like paying to beta test software, and with MS's current record with OS's, I'm apprehensive at best to purchase this. And I still hate how MS wipes your MBR. For the love of god MS, some of us run dual boot systems.
At the very least, give us an option.
Re:Just 7? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Also surely this Microsoft & Amazon PR stunt is actually the opposite of success? ... Because if any company released a truly desirable product people would be willing to pay a premium to own that product. Yet Microsoft & Amazon are trying to claim success by reducing its price... (talk about lies, damned lies and PR)).
First off, EVERYONE was running a sale on the upgrade. That was a Microsoft offer, not Amazon's. Just like getting a laptop with Vista now, will earn you a free upgrade.
Business drop the price all the time to see if they can sell more items. They make less of a profit per item, but make up for that in quanity. Very useful in the software business where the materials involved (disc and packaging) in the product cost pennies.
NO ONE is willing to pay a premium for something in this economy that's not a NEED. Sure, I would LOVE to upgrade (well more like retire) my 2.1 GHz PC and build a Quad-Core with a nice 1GB video card (and of course I have to upgrade my HD because that format has changed to SATA.) But I can't afford it and my current PC running XP is doing just fine.
But it's like you're saying, "Oh that dirty, rotten microsoft. They're having a SALE--how dare they!" Damn I'm GLAD they're having a sale, because I sure can't afford the retail and neither can a lot of other people.
I have a laptop that came with Vista. Personally, I've never had any problems with it. (Of course, it was built to work with Vista, so YMMV.) I even run really old, classic games with DOSBox [dosbox.com] on it! My only quibble (after turning off the truly dumb, UAC feature) is that you have to have a better system to run something (like a game) with Vista than you do to run the same thing on XP. However, since I don't normally play commerical games on this, that hasn't been much of a problem. And I found the voice recognition program included to be superior to even Draggon Naturally Speaking and you didn't need as long to train it.
I've got some problems with Microsoft, but this isn't one of them.
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Try powershell for your CLI stuff. Works wonders, we automate our entire infrastructure with it.
Re:Can't say I'm surprised.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:News? (Score:3, Insightful)
Say what? You in for a rude awakening when 7 is actually released. It will be "shoved down your throat" more so than Vista ever was, especially if it is moderately successful. The only reason for 7's existence and XP's continued presence is because of the awful press (in my opinion, justified) and that companies and home users basically rebelled against Vista. The key is to watch for Win7 only features like in directX enhancements to try, as well as that you will not be able to purchase a new computer without Win7. These are the ways that MS will induce people to buy the new OS.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Upgrade Path... (Score:1, Insightful)
Installing Win 7 takes about 5 clicks and completes in about half an hour. Any mainstream computer made in the last 3 years will run it, hell it installed and ran on my 7 year old dell laptop minus aero.
Re:Wake me up when.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Windows 7 editions don't work like Vista's. In Vista, you had the Home Premium that had stuff like Media Center, the Business that had all of the business-y features, and if you wanted both, you needed Ultimate.
In Windows 7, its not like that... Home Premium is the same as in Vista, Professional has all of the Home Premium features, plus the business/network stuff, and Ultimate has that, plus a couple of features only useful on corporate domains (such as more Group Policites and fancier VPN functionalities for Windows Server 2008 R2) and VHD booting.
I swear by Vista Ultimate, but for Windows 7, Professional is sufficient. Ultimate is pointless, at least at home, EVEN if you have a fancy home network.