

Windows 7 pricing announced: cheaper than Vista - csomar
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/windows-7-pricing-announced-cheaper-than-vista.ars?utm_source=microblogging&utm_medium=arstch&utm_term=One%20Microsoft%20Way&utm_campaign=microblogging

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anon-e-moose
I love the comments here and elsewhere... MS sets the price of Windows 7
around or a little lower than the price of Leopard, and everyone makes smart
remarks about "no family pack" and "it would cost $4 bajillion to upgrade my
houses 8 family computers". I feel sorry for MS now... even when they do
something nice, they're still wrong.

Comparisons to Snow Leopard are particularly unfair... If you don't pay the
full price for Snow Leopard, you paid the full price for Leopard! How is that
actually cheaper again?

Not to mention the fact that Apple can freely move costs among its hardware
and software because they're selling all of it, for example charging more for
RAM and less for OS X. MS _has_ to make the money on its software.

\-- A happy XP user since 2001, who supports and can use any other newer
operating system, but likes XP.

~~~
hdfrghjyu
>MS has to make the money on its software.

MS makes it's money on server and Office licenses. Profit on retail sales of
Windows are minimal

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anon-e-moose
If they set an extremely low price or even gave away Windows, would that not
make Office seem more expensive by comparison?

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makecheck
Price is one issue, but what they really needed to reduce is the number of
_variations_ , to end the confusion.

I suppose any reduction is good, but $10 isn't much for something purchased
every few years (or simply bundled on an expensive new machine), especially
when it comes from a company that could easily afford to give the OS away for
free.

~~~
chollida1
> especially when it comes from a company that could easily afford to give the
> OS away for free.

I don't know if this is true. Microsoft would have a very hard time keeping
their revenue and profit where they are, much less growing them, which is what
the street wants to see, if they gave away their OS.

If they suddenly lost their OS revenue the stock would take a dramatic hit, I
doubt they could afford to do this.

Given that they can't afford the hit on their stock price that loosing their
OS revenue would bring, can you show how they can afford this?

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makecheck
Microsoft's revenue has increased consistently for its entire lifetime, until
recently (Q1'09). [1] In other words, for 23 years, their revenue has gone up
every quarter, and even though it "dropped" in Q1 it was still 13.65 billion
dollars for a single quarter. About $3.4B of that is from their client
division that sells Windows.

Windows isn't the only revenue that counts (e.g. people may not upgrade other
software either, if they haven't upgraded Windows). And revenue isn't the only
effect on long-term viability. They are no doubt spending a lot to maintain
Windows right now. If they gave a free upgrade to Windows 7, they could
pretend Vista doesn't exist and eliminate most of its support costs; simply
tell all customers that Vista will not be supported because Windows 7 is free
and is compatible.

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/microsoft-
rev...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/microsoft-revenue-
plunges)

~~~
chollida1
> If they gave a free upgrade to Windows 7, they could pretend Vista doesn't
> exist and eliminate most of its support costs; simply tell all customers
> that Vista will not be supported because Windows 7 is free and is
> compatible.

That sounds nice in theory. In practice there are many companies that change
OS's very slowly as it cost alot of money and time to test internal apps and
systems on each new OS.

I'd bet that even if Windows 7 was free there would be a substantial client
base that would still stick with Vista, XP and 2000 because they don't want to
have to upgrade thousands of computers.

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neovive
It's too bad there couldn't be just one version of Windows 7 that is
configurable instead of the "Home Premium", "Business" and "Ultimate" options.
I know this has been debated quite a bit before when Vista was released, but I
was hoping Microsoft would simplify things a bit with Windows 7.

~~~
Elepsis
The different versions cost different amounts of money. What do you mean by
one configurable version? How would people buy it?

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csomar
Also you can see the official post:
[http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/06/25...](http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/06/25/announcing-
the-windows-7-upgrade-option-program-amp-windows-7-pricing-bring-on-ga.aspx)

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jsonscripter
Still more expensive than my operating system.

 _Backflips on to a motorcycle, screeches tires and zooms away_

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rglullis
Ok, this is no reddit and you should be downvoted. But I won't do it because I
got the joke: <http://xkcd.com/272/>

~~~
jsonscripter
Well actually I think I made a valid point, I just put in that quip at the end
because I thought it was relevant commentary. I basically said there are less
expensive alternatives that I believe are better, and yes I do realize my
zealotry is slightly naive and/or ridiculous out of context but is entirely
relevant in regard to pricing of said operating system.

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TweedHeads
Win7 home premium full retail $199

$200 for an OS?

You got to be kidding me

