What Price Point Should Microsoft Set for Windows 7?

By Island Dog on January 22, 2009 4:06:16 PM from

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Island Dog

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Join Date 06/2003

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The momentum for Windows 7 continues to build, and it seems so far that Microsoft is doing a good job at redeeming the Windows name after Vista. Windows 7 is fast, seemingly very stable, application compatibility seems good, and the reaction from the tech community and media is far more favorable than it has been in the past couple of years.

So the technical side of Windows 7 is going pretty well, and we haven’t seen much out of marketing yet, but there have been many discussions online about how much Windows 7 will actually cost consumers. Some have suggested it should be free, which is quite ridiculous, and others speculate it will be similar to what Windows Vista was.

One of my biggest displeasures with Windows Vista wasn’t so much on the technical side, as it was with the actual price and the lack of license bundles. With some Vista licenses averaging out around $200, it just wasn’t economically feasible to outfit my entire house with copies of Vista, which I would have liked to have done. I have roughly 5 PC’s in my house, so give or a take a bit, it could have easily cost over $1000 to get my home setup with Vista.

Now I certainly don’t expect Windows 7 to be free, but I’m now wondering how Microsoft will set the pricing for new and upgrade purchases. I really hope it reasonably priced, because going too high will have a real negative impact in my opinion. I would like to see a simple upgrade from either Vista or XP for $99, with a 3-license family pack for $150. I think that would be very competitive, and get even more people to upgrade.

What do you think?

Quoting Tailsgirl,

reply 24

I wonder if God Googles... ... no offense to God

I'm sure He has an archangel of search engines to do that for him.

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Yes Karen, it was [on my part] a lame attempt at humour, I'm not in top form today dear

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Quoting Fuzzy Logic,

reply 25

If W7 has the same abomination of a start menu as Vista, they will have to pay me to use it...

It's worse in my opinion

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It's worse in my opinion

Can hardly wait

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Just from what has been shown of Windows 7 here at WinCustomize, I have to say I'm in no hurry to upgrade. I don't think I would take it, even if it was free.

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If W7 has the same abomination of a start menu as Vista, they will have to pay me to use it...

have you actually used it? That is like the main thing they improved. The new start menu and control panel is named and arranged in such a more intuitive mannor. Now, I probebly wouldn't have this opinion if I didn't have to walk customers through troubleshooting with it, but its true! for a comp retard, it is 100 times better then XP and 1000 better than everything before it. Things are named with names that actually describe what they are, to find options you don't need to go through bizzar 'advanced, *random tab*, find check mark' it usues a logical path to reach most anything that is a base windows component.

The only thing I complain about is that you arn't admin by default, but I understand why they did that and its really not an excuse for somebody like me to complain because its an easy fix.

The thing I wonder about price is if they are going to do the multi-tiers like they did with XP and Vista. I feel if they do, the 'home' or 'basic' version should be dirt freakin' cheap. Of course they probebly won't do that if it actually works.

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Quoting Tailsgirl,

reply 2

Yes Karen, it was [on my part] a lame attempt at humour, I'm not in top form today dear

Naah it was funny. Not lame at all. Of course, should you see a large dark cloud forming above you, run like hell!

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The only thing I complain about is that you arn't admin by default, but I understand why they did that and its really not an excuse for somebody like me to complain because its an easy fix.

@landisaurus: I'm sorry, but I didn't understand your last sentence. Could you explain it to me?

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i'll buy an oem version of the 64 bit equivalent of ultimate when it's released. if i remember correctly, i paid 200 bucks for the oem of vista ultimate 64 when it was released. i'm not sure wha tit goes for now. there's no way i'd pay for the retail version. it's twice the price, if not more, and all ya get for it is tech support from ms.

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@ Dr. JBHL : Sure!

In windows you have different commands that are only allowed to be done by an "administrator"

In everything prior to Vista (maybe not Me... I never bothered to try to get ME to work) the 1st account created will be an administrator account. Only after you create additional accounts can just regular "user" accounts be created that cannot access certain system properties. Vista on the otherhand, by default makes a user account. The only way to have an admin is to create an 2nd account that is an admin after installing vista, sign into the admin account, then delete the 1st account. I can't complain that I have to do those extra 3 steps just to be the administrator on the account because it CAN be easily fixed.

And regular nose-bleed customers really shouldn't be monkey'ing with any high level windows services anyway.

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This is why I still have XP on my main system. I have Vista on my laptop but I just can't see the reason to "upgrade" on my desktop. It works fine. There comes a point where more bells and whistles don't really make a lot of difference. It's just a tool.

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I'd love to see Microsoft lower their prices and CRUSH the freeware OS's popping up.

For home users:

$60 includes a CD and 60 days support

$30 for a CD and install support

$5 for the download

For Corporations - $75, no support, hire an MCSE!

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w7 beta does have the same menu as vshita

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$300- $(other softwares and games you will need to buy)

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If the starting point is USD$200, with current exchanges rates as they are, it'll cost us here in Oz upwards of AUD$305... so I'm rather hoping MS will consider this and the recession gripping the entire World and realistically price Win 7 according to the current economic climate. If it does not, then the uptake of Win 7 will be slow at best and Vista may even beat it with regard to licenses sold in the first 12 months.

With 500,000 jobs tipped to be lost here in Oz over the next six months or so, and the decreasing value of the dollar reducing the propensity to pay... thus pushing the nation closer to the brink of depression, it's unlikely Win 7 will have a great uptake here if the starting price is anything like Vista's @ $387 for Home Premium (full retail version).... closer to $500 for Vista Ultimate (full)

So yeah, let's hope that MS factors in these things when formulating its price... and for sure, an affordable 'family license' deal would be a blessing, also. To equip 3 machines with Vista Ultimate at the time it cost my mother, misssus and I AUD$1100 +. Those were much better economic times, however, and while we would only have to consider 2 licenses this time around (my mother has returned to the UK to live), it just isn't going to happen without a family license concession on top of more reasonable starting prices.

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It should be like this......

$30-50 for poor nations

$250 for developed countries and small companies.

$600 for bigger corporations(even in poor nations)....

But will microsoft read all our discussions...

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Quoting Lord Reliant,

reply 9

I also wish they wouldn't release a 32-bit version, as any machines that would realistically run 7 would be 64-bit capable anyway.

Actually I had and old desktop I wasn't using, that I put a copy of the Windows 7 32 bit beta on and it runs very well on the computer. It's a 5 year old Pentium 4, 2.5GHz computer with 1GB RDRAM. It's certainly not 64 bit compatible, but Windows 7 runs as fast on this computer as XP ever did - I think they will be able to sell it to people that want to get away from XP, but didn't think their computer could handle Vista.

As for pricing, I hope it is more reasonable than the Vista prices. The only reason I didn't go to Vista was because of the price. For me Vista didn't add enough (features, performance, whatever) over XP to justify spending money just to upgrade to the 'new' version. Actually I think Microsoft would be smart to give Vista users a sub $100 upgrade to a similar version (assuming they do home basic/premium, business, ultimate, etc again).

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Who pays for Windows, anyway, amirite?

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Quoting Luckmann,

reply 18

Who pays for Windows, anyway, amirite?

Got my copy of XP Pro (no sp2) from the university bookstore for $90, w00t.

As for 7...I'm certainly not gonna pay $300+ for it. I'm still running XP on my main machine and Vista Home Premium on my laptop. In a year or two after 7 comes out I'll build a new monster machine, but they better be realistic when it comes to pricing. The Vista crap was outrageous.

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Quoting Luckmann,

reply 18

Who pays for Windows, anyway, amirite?

Well I know I do, or everytime I get a new rig, it's part of it.. I've even had to pay extra [yes....really] to downgrade [at one point] from XP back to 98 [shut up ok?]

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Quoting Tailsgirl,

reply 20

I've even had to pay extra [yes....really] to downgrade [at one point] from XP back to 98 [shut up ok?]

My daughter has 98 on her computer and loves it. Of course, she's not a software glutton like I am. All she has on there is iTunes, WoW, and IE7.

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. I have IE 7 and ITunes, Tunes is my kids.. I only use it to rip my own CD's .........actually, I'm the only one that uses it since his IPod mysteriously broke

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Quoting Spartan,

reply 3

The bastards charged me over one thousand dollars for two copies of Ultimate Vista. The next version of that type had better be far cheaper. As far as I'm concerned I have not gotten my monies worth. M$ should give me a free copy of W7.

Ive never paid for a windows product in my life, and I am always running the latest version.

Excuse me, I can't respect a person that overpays so much for a product. There are many levels of ways to trick the system if don't feel comfortable with downright stealing, such as buying an upgrade version and paying that much less.

Then again i'm 19 and i've never had un 1/2 mil para pagar 1 copy of windows. Even when I'm filthy rich i don't think i'll be able to pay that amount in clear conscience though.

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Then again i'm 19 and i've never had un 1/2 mil para pagar 1 copy of windows. Even when I'm filthy rich i don't think i'll be able to pay that amount in clear conscience though.

But yet you can steal it with a clear conscience?

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I've also never directly paid for an OS however that means I've indirectly paid for an OEM version by having to either tolerate all the "crapware" that hardware folks put on their machines or spend huge amounts of time stripping it off. That plus then only having a restore disk instead of an installation disk. At least I save a Ghost image of the drive for restoration purposes once I've finished "decrapifying" my boot image.

Paying money for a relatively "clean" installation disk doesn't sound all that bad to me but the next time around I'm more likely to go with a custom built PC and get the OS as part of the system bundle which in this case would still be a restore disk but the restore image would essentially be a vanilla OS installation with the only "crapware" being what M$ puts on it to begin with but you get that with a true install disk anyway.

As far as a price for Win 7, I don't really care at this point. Ask me in a year and if it's still the OS du jour than I may consider moving to it then. I went from 95 directly to XP and so far have had no problem skipping Vista entirely. I see no compelling reason to upgrade at this time, but perhaps in another couple of years I might. Who knows I'll probably be able to skip to Win 8 or even 9. Think of all the thrashing I'll avoid.

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