Following the amazingly low pricing for Snow Leopard, Microsoft have also followed suit with a price cut of their own. Of course though it's not as big a drop as Apple's was.
The first thing mentioned on the Windows Team blog post that is of any real interest is that people who buy PC's with Vista pre-installed as of June 26th will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for free. For the rest of us we have to pay a little more than that (well of course, paying does suggest more than free). The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
- Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
- Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
- Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99
And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
- Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
- Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
- Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99
They do comment on how 7 Home Premium is $40 less than Vista Home Premium's current price, but it's still quite a bit for an operating system when you compare it to the price of Snow Leopard. I do find it interesting that the "bigger" two versions are $100 more for the full version, yet the Home Premium SKU is only $80 more for full. In various parts of the world they're also offering a 50% discount for those who pre-order within a specific time frame. For those in the UK it's between July 15th and August 14th - they've also added a rather optimistic "or whilst stocks last" tag to that... I think stocks will last quite well thank you. In the US they don't have long to pre-order though, for them the offer starts tomorrow and ends July 15th. Their offer is only available from Amazon, Best Buy, and the online Microsoft Store so I'm guessing they're trying to limit how many people buy it at 50% off as they can.
I think I might pre-order the upgrade version of home premium... under the assumption we won't get charged more than the US does (which is usually the case due to various taxes, etc.). Doesn't seem long since I last bought a copy of Windows... damn you Microsoft! *shakes fist of fury at them*
