Vista Price Cuts Dissected
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Recently, Microsoft made news by making worldwide cuts to the retail price of their Windows Vista operating system, and this just a little over a year since it was released to the general public. Vista hasn't exactly been the most acclaimed product, just as Microsoft hasn't exactly been the company of the people, so you can bet the so-called “experts” expressed their fair share of opinions on the matter. This article will break them down.
The news came in late February 2008 that the Vista price cuts would be up to almost 50% in poorer countries for certain editions. In developed countries, like the U.S., the discounts will be far less (5% or less) and will only affect the upgrade versions of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. It's important to realize that these price cuts only pertain to the retail copies of Vista as opposed to those sold to PC manufacturers through an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) license. This could have something to do with low retail sales of Vista upgrade editions as compared to its predecessor, Windows XP, when it first came out, but these statistics are all relative.
Windows Vista came out with a primary objective to improve upon the security of previous Windows operating systems, especially XP, which had been frequently criticized for its vulnerabilities. But Vista also came with many new and "better" features, such as an updated GUI, called Aero, and new multimedia tools. However, as I mentioned earlier, Vista got a less than warm reception because of its incompatibility with older PCs.
If you examine the situation closely, you'll notice that Windows XP came out just one year after the release of Windows 2000 and ME. People with these OSs are much more likely to upgrade to XP after such a short time since the release of 2000 and ME than those who had to wait up to five years for Vista to come out. All the new features on Vista require some powerful hardware for which most people simply aren't willing to shell out the money. I think people would much sooner buy a new computer with Vista already installed on it.
Michael Cherry, and analyst with Directions on Microsoft, gave this analysis: people are so confused about the versions and what they need for hardware that they don't even get to the price. Currently in the U.S., Vista has these versions: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. Cherry also said, "Microsoft has always gambled that if their software got bigger and they added more features, they didn't have to fine-tune it because the hardware would be there to bail them out."
That's just one person's opinion. In the next section, we'll look at much more analysis (hint: you may want to strap in if you're a Microsoft fan), so keep reading my friends.
Next: Anything But Vista >>
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