Microsoft announced the Windows 7 retail pricing structure for all of the various versions of the operating system today, and at first glance it looks at though they missed the boat. While Windows 7 looks very promising thus far, as seen in the betas and Release Candidates, it looks as though they are going to drive folks away from it by maintaining nearly identical pricing to Vista, which the world seems to agree was one of Microsoft’s worst efforts to date. However, as usual Microsoft has an ace in the hole.
Pricing is as follows:
Home Premium $199.99 Full / $119.99 Upgrade / $49 Pre-order before July 11
Professional $299.99 Full / $199.99 Upgrade /$99 Pre-order before July 11
Ultimate $399.99 Full / $219.99 Upgrade
Most Consumers Don’t Buy Windows
What Microsoft normally banks on is the fact that most people don’t buy individual copies of Windows and install them on their existing computers, they get Windows when they buy a new computer. Which in my mind is why Microsoft should lower the retail price significantly, so that they can fight the public perception that Windows is expensive, but they won’t because that would require them to undercut what they are selling the licenses to OEMs and businesses at. Doing so would cause an uproar with some of their biggest partners and clients.
Microsoft also knows that Windows 7 seems to run better than Vista on existing computers that are currently running Vista and XP. This has not traditionally been the case. In the past with every new Windows release, if you simply upgraded your existing computer there was a performance hit, your computer usually would run slower than under the old operating system. This does not seem to be the case under Windows 7, which seems to fly on older computers and lower powered systems like Netbooks. All of this means that the potential market for retail boxed copy licenses for Windows 7 is greater than previous versions of Windows. Also with the current economic conditions people are more likely to upgrade than spend money on a whole new computer.
Pre-Ordering Offers The Most Value
If you are one of the many that are actually planning on buying a retail boxed copy of Windows 7, I encourage you to pre-order it before July 11th, 2009, as this would entitle you to the lower pricing of $49 and $99 for Home Premium and Professional respectively.
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