Want to know how much Vista will cost when it’s released? Microsoft isn’t talking, but if you check out the Amazon pages for Vista, you’ll find the pricing revealed, in black and white.
According to this Amazon page, the Vista Ultimate upgrade will cost $259 from Amazon. Similar pages for other versions of Vista show that Home Basic upgrade will sell for $99.95, and the Home Premium upgrade will cost $239.
If these numbers remain, those are pretty hefty selling prices. It’s pointless to upgrade to Home Basic, because it lacks so many Vista features, and few people will want it. So you’re talking at least $239 for a usable version of Vista.
I’ve been beta testing Vista for some time, and am in the middle of writing Windows Vista in a Nutshell. So I can vouch there’s plenty good in the new operating system. It’s worth the price of the upgrade, but I wish that Microsoft would trim the costs a bit.
One more interesting piece of news from the Amazon Vista listings — the release dates are January 30, 2007, which is the date Microsoft has been talking about. So it appears that Vista may well be on track.
Gamers will fork out in order to get Direct X 10. Corporates will get it 'free' due to their corporate licenses. Most other users won't bother whatever the price point, so why try making it attractive to them? It'll trickle out into the installed base through OEMs anyway.
By making it expensive you increase the percieved value of the corporate licenses, which is important because the corporates are feeling gouged after all the delays in the release of a new OS.
It's a theory, anyway.
Simon Hibbs
@Simon,
I'd say you have more than a theory there. Seems dead-on accurate to what the reality more than likely is (though, like you, I have no insider information.)
As we are all playing the theory game, let me share mine. My theory is that M. David Peterson is a Microsoft Rep. There is no other reason he would have responded like that.
For me, I have used Vista and I am not too impressed. I do freelance tech support for people and if it does not improve before it comes out, I'm done using Windows all together, and I'll recommend the same to all my clients. For the record, XP was nothing brilliant either. After running Linux for some time, Windows starts to become something you use less and less.
If Microsoft was smart, they would not assume that all people who use their OS's are 5 year olds with a degree in brain death.
Sure Microsoft will get the gamers money for now. But I can see interest in Microsoft Operating Systems going down in the next 10 to 15 years. They will still be a gaming OS, I'm sure, but for business and home use, someone could sit down with a clean Linux Kernel and make something 100 times better than any of the Windows systems while still being more stable and user friendly.