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Windows 7 Pricing Out - Is It Worth It?

Thursday, June 25th, 2009
by Matt Hartley

I will go on record once again in saying that for the most part, Windows 7 is vastly better than Vista. Performance is my main sticking point, as I not too long back reported one person that was able to get it running on as little as 128 MB of RAM with a PII processor. Clearly if Windows 7 can run on that dinosaur, I am impressed.

This being said, I am not impressed in the slightest with the pricing. Sure, I support any business that wants to set its prices to fair market value. And if the economy were not in the toilet, these prices might work for Microsoft. Just the upgrade cost from Vista to 7 is reported as being $119. And the upgrade price for 7 Ultimate (not full version) being $219.

Despite my objections, luckily the world is full of people with more money than sense. So I am sure there will be plenty of folks interested in forking over what I would refer to as an insane amount of money for an OS that cannot even provide me with a productivity suite out of the box. I could at least see paying $190+ if one could receive a basic version of MS Office! But just the for the OS, no thanks.

My gut also tells me that the bulk of the upgrades will be on notebooks and netbooks, bundled — because I would likely be able to buy a netbook with Windows 7 (some basic version) for less than the cost of buying Windows 7 Ultimate.

Windows 7 is shaping up to be a good OS that will continue with the legacy of overpricing the product. But hey, the market will likely bear it. Perhaps there are enough IT folks and geeks out there to help push Ultimate out the door once again?

8 Comments

mark hilton

June 26th, 2009
at 12:01am

your right its a great product in terms of performance, let down tremendously by the price (such a shame with it being far better.) but it won’t stop me buying it

Macmouth

June 26th, 2009
at 3:04am

And from 10.5 to 10.6 on the mac? $ 29

Mike

June 26th, 2009
at 4:00am

I am just wondering if all the attorney fees are catching up with them? Just a thought, lol!

Marshall Stax

June 26th, 2009
at 5:43am

If MS would give me an equal version of W7 *FREE* as compensation for suffering with the WVHP that came with the new laptop I bought 2 years ago, fine… otherwise Hell No! I won’t pay to load W7 over WVHP … Wne I get a new computer at some point, OK - I’ll take the W7 that comes with it.

BeerLuver (Bob)

June 26th, 2009
at 8:18am

Just thought I’d comment quick that if you search ‘Windows 7′ on Amazon.com … they have the pre-order prices set at $49 for Win7 Home Premium Upgrade & $99 for Win7 Professional Upgrade. Not too bad of a deal if ya ask me :).

I know those are probably limited sale prices or something, but I know I’ll take advantage of that deal to save me some money. Thought I’d pass it on to you in case you wanted to share with your fans as well, or you yourself take advantage of it too ;).

Windows 7 Pricing Out - Is It Worth It?

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