Rumor: pricing for the Windows 7 editions

$199 for starter????

Well, the prices seem a bit out of wack, i.e. Starter for $199 seems crazy, and Professional for $299 Full version retail is less than what Vista Ultimate was as release, but still a bit high. Looking at current Vista SKUs, we might be able to guess an OEM price.

Vista Ulimate Full retail is $236 at Newegg
Vista Ultimate Full OEM is $180 at Newegg
Vista Ultimate Upgrade Retail is $180 at Amazon (couldn't find one at Newegg)

There isn't an Ultimate Upgrade OEM, so I can't price that out.

Based on this, I would guess Professional Upgrade to be around $220, about the same for Professional Full OEM.

The Windows 7 prices still seem a bit high to me. Professional is kinda like the old Ultimate and Vista Ultimate originally was priced at $400. Due to low demand, the price dropped significantly. But, I'm pretty sure MS is expecting a better demand for 7, so I don't see them shaving the price for a while. A bigger issue for me is can I use the upgrade media to perform a full install? I don't like upgrading OS's, I'd rather reinstall a clean copy, but with Vista, you had to go through a painful process to perform a clean install of the upgrade version.

Please MS, at least make installing a clean OS with upgrade media a straight forward task.

PhreePhly

Honest curiousity here, is there any practical reason for such exorbitant prices? Wouldn't they be making a profit at like 100-150 dollars? I mean, a DVD can't cost more than a couple of dollars to manufacture... I understand that they have to advertise and pay employees and bla bla, but really, anything over 200 seems like too much.

napilopez said:

Honest curiousity here, is there any practical reason for such exorbitant prices? Wouldn't they be making a profit at like 100-150 dollars? I mean, a DVD can't cost more than a couple of dollars to manufacture... I understand that they have to advertise and pay employees and bla bla, but really, anything over 200 seems like too much.

Well, if you believe various technology sources, the cost to develop Vista is somewhere between 6 and 10 Billion dollars. That's a lotta scratch.

On top of the development costs, you still have support costs to maintain the software. Look at XP. It's been around for 7 or 8 years. That's quite a few years of support and salaries to pay.

MS is a publicly traded entity and has a responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits. MS sets the prices at a point where they expect them to sell. It they don't sell, they drop the price. Look at Vista Ultimate. It started at $400. It can now be had for $235.

PhreePhly

PhreePhly said:

Well, if you believe various technology sources, the cost to develop Vista is somewhere between 6 and 10 Billion dollars. That's a lotta scratch.

Yea but... Bill gates was at the head of MS at that time. He probably just wrote them a check.

:P jk

Bill is awesome.

Anyways, thanks for the explanation. I knew development costs were high, but not that high.

napilopez said:

Yea but... Bill gates was at the head of MS at that time. He probably just wrote them a check.

:P jk

Bill is awesome.

Anyways, thanks for the explanation. I knew development costs were high, but not that high.

Well, its AN explanation, not the explanation. It is simply an opinion from me. I do think those prices are kinda high. I was hoping for the Professional Upgrade would be around $150 - $170. That to me seems competitive. Home Premium Upgrade at $100-$110 and Starter at $50. I mean, Starter has so many limitations, that $100 is an insult.

We'll see what really happens. We have 6 months at least.

PhreePhly

Well I know who will pirate OSes for fun...
Err... yeah, $700 for Ultimate? It's sooo worth it.