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Dell: Windows 7 price a concern
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 19th May 2009
The high asking price of Windows 7 may hurt its adoption in the long run according to Dell's Darrel Ward.
In a telephone interview conducted between CNet and Darrel Ward, Director of Product Management for Dell's Business Client Product Group – and isn't that a mouthful – Ward was audibly concerned that the price Microsoft's next generation operating system Windows 7 would hamper consumer take-up.
During the interview, Ward said that “one thing that may influence adoption, make things slower or cause customers to pause, [is] that generally the average selling price of the operating systems are higher than they were for Vista and XP.”
Ward went on to say that, in these difficult economic times, Microsoft was “naïve to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista.”
Explaining that he believed that the high cost at launch would hamper early adoption from “schools and government agencies” along with smaller private businesses, Ward was worried that Microsoft's choice to sell the product at a premium compared to previous Windows releases would mean “some of the smaller business may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like.”
Despite this, Ward revealed that Dell has “a visible number of customers, large and small, who are actually waiting for Windows 7 and who have already put plans in place to target the transition to Windows 7,” proving that there are at least some customers for whom price is no barrier.
Have you been put off by the high price that Windows 7 will fetch at retail, or is it worth it to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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and basic is rubbish indeed
I am confused.
At what prices will W7 sell?
Not 100 for the "home" version, 150 for the "professional" version and 200 for the "kitchen-sink-included" version?
(I like Dell BTW, just never been able to work that one out).
Hmm .. M$, eh? I thought that meme died years ago ...
Oh, and woe be it for a company to set the price of it's software ...
Or is it Dell trying to make sure THEY can charge you more when you buy a WIn7 license?
Or did MS really raise their prices?
Wait, we'll all know at the end of the year! Goddamnit, calm down. MS won't charge you 50% more all of a sudden. Maybe 5%, and I'd pay 5% more for 7 than I'd have to pay for Vista....
Vote with your feet then. Seriously, I'm sick of people threatening to THINK about doing something, especially when it's something as superficial as an operating system choice! But nooo, it's made out to be a world-changing event that will HARM THE EVIL CORPORATIONS MORE THAN THEY CAN BEAR. Yes! You, fellow ubernerd, are our voice! By sounding your dissent you will bring balance to the force and strike a mighty blow for fair pricing everywhere! Or, you'll just sound like a whiny idiot. Try linux by all means, just don't feel like you need to loudly justify such a move with pithy excuses. Just shut the hell up and do it already, it's not a freaking huge deal.
I didn't wan't to sound like anti-MS-fanboy, definitely not.
But you can't just boot Linux and play Crysis, can you? Maybe games developed by id software...
1) Games. I play ETQW and Quake Live which are made by id Software, so that's not a problem. It's running steam and the steam games with in that become a problem for me. I love L4D to bits. :) Not sure how Cadger (sp?) performs over XP, but it's more hastle than I currently have to go through to do my stuff.
2) Audio Applications. Linux has an array of Music Production tools, but I've been using Ableton Live for years now and I believe it's got the best innovation and creation system of any. Considering they haven't made a version for Linux yet, this is the true thing preventing my move. I need 100% assured compatibility with my audio hardware and software and that's why I stick to Windows.
It'd be lush if someone formed a complete standard across the operating system board (Nix, Mac, Win) that would mean any application could run on anything. Hopefully then the competition would come down to performance rather than compatibility...but until then I'll just have to "cope". :D
But none of the systems Dell sells actually ship with Home Basic - even their lowest end desktop and laptop models ship with Home Premium, so I don't see how that is the issue.
A few things that would persuade me to make an early switch to Win7 on my main pc :
Seamless upgrade to avoid the hassle of installing my apps.
Price, say Home Premium £50, Ultimate £100. Anything over £100 and I have far better ways of spending my cash.
The mass abandonment of DX9 by the games industry.
Faultless XP and possibly Win98 emulation, granted the Virtual Machine technology may allow this but I'll wait the reviews.
I'm not so sure. I've downloaded the RC, installed it, uninstalled it and went back to Vista. Windows 7's problem is that it is really just Vista with a KDE4-alike front end. I like Vista, but I've already paid for that. I'm not paying for it again.
I've already migrated mostly to Ubuntu, I just boot Windows to play games. When Vista support ends, I'm gone.
While this isn't indicative of what Dell sell direct... the Dell Inspiron systems that my local Tesco sell come with Vista Home Basic. I think they're a specific SKU for Tesco to flog to people who don't know better, though, as they're not a spec that you can buy on the Dell site. :)
Yeah they do - just go to the dell site and click on the cheapest Inspiron 15 - it comes with home basic and they want £30 to upgrade it to home premium... I still see your point though - it doesn't affect many systems.
Your item #1 isn't much of a concern. I would love to get rid of that addiction ASAP! ;D
M$ has 90% of the market and will change it's core functionality anytime of the day to make it harder for people to leave it's sheep herd. I'm impressed VMWare manages to have so much compatibility, to be honest.
I've begun my transition to Ubuntu with VMWare, actually. I have a Linux machine within my WinXP to ease the pain. I might install a virtual WinXP machine as well to test files for viruses and so forth. If anything is erratic, I simply delete the machine and start over. No harm done! =)
It should have, specially when people realize it can be applied to Appl and £inux as well...
(I think I saw this for the first time here in these forums last year...)
2nd) 7 is more than Vista with new frontend.
oh, dual booting makes W7 cost less.....i forgot.
#1 was aimed at all those people justifying not to use Linux because there are no [whatever] applications.
Ah, I missed that one
But yeah, very few systems (apart from those uber-cheap ones) are sold with Home Basic, and quite rightly in my opinion. It's just unnecessarily bad.
Screw em, i wouldn't pay more than $25 to upgrade to it. My xp, vista, Ubuntu, and BSD all have a show desktop button that works just fine. As to speed, well, 1-3 secs difference is just fine by me; if I need faster load times or processing, I'll spend my money on hardware thank you.
Every time M$ has done a pricing study to see how much they can get away with charging, they have charged the maximum amount.
You could also think of this as punishment for a lack of Vista sales. Since we didn't buy that, we pay more for this. Mr. Gates (and thus M$) doesn't care if you like him, he only cares that you need him. I know many will take offense and I don't want to start a war, but let's be honest, XP is showing it's age, Vista is a dud, Mac is not viable in most offices, Linux is not viable (for most people) at home. Win7 will be the one to dethrone XP.
Buy a console, then you can pay twice as much to play games.
for the last time.
stop substituting $ with S. it's a bloody company, they make money. that's what companies do.
What it does not solve is the price matter, and if price wasn't a problem, then we wouldn't be having this discussion =)
I've never felt the need to move off Windows like I do now.. Maybe they aren't wrong when they keep saying it's the Linux year (at least at heart) :\
What I meant to say was that all those whiners should just suck it up and dual boot instead of making up excuses why they can't use Linux. If you REALLY want to use Linux [be it Ubuntu, SuSE, KDE, Debian or whatever] but some of your applications won't run then you could dual boot or as nicae said use a VM. That was the point I was trying to make.
Oh, and I agree 100% with Fod. ;)
Yes, they are in it for money, but there is also this long forgotten thing called ETHICS. Which they lack.
P.S.
I thought the $ seemed appropriate for the thread considering the subject, I don't normally do that, maybe I should make it a habit seeing as how it evoked such an over-reaction. Have a nice day. :D
(My apologies to the rest of you for driving the tread off topic)
normal people call this practice 'good business sense'.
it's not just that. large companies at the top of their game, making stupid amounts of money can be popular - look at nintendo, everyone loves them and they are the runaway winners of this generation's console war.
the MS thing in my opinion is pretty much a fashion among uneducated people who have begun to show an interest in technology. i don't mean to say that MS is some pariah; an undeservingly persecuted messiah of the tech industry. it does on occasion put the odd foot hilariously wrong, and has had to be slapped down for the odd anticompetitive practice before (although let's not get started on the latest EU ruling; utterly flawed from the get go but anyway). but to suggest that the practice of pricing a product to a level that the market itself has deemed appropriate as unacceptable? well, that's just a big slice of failcake.
But you're right, MS only do it because they know that it's how much customers are willing to pay.
And about the [silly] comment how mean MS are to always use the upper border of their "how expensive can we make our stuff" research: WTF?! Wouldn't you do EXACTLY the same?! I mean, if you can make £50 a piece without pissing too many people off, would you settle for £20? If so, you'll never leave that shelf-restocking job at Sainsbury's, sorry.
The last time I bought parts for 4 computers without any copies of Windows my wholesaler freaked out, worried the B.S.A. would come down on him. It didn't matter if it was legitimate, it is expected that you will buy Windows and if you don't you are either a pirate or you better have a corp. license.
It's not that people are willing to pay that much, it's that people will pay that because they have little choice.