Rumored pricing for Windows 7 emerges, XP upgrade confirmed

By on Feb 6, 2009 at 7:34 PM
Retail February 6, 2009

If you’ve tried Microsoft’s Windows 7 beta for any period of time, odds are you’re pretty impressed with its performance. Many call it what Vista should have been and we’re not so sure that’s a bad thing – remove the stigma from Vista, make some key (major, at times) tweaks and you’re left with a solid OS. If you’re in the seemingly massive group of unhappy Vista customers however, the questions are now twofold: 1. Are you ready to trust Redmond again and embrace 7? 2. How much cash are you willing to drop in the process? Courtesy of an anonymous Ars Technica tipster we may now have our first glimpse at Microsoft’s pricing scheme once 7 drops:

  • Windows 7 Starter: $199
  • Windows 7 Home Premium: $259
  • Windows 7 Professional: $299
  • Windows 7 Ultimate: $319

Now before flames rain down, let’s start at the beginning. This is not upgrade pricing, this is fresh box pricing. We do have a bit of good news today in the form of confirmation from Microsoft that it will be offering a Windows 7 upgrade package for those of us still running XP, though the news is somewhat sullied by the fact that an upgrade will require a complete wipe. So with that out of the way, this rumored pricing isn’t terrible. It places entry-level pricing at the same level as Vista and knocks $80 off the Ultimate edition, though we know Ultimate will only be available during promotional periods. Home Premium pricing jumps up by $20 which seems a tad odd, while Professional maintains its $300 price tag. Given that the price model was hardly among notable barriers for Vista we wouldn’t be surprised if these prices indeed end up hitting shelves. As far as upgrade pricing is concerned, we would expect it to stick close to Vista as well. While the base upgrade price for Vista is $99 however, Microsoft should get a little saucy with 7 and show us a $77 limited-time launch price on the Starter edition. Make it happen, Redmond.

[Via OSNews]

Read

Tags:
, , , , , , , , ,
32 Comments

Related Articles

  • Brett

    Here’s a crazy idea. Since you can only upgrade across from your current edition (Home Premium to Home Premium 7, for example), why not have an across the board upgrade rate. Also, since we all got suckered into a 4 year lifespan on Vista and them never getting it right, make it a reasonable cost. $50 to upgrade, or crossgrade, if you will. Let’s face it, if Vista worked as expected, we would have no need to change. This coming from a guy who loves Vista Home Premium x64. But, if we got a lemon, make it up to us. Then we will be prone to singing the praises of Windows again and not dodging the question of what OS we are using, like it or not.

  • Brandon

    How about you buy a mac and pay 9.95 for snow leopard when it it comes out but if you have a intel mac all ready you can get snow leopard for 29$ wow the beat a windows upgrade for 200$ any day

  • dvjx

    Win7 dissapointing? In what way? Because it uses less resources? Is more stable than Vista? – give some examples of what you mean. How could you decide something when you haven’t tried it yet?

  • dvjx

    That pricing is incorrect…

  • dvjx

    How about not…

  • oeu

    I will be upgrading to windows 7, and i will happily pay the price. I could stay with windows xp, but i have tried windows 7 and i like it. Beats being stuck with something like linux or a mac. I don’t want to be limited on what software i can buy/download, and a well built computer beats a mac any day, price and OS

  • Brett

    1) Lets just put this whole mac thing to rest. Macs are way too expensive to even consider. They run less great software than any PC. What they don’t charge you for the OS, they rape you for on hardware that isn’t any better than a PC. MAC OS is rediculously more complicated than Windows and always will be. Just because you got ripped on your hardware doesn’t mean that I should follow in your footsteps to make you feel better about your purchase. The “problems” associated with Windows are minimal and don’t affect most consumers. So, it still is the way to go.

    I have been using Win 7 RC for several months now and will swear by it. MAC and the fanboy users should be trembling where they stand. Even Vista has been good. I have had no problems with x64 home premium. So, if my upgrades to new editions are around $100 every few years, thats fine with me. The fact that Win 7 runs way smoother than Vista is a plus and just enforces my decision to go forward with it. MS is taking into consideration backwards compatibility for users of old systems, too. I’d say they are making right anything they have done wrong. I won’t even consider re-doing the infrastructure in my business or my home, since it all works beautifully the way it is.

    Conclusion) Let’s face it, If you total up the cost of 2 laptops, 1 home server, 1 xbox360 and a desktop (all new within a 2 year period), you can’t even buy half of that in a MAC situation. Plus, all of the systems come pre-loaded with my OS, so, you can’t even say I was out any money for Windows. I’m still going to come out ahead on that budget upgrading everything to Win 7. MS still keeps my investments in tact and still far more cost effective and streamline with 90% of the business world. You can argue that people are changing to MAC in office situations, but, you are wrong. Most I have dealt with in IT have either changed from MAC to PC or just stayed PC in an XP environment until Vista passes. Let’s face it, that’s just smart business. If a company didn’t have the money to take the plunge to Vista, they surely don’t have the money to change to MAC and it just wouldn’t make any sense to entertain the thought, since most business infrastructures are based on PC and Office. When MAC becomes more cost effective (cheap) and less proprietary, then they have a chance. But, not until then.

    Windows 7, here I come.

    Bottom line =
    MAC laptop $1000 + $20 upgrade for OS
    vs
    PC laptop $400 + $99 upgrade for OS

    Now multiply that times all of your company or home systems. The math speaks for itself.

1 2
blog comments powered by Disqus