Thursday, June 25th 2009
Microsoft Announces Windows 7 Retail Prices Ahead of General Availability
Microsoft unveiled the retail pricing structure of its upcoming Windows 7 operating system, and its three important variants: Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate, elaborating on the pricing on both the upgrade and full versions. Microsoft also announced that customers buying PCs pre-installed with existing versions of Windows from select sources (retailers or OEMs), will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 at "little or no cost". The company also announced that select retailers in certain markets will be able to offer for a limited period of time, a pre-order discount scheme that can reduce the price by as much as 50 percent.
Here are the prices (in USD):
Source:
The Windows Blog
Here are the prices (in USD):
- Windows 7 Home Premium - $199.99 (full version), $119.99 (upgrade)
- Windows 7 Professional - $299.99 (full version), $199.99 (upgrade)
- Windows 7 Ultimate - $319.99 (full version), $219.99 (upgrade)
244 Comments on Microsoft Announces Windows 7 Retail Prices Ahead of General Availability
I honestly don't even think Norton AV has been updated for Intel.
If you want to focus strickly on the mainstream consumer, then PCs come with OSes just like Macs do. And when you upgrade, you get a new OS also.
And it is very true on both sides that you don't have to buy every "update" or whatever you want to call it. I still happily run a laptop with Win2000 on it. The difference is that Win2000 is still recieving at least security updates from Microsoft, while OSX 10.0 recieves no support from Apple, and hasn't for years. Even if you assume people took the free upgrade to 10.1, that version hasn't been supported for years either. And for the most part, support from Apple in the form of security patches(and yes OSX needs security patches) ends very quickly after a new product is released.
Samsung no longer supports my model of LCD. Maybe we should all be hating on them too, for killing the 204B. :cry:
Microsoft supports old software well past its lifetime. This is also why we have 2 version of windows, a 32 and 64 bit. This is also why the transition for Microsoft is so utterly painful.
Vista should have been the primary inroads for 64 bit, windows 7 should have been 64 bit only IMO. Help eliminate this rediculus version list, and obscene pricing.
but hey, why not add a whole parallel product line to confuse consumers. They already don't know what they're buying anyways.
And OSX is more expensive in the long run than Windows, assuming that you buy a copy every new release. So you should really get off your OSX-is-cheaper high horse.
Window's transition to 64-bit was much nicer than OSX's. With Winodws it was "you got an old app that you need to use, fine we offer 32-bit support for that". With OSX it was "you got an old app that you need to use, too fucking bad". Very true also. While Apple dictates what hardware OSX is run on, Microsoft does not have that luxtury, at least not nearly as much as Apple does.
Hell, when they went Intel, the PPC apps still worked (and still do work). PPC is supported until Snow Leopard releases.
Oh yeah, It's been at least a year since I've seen a x86 Pc product,That's not sold for something like a netbook,It's highly unlikely your going to buy a Pc with Windows 7 and use something that needs x86,and if you do it's time to upgrade anyways!!!!!!!!
Not to mention the business side of things. They want to attract major corporations into using a new OS. Very many of these companies may rely on older computer controlled equipment that has no 64bit drivers. If there was no 32 bit version, they would have to spend even more money to upgrade hardware, or at very least commission a team of programmers to write and debug custom drivers. Both adding unwanted expense.
You are thinking in far too narrow of a market. If the demand for 32bit wasn't there, MS wouldn't make it. But as it stands, the market still calls for 32bit, whether we like that fact or not.
And look at it this way how much longer do you think MS is going to offer 32bit,what like 2 years
It's how the economic stimulus plan work's, companies upgrade put us to work and we all progress
As for Netbooks and all in ones I do think MS should make a 32bit OS but not call it W7 as it will not have nearly the same features as W7 That's why I think MS would do best to call it something different.
The main rerason I think MS is still offering 32bit is this, BAD PUBLICITY, they cannot afford to have another Vista Blunder, you know cause a lot of people still think Vista sucks when it far exceeds Xp in every way. They just don't need more press on how most Pc's are not compatable, so they will offer 32bit until people get to know W7 as A RELIABLE OS and then will most likely cut 32bit support
instead, Apple forces developers to do what they do best. Fix the broken stuff.
God forbid a company force developers to not be lazy with their products :mad:
Normally they are given quite a lead time with advancing their program, too. Carbon not being supported was known at the start of the Intel transition, and is finally being phased out with Snow Leopard.
Hardly Apple's fault, for doing their job of properly progressing their software.
Instead, we have Microsoft keeping VB6 alive on life support, because people are too ingrained into ineffecient, and pile of shit code. if Microsoft didn't design these half assed solutions in the first place, they wouldn't be in the upgrade mess that they are now. (Looking at you office 2007, deciding to drop Lotus Notes support. Way to make our life hell.) Since win7 is releasing 32 bit, probably another 5.
And the PPC app support has been laughable at best, half the PPC apps never worked, forcing consumers to either wait for an x86 port, or find a different product if one existed. I find it funny how you contradict yourself in the same post just to try and make Microsoft look bad. You bitch about them not dropping support for old code and instead milking it, when in reality they are simply still trying to support as many hardware configurations as possible. This is in fact a good thing, IMO.
Then you turn right back around and bash Microsoft for dropping Lotus Notes support...A platform so ancient running on code so old, most of the industry agrees that it should have died ages ago. But instead it hasn't, and has continued to recieve new releases for the sole reason that it continued to have Microsoft Office support...:laugh:
There is no point in arguing about it really though. Apple's transition and Microsoft transition was very different because the two are in different business models. Microsoft has always had to support as many hardware configurations as possible, while Apple doesn't. It was a lot easier for Apple to transition to 64-bit than it was for Microsoft because Microsoft still has to support 32-bit hardware. While Apple can tell anyone not capable of running 64-bit "Fuck off, go buy some new hardware". After all, forcing people to buying new hardware by dropping support for hardware only a few years old is part of Apples business model also.
And of course apple can say "fuck off" to people wanting snow leopard that cannot run it on their current hardware.
Why?
Because all intel macs are 64 bit. If you can't run snow leopard, that means you're running PPC still.
Convenient? Or just well played cards?
At the time VB was developed, there wasn't anything better. Actually, yes I did, because I prefer to educate myself instead of just bashing Microsoft whenever they do anything. And I jumped up and down with joy when I found out. No one should still be using Locus Notes, the program was a POS the day it was released, and it is an even bigger POS today compared to the alternatives.
And if you are trying to open Lotus files in Office, you should have converted them to Office files a long time ago...:shadedshu That isn't Microsoft's business model, and would piss off a lot of people with 32-bit hardware, me being one of them. There are still brand new computers being released on the market without 64-bit support, Microsoft would be idiotic to not support these computers with their latest OS. Again, Microsoft doesn't have the luxury that Apple has, they don't control the hardware their OS runs on. They would be bashed beyond belief if they dropped 32-bit support in Win7, look how badly they were bashed when they raised the minimum memory up to 512MB...
In fact, if they did drop 32-bit support from Win7, I bet you would be one of the first ones to bash Microsoft for doing it... I find it odd how completely wrong you are here. For someone that loves Apple so much, I would expect you to actually know what you are talking about when it comes to them. Or at least do some research.
The first iMacs and Macbooks used the standard Core Duo, with no 64-bit support. According to Apple, Snow Leapard will work with these processors...meaning Apple is still doing exactly what you are bashing Microsoft for, supporting 32-bit and confusing the transition...:laugh:
I'm done arguing, you clearly have little clue as to what you are even saying.
AS far as MS needing 32bit support, I agree. It still needs to have it, at least right now with 7. Tho I think 7 should be the last. MS's market is much larger. It has to support ALL current x86 and x86-64 hardware. Apple can get away with dropping 32bit support because they're OS is written for very specific hardware, MS doesn't have that luxury. I'm glad they stuck with 32bit on 7. At first I thought it was silly, but then I realized how well 7 performs, and realized it would be great on a netbook, unlike Vista.
I also disagree on the PPC support. Trusty me, it is very, VERY good. I still have a G5 PowerMac sitting here to compare to my Core2 iMac. When we got the iMac, almost everything that ran on my G5, still ran on the iMac, including PPC only apps. Adobe, MS Office, Maya, Cubase, Reason, and a bunch of others I can't think of, all worked without a problem. The only exceptions were those that require specific drivers and such. Yeah, they took a little bit of a performance hit, but considering it had to emulate an entirely different architecture, and do it seamlessly, Apple did one hell of a job on it. Even you have to admit it.
Additionally Vista SP2 still works fine, and hell, so does XP... nothing wrong with XP except for no dx10 support (which really isn't a big deal...)
My only problem with Apple dropping PPC support is now a lot of people's Power Macs aren't supported. Those were extremely expensive mahcines, and sold well into 2006. To have no new OS support on a computer that is only 3 years old sucks, IMO. I really feel bad for all the customers of the expensive PPC machine that Apple is screwing over with the latest OS release. IMO, they should have supported PPC for at least 10 years after the Intel switch. As there are some pretty expensive, and pretty powerful PPC machines still in use today. Even if support for PPC was limitted to G5s only, that would be enough IMO, but there should be some PPC support still.
And you are exactly right, Win7 needs 32-bit support because Microsoft still has a huge 32-bit hardware install base. Remember the huge backlash Microsoft had to deal with simply because they raised the memory requirement to 512MB...image how bad it would be if they required a 64-bit processor! Apple can do things like dropping support for huge amounts of hardware still in use today, because it fits their business model, and their customers expect it. However, Microsoft can not.
And Vista runs wonderfully on my Netbook, it actually runs better than XP Home did. The memory management on Vista is so much better than XP, even though it doesn't look like it from the outside(as more memory tends to be taken up at any one time). I can't wait for Win7 though, it should be even better than Vista on netbooks.