Microsoft today announced it will be reducing the price on several Stand-Alone versions of Windows Vista. In the announcement Microsoft says that even though sales for Windows Vista have been solid they will be dropping the price of the operating system sold in retail stores.
“Windows Vista has been on the market for more than a year now, with more than 100 million licenses sold in its first year. While this is great progress, we see an opportunity to grow our business even more with some of the new editions we introduced with Windows Vista. Today, the vast majority of Windows licenses are sold with PCs; retail stand-alone sales, in contrast, have been primarily from customers who value being early adopters and those building their own machines. We’ve observed market behavior, however, that suggests an opportunity to expand Windows stand-alone sales to other segments of the consumer market.” Said Brad Brooks Corporate Vice President, Windows Consumer Product Marketing.
Brad also said “Today we announced a variety of price reductions for copies of Windows Vista sold on retail shelves. In developed markets, the price changes will most notably impact upgrade retail versions of the new editions we introduced in 2007—Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions. In emerging markets, we are combining full and upgrade Home Basic and Home Premium versions into full versions of these editions and instituting price changes to meet the demand we see among first-time Windows customers who want more functionality than is available in current Windows XP editions. In addition, we are also adjusting pricing on Windows Vista Ultimate in emerging markets to be comparable to price changes developed market customers will see.
These price changes will take effect globally with the retail release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 later this year, though some markets will see reduced prices sooner as a result of promotions many of our partners already are driving, such as Amazon.com in the United States.”
Microsoft has not confirmed how much Vista will drop but I was told by a colleague that Windows Vista Ultimates Price will drop 27%, this means it will now cost $365 USD.
I personally thing if Microsoft wants to sell more copies of Windows Vista, they will need to get rid of Home Basic, lower the price of Home Premium to a little bit lower than the Home Basic Price and drop Windows Vista Ultimate to $299.
Comments: (5)
Chris on Fri, Feb 29th, 2008 at 01:21 AM
Guess they finally woke up and realized noone wants to pay 400 for an OS (Ultimate), especially since ultimate extras is a complete sham. That team does NOTHING, there’s one area Microsoft can save themselves some money, via a job cut (fire the UE team, they’re wasting company resources 
)
on Fri, Feb 29th, 2008 at 01:42 AM
I think if MS wants to sell Vista, they are going to have to get rid of Home Basic and drop the prices accordingly.
Premium would = Home Basic price
Ultimate would = Premium price
on Fri, Feb 29th, 2008 at 12:37 PM
Do you think they desperate for money?
on Fri, Feb 29th, 2008 at 04:53 PM
I think microsoft is just in it for attention
Berry Tree on Sat, Mar 08th, 2008 at 07:09 PM
Its about time. That $400 price tag is ridiculous.
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