No Vista Ultimate upgrade: has Microsoft lost the plot?

Stan Beer
Sunday, 29 October 2006 12:49

Opinion and Analysis

Microsoft as predicted months ago finally announced last week that it would allow PC buyers from now until March when Windows Vista is released to the public to upgrade for a substantial discount or for free, depending on the version. However, Microsoft will not give new PC buyers any discount if they upgrade to the new premium product Vista Ultimate indicating that the software giant has lost the plot.

As it stands, in many countries upgrades from Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to Windows Vista Home Premium, and upgrades from Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Business 64, can upgrade for free plus shipping and handling costs.

Upgrades from Windows XP Home Edition to Windows Vista Home Basic and to Windows Vista Home Premium can be had for about a 50% discount from the boxed product upgrade price, once again plus the cost of shipping and handling.

Basically Vista Ultimate is nothing more than a hamburger with works product, offering users the functionality of both the business and home Vista products. One would think therefore that users who pay good money for a business or home XP version and who would get either a discount or free swap over to their Vista equivalents would therefore get at least some credits toward Vista Ultimate. No way Jose, says Microsoft.

"There is currently no upgrade path under the Tech Guarantee programs from Windows XP to Ultimate, since Vista Ultimate is an entirely new high end product with significant functionality and value-added compared to existing high end Windows XP product," stated Microsoft in an emailed answer to our question.

So let's see if we can get this straight. A user who buys a PC now with a top of the range high-end business or home Windows XP operating system should expect to pay the full price if they want the new top of the range Vista product? No credit at all for the operating system they just bought?

That sounds like an awfully good reason to do one of two things: hold off buying a new PC until Vista is available, or go ahead and buy your PC but hold off upgrading to Vista for a few years until you've got full use out of the operating system you've paid good money for. If Microsoft really expects users to pay twice for an operating system within a few months, then the software company really has lost the plot.