Is Microsoft listening on Windows 7 pricing?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 09:25

Opinion and Analysis

Well, on top of all of that, we're talking about retail and the OEM copies of Win 7 you'll buy with a white-box computer.

The prices that Dell, HP and other manufacturers pay for Windows is a lot less than what consumers pay at retail and at white box level. So if that's the case and Microsoft makes the bulk of its money from OEM manufacturer sales and corporate/govt licensing...

Why charge so much at retail? It just doesn't make sense...

But plenty of things in this world don't make sense, and yet they are.

And I still want to see faster performance from a final Windows 7 RTM on 2008 netbooks, on all Windows 7 versions, not just some super-stripped Windows 7 Starter Edition.

That was the promise at PDC 2008... we'll see if they truly keep it, or if it turns out to be a "non-core promise" or a "policy commitment not yet fulfilled" as uttered by Australian Prime Ministers.

All those people who choose to upgrade existing PCs to Win 7 will be seeing already existing (Dell, HP) and upcoming multi-touch monitors for desktop systems and multi-touch notebook/tablet/netbook PCs running Windows 7... and those consumers won't want to stay in a touch-free world for long.

Some will wait for a 2nd or 3rd generation of multi-touch technology before buying, but if this technology takes off (with Apple surely working on something for computers given what it has achieved with the iPhone) it will be commonplace sooner rather than later (within 1-2 years) - at last.

Gnome, KDE and other Linux windowing systems will also continually improve touch capabilities, especially as the screens are out there already.

The next 12 months up to Win 7's release and the 6 months thereafter are going to be quite a ride, global recession or not, with Microsoft having to contend with all of its competitors, the EU, etc etc.

It'll be very interesting and fun to watch!