The Windows 7 RTM announcement that isn't - yet

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 10:07

Opinion and Analysis

Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc says that “beta testers and enthusiasts” are being given a “special thank you” that seems to consist of the words “special thank you”.

Any beta tester expecting a free or discounted copy has so far had to live in the right country to access some time limited special discounts.

If you were living in the US, Japan, Canada, the UK or wherever else Microsoft had its very time-limited Windows 7 “sales”, you were able to get one of the Win 7 versions at up to 50% off – whether you were a beta tester or not.

While the US sale lasted several days, sales in the UK seemed to last for a millisecond before “stocks” were sold out – as if software itself could sell out in today’s world of downloads.

Sadly Microsoft has not yet made any such offers to its Australian customers, but Microsoft has publicly promised “more special deals” to come, presumably in various parts of the world, so if you missed out on Microsoft’s initial half-price offer (or weren’t in a country where it was offered), you’ll likely get another chance at a discount in the future.

One long awaited development from Microsoft is an official “Family Pack” for Windows 7. It will only be offered as a 3-user pack, and not also in a 5-user pack as Apple is doing with its OS X (or unlimited user packs as free Linux distros offer), but at least Microsoft has finally woken up to the fact a family discount should be offered.

Let’s hope the family pack is permanent, covers many more markets than Microsoft’s “select markets” possibly implies, and doesn’t just degenerate into an unwelcome time-limited special offer that will never be repeated until Windows 8 comes along.

“Regular” consumers will still have to wait until October 22 to buy a boxed copy of Windows 7 or to buy a PC pre-loaded with the software.

Some retail copies and some OEM PCs will probably be on sale a little before the October 22 deadline, as has happened in the past with previous versions of Windows, while those who have already pre-ordered Windows 7 should receive it “sometime around the October 22nd timeframe”, which Microsoft says depends on the retailer.

Of course the nanosecond Windows 7 does go officially RTM and leaks to the Internet, hackers and pirates will be hard at work infecting RTM copies of Windows 7 with malware, creating license key and activation code cracks and more.

But that’s no surprise – hackers have already been doing this with the Windows 7 beta, RC and leaked pre-RTM builds.

The end of the beginning of the Windows 7 saga is nigh, as is the start of Windows 7’s next “general availability” chapter, but whether it’s the beginning of the end for Microsoft due to the threat of Google Chrome, Ubuntu, Mac OS X, open source or something else is still very much up for debate.