M
Mark D. VandenBerg
Many people will purchase a new computer with Vista Home Basic or Vista Home
Premium pre-installed in the coming few years and will wish to upgrade to
Home Premium or to Ultimate. There were (my guess, not researched) a
relatively small percentage of people that upgraded from XP Home to XP Pro,
and I believe the percentage of people upgrading Vista to a more premium
version of Vista will be significantly higher.
With Microsoft basically offering a direct sale of the upgrade, they have
circumvented the entire retail world. I would assume that the number of
retail sales for Amazon, NewEgg and their on- and off-line competitors of
Vista upgrades would likely be forecasted in millions of dollars. I believe
the retail stores can not be happy with this arrangement.
So if I am correct in that there will be a much higher percentage of people
upgrading Vista to a premium version, will the retailers be upset enough to
challenge Microsoft? If so, could this be a new "anti-competitive" type of
lawsuit in the making? Perhaps not in the USA, but we are in a global
market, and I think that in the EEC this may be a very realistic
possibility.
Any thoughts?
Mark
Premium pre-installed in the coming few years and will wish to upgrade to
Home Premium or to Ultimate. There were (my guess, not researched) a
relatively small percentage of people that upgraded from XP Home to XP Pro,
and I believe the percentage of people upgrading Vista to a more premium
version of Vista will be significantly higher.
With Microsoft basically offering a direct sale of the upgrade, they have
circumvented the entire retail world. I would assume that the number of
retail sales for Amazon, NewEgg and their on- and off-line competitors of
Vista upgrades would likely be forecasted in millions of dollars. I believe
the retail stores can not be happy with this arrangement.
So if I am correct in that there will be a much higher percentage of people
upgrading Vista to a premium version, will the retailers be upset enough to
challenge Microsoft? If so, could this be a new "anti-competitive" type of
lawsuit in the making? Perhaps not in the USA, but we are in a global
market, and I think that in the EEC this may be a very realistic
possibility.
Any thoughts?
Mark