Why is Vista so Expensive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alias
  • Start date Start date
a previous full version of Windows 2000 Professional or XP (any edition) OEM
and Retail.
More info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeinfo.mspx
--
Andre
Blog: http://adacosta.spaces.live.com
My Vista Quickstart Guide:
http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!9709.entry
will_s said:
Ok, can you explain what you need to qualify for upgrades to the Vista
Premiums etc ?

I have XP OEM, XP Home Upgrade and XP Pro Upgrade. What can I upgrade to ?


Andre Da Costa said:
Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I will buy the Home Premium
upgrade since I have a qualifying copy of MCE 2005.
--
Andre
Blog: http://adacosta.spaces.live.com
My Vista Quickstart Guide:
http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!9709.entry
Alias said:
Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin] wrote:
Actually, Windows Vista pricing is inline with Windows XP skus, you
should also take into account the upgrade pricing. The difference is
pricing actually affects the premium versions of Windows such as Home
Premium and Ultimate which offers more features and services.

Spin, spin, spin. It's more expensive. Period. They lied. Period.

Alias
Click to expand...
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Windows 95 was $100, I remember paying the 199 for 2000 also. The thing is,
a lot of users out there won't have to complain much because they qualify
for upgrade pricing if XP Home came with their computer, which is a $100
upgrade. So pricing has remained consistent over the years, but what seems
to confuse people is the multiple editions over the years, make Windows seem
like it has a premium price.
 
Without the operating system (a good one at that) the hardware is pretty
much useless.
 
V said:
Which is still far too expensive comparing to
the prices of PCs (and hardware in general)
which went down. Microsoft applications
relatively went up, by not going down
as prices hardware did.
Click to expand...

There is severe competition for all general hardware (mainboards, cpu,
memory, display adaptor, cases, monitors etc.) whereas Microsoft has a
monopoly of about 95 Percent of the operating systems worldwide.

Roy
 
Roy said:
Alias schrieb:
...


Well, MS have just started catching pirates, haven't they;-)


rOy
Click to expand...

They've caught some pirates? All I can see that they've been doing is
running rough shod over their paying customers with all the
WPA/WGA/N/SPP ad nauseum trips.

Alias
 
David said:
I am curious as to why you frequent this newsgroup. You are so
anti-Microsoft and you contribute nothing except negativity that's neither
constructive nor helpful.
Click to expand...

Um, I like MS products very much and use them extensively. I try to help
people on these groups and get help myself. I merely object to being
accused of a crime and that the onus of proof is on me through flawed
programs.
I don't know how old you are but maybe there's
still time for you to get a life?
Click to expand...

Your affinity for ad hominems, and not addressing the issues, reveals
more about your maturity than mine.

Alias
 
**__MIke__** said:
Alias Wrote:

"But MS lied and said that catching pirates will make prices lower. I see
you don't care and will just ask how high when MS tells you to jump."
Click to expand...

First ad hominem:
I see from this and *most* of your other posts that you are like a bored
child who is happiest when entering a bathroom stall in which the toilet
has not been flushed, so that you can put in your stick and start to stir.
Click to expand...

Second ad hominem:
However, given the unlikely chance that you actually are able and wish
to understand my point, I'll offer this reply:

I wasn't talking necessarily about M$; what I wrote was more a comment
on the American society. People seem to believe that there is "free"
money, but there is not; someone always has to pick up the bill, and
that is invariably the consumer and taxpayer. When you are running a
business (any business) you *must* make a profit or your business ceases
to exist. Any fine, judgment, etc. that costs your business money *must*
be made up for. If your source of revenue is selling products, you
*must* raise prices and/or sell more of your products to do this.
Clearly we need fines and court cases to keep the most egregious
companies from acting criminally, but we have reached a point where
"quick draw lawsuits" are so common that prices and taxes are regularly
driven up by frivolous lawsuits.
Click to expand...

And you see this as a "good thing"?
Don't even get me started on abuses of the welfare system.

-Mike
Click to expand...

I didn't bring up the welfare system. I agree, the one in the USA is
pathetic. Perhaps if they paid attention to Europe, they could learn a
thing or two.

Alias
 
Roy said:
There is severe competition for all general hardware (mainboards, cpu,
memory, display adaptor, cases, monitors etc.) whereas Microsoft has a
monopoly of about 95 Percent of the operating systems worldwide.

Roy
Click to expand...

Good point.

Alias
 
I think alot of what has been said is FUD, and useless rubbish
that the ordinary reader can go without.

It's not that Vista is expensive, it's the baggage that comes with
it. The baggage is the fact that it damn near quadrupled the
Windows system requirements in comparison to Windows XP.

Many people will need to upgrade their computers just to run
this beast. Some people will have to buy new computers.

That is cost, indirect, but I still attribute it to Windows Vista.
It's all part of the investment one makes with this OS.

Personally, I'm about ready to renew my Red Hat Enterprise
Linux subscription and go for a switch. Certainly, I won't be
buying any new hardware to run Windows Vista on a machine
that runs UT2004, Quake 4, and other high end video games
without a hitch just because they wanted to hardwire some
low performance, hardware-centric graphics elements into their
user interface.

- Nate.
 
Richard said:
I believe Win98se, full install, was $179-199 also.

Windows NT 4.0 was $299.00 for the full install.

Windows 2000 was $199 for the upgrade install.

Vista is in the right ballpark.
Click to expand...

Yes, inflate the price at least $100 dollars from the last version of
Windows!
 
"Many people will need to upgrade their computers..."
Why?
"Some people will have to buy new computers"
Again, Why?

What is the need that will drive these people you refer to Vista?
That is the real question.

The reality is, just as it was in the past when other versions of Windows
were released, most do not need the new operating system.
Windows XP will probably be supported for several years to come.
Most can upgrade when Vista comes with their new computer that they would
have needed new OS or not.

No one should upgrade simply because it is here.

Follow the above as well as other things thrifty shoppers do and the price
of Vista will be very inexpensive.
 
New computers shipping with Windows XP will undoubtedly
be cheaper than those shipping with WIndows Vista, due to
the system requirements. The minute WIndows XP starts
coming on computers (replacing XP), the prices will go up because
the hardware requirements will go up. Hopefully, there will be
a choice to get XP as opposed to Vista, just as there was the
choice to get W2k as opposed to XP for a number of years.

Whether you upgrade now or whatever, the fact and the matter
is that you cannot just take the new OS and pop the DVD in
the drive to upgrade your system like you could with virtually every
other version of Windows. Along with the [higher] costs of the OS
will come other complimentary costs that are just too much to
expect with an OS change, especially for those who JUST brought
a new computer not long ago.

- Nate.
 
Arachnid wrote:

"Piracy and lawsuits do not increase the maximum that consumers are
willing to pay, thus they do not increase the price of Windows."

That is a somewhat naive and short sighted position.
Click to expand...

No, yours is.
You do have one basic premise correct: Neither M$, nor any other
corporation is going to accept making less profit. Thus, when expenses
increase, so do prices. When a corporation's expenses are increased by
hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars, they do not simply say,
"Well we'll just make 663 million less in profit this year." They say,
"alright, lets find out where we're going to make an extra 663 million
to cover that expense."
Click to expand...

You're **STILL** missing the point that a monopoly will already have set
prices at the maximum that consumers will pay. If prices could have been
increased without losing sales, the monopoly would already have done it.
Piracy and legal expenses reduce profits but will not increase what
consumers are willing to pay and therefore will not increase retail
prices. Raising retail prices simply isn't an option.

Now a competitive marketplace is different. But Microsoft is a
bona-fide, certified-by-the-courts monopoly.
Those who don't, file bankruptcy and/or go out of business.
Click to expand...

MS is about $40 billion from having to file for bankrupcy.
 
"the fact and the matter is that you cannot just take the new OS and pop the
DVD in
the drive to upgrade your system"
Obviously not true since I have done just that with two of my computers,
Windows XP to various builds of Vista.
One is a 1.5 year old laptop and the other is a bunch of parts I scraped
together, the newest part is the over a year old video card.
I expect Windows Vista to perform quite well on both with the exception of
Aero on the laptop.
Obviously this will not be so with all computers, but my two prove your
"fact" as in reality fiction.

"the prices will go up because the hardware requirements will go up"
Not true, the hardware is already there and being sold with Windows XP.
The hardware does not suddenly change when a new operating system arrives.

Compare the price of a typical starter computer with Windows Vista when
available as with a starter computer sold with Windows XP 5 years ago.
Compare a high end gaming computer then and now. Etc...
The prices will probably be similar making a price decrease when inflation
is taken into account.
 
And no offense, but I have a problem when an OS in VMWare with 1/10th
of the resources (rendering it's desktop with OpenGL and offering many the
same
graphical capabilities as Windows Vista, and a pretty damn good Vista theme)
is
outperforming the OS I have on my harddrive to run my system. If they can
do it,
why the hell should I need to upgrade *anything* in my fairly new computer
system
to run a new version of Windows. Can you explain this?

I can just buy WindowBlinds and achieve the same thing that Vista offers on
XP
as far as the graphics are concerned. It runs flawlessly on my hardware and
offers
much the same capabilities (what's so new about what Microsoft is doing in
the
Vista UI, anyways?) Or I can just run Linux, since even the games that run
on
both OSes are more robust and smoother on the latter, anyways.

I hope they hurry up with Windows XP SP3.

- Nate.
--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


Nathaniel L. Walker said:
New computers shipping with Windows XP will undoubtedly
be cheaper than those shipping with WIndows Vista, due to
the system requirements. The minute WIndows XP starts
coming on computers (replacing XP), the prices will go up because
the hardware requirements will go up. Hopefully, there will be
a choice to get XP as opposed to Vista, just as there was the
choice to get W2k as opposed to XP for a number of years.

Whether you upgrade now or whatever, the fact and the matter
is that you cannot just take the new OS and pop the DVD in
the drive to upgrade your system like you could with virtually every
other version of Windows. Along with the [higher] costs of the OS
will come other complimentary costs that are just too much to
expect with an OS change, especially for those who JUST brought
a new computer not long ago.

- Nate.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Why you have to upgrade anything in your "fairly new computer system" is not
a question I can answer.
You should ask that question to the seller and whoever selected the
components.

As I said before Vista is fine on the two computers I have it installed and
I do not consider either new or even recent.

As for Windows XP SP-3, currently planned for the 1st half of 2008 so you
could easily have to wait more than a year for it.
 
2.8GHz P4 HT
1GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
160GB HD 7200 RPM
128 MB ATI (Pixel Shader 1.4, Woohoo!)
SB Audigy 2

I'm sorry, but my Operating System should not have higher
system requirements than Unreal Tournament 2004 or
Quake 4. I reckon I will be able to run Unreal Tournament
2007 on it relatively comfortably, since I can run 2004 with
everything to the max (online too) and I have not experienced
any problems.

Do you see the logic in the above statement?

Do you agree or disagree?

I am not an Anti-MS fanboy, and I have several Linux distros
that do nothing but sit in their boxes (I buy subscriptions, not
download and burn), but why should I be compelled to pay a
hefty price like this for something that's doing last year's innovations
and raising the system requirements of it exponentially?

Don't answer that. I will just cease the ranting and not upgrade.
I can do without the MS hand-holding :)

I don't mind waiting a year for another Service Pack for XP.

I will continue runnign Windows XP with the Virtual Desktop
PowerToy. It doesn't "decide" what hardware I need, but rather
runs quite nicely on what I give it.

FTR, I have a computer running Windows XP with 128 MB of
RAM and i can comfortably run Office/Word, Outlook, and Internet
Explorer on it with minimal lag. It has a 500 MHz AMD K6-2
processor and on-board graphics/sound.

Thanks.

- Nate.
 
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