Don't expect prices to drop much. XP list prices are the same now, in
2006, as they were at release. Until this past year, it was very rare
to find an actual retail price more than 20% below that list, and more
often only 10% below list. Lately --- last six months --- I've seen a
few, very rare sales at 50% off, which I attribute to blowing out excess
XP inventory. But I think that what you are going to find, six or 12
months from now, is retail prices mostly 10% below current list prices.
The best deals are likely to be rebate deals for the first week or two
of introduction. In this past, with the purchase of a new copy of XP
and/or Office AT FULL PRICE, there have been introductory rebate deals
in which you got additional items essentially free after rebate. These
deals have been spectacular, but they involved a lot of up-front money.
I remember my first digital camera came this way, a Fuji Finepix 1300
at Staples. At the time, it was a $400 digital camera. It was "free
after rebate" with the purchase of some version of Office or Windows
back in 2000 or 2001. I expect that we will see a lot of this kind of
thing with the release. But it will only last for a week or two. When
XP was released, the deals were so good that I bought copies of XP at
Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax AND CompUSA. In each case, the stuff that
came with them -- free after rebate -- was worth more than XP itself.