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Microsoft today performed a goofy blog-announce of the retail pricing of Windows 7 full copies and Windows 7 upgrades and the "good news" is that Windows 7 is slightly cheaper than equivalent versions of Vista. However, customers can save roughly 50% off the upgrade prices in some countries if they preorder in the next month or so at selected retailers (varies by country – e.g. June 26 through July 11 in the USA "while supplies last" at Best Buy, Amazon, and Microsoft Store).
I always enjoy a little hucksterism, but I have to wonder how enthusiastic owners of Vista PCs are going to be about laying out $120 (or $50 for the special preorder deal) for the most common upgrade of Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium? What’s the value proposition? How many of the few new Windows 7 features that aren’t simply Vista fixes do you really want to pay for?
Even worse off are the suckers who purchased Vista Ultimate which Microsoft wants $219 to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. Throw in a little more cash and you could get a netbook instead. Current Vista owners were the guinea pigs in a flawed Microsoft development process and instead of getting a service pack, they get a bill. Since they either slogged through the morass to make their systems usable (raise your hand if you turned off UAC) or suffered in silence, shouldn’t they get a little more consideration?
Other factoids announced:
Last week Microsoft revealed to selected members of the press their plan for downgrades to Windows 7. Probably least interesting is that for ordinary PC buyers:
According to Microsoft, those buying the Professional or Ultimate editions of Windows 7 with new PCs from OEMs will have the option to downgrade to the XP Professional edition only, provided that the PCs get purchased before April 22, 2011.
A Microsoft spokesperson explained in an e-mail on Wednesday that the XP downgrade option will be in effect for "PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 [namely, before April 22, 2011] or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack, whichever is sooner and if a service pack is developed."
I expect that most consumers don’t care and that this is mostly of interest to small businesses that have some compelling reason to stick with XP for a while. Most usage of downgrade rights in my experience is by large enterprises with volume licenses and IT shops that install custom preloads on their PCs. For them, it’s business as usual:
The rules are a little different for those buying Windows 7 through Microsoft’s Windows Volume Licensing program. If they pay extra for Microsoft’s Software Assurance program, they have "full flexibility to upgrade or downgrade their PCs to older or newer versions of Windows," according to the Microsoft spokesperson.
The ability to downgrade Windows is of particular importance to organizations that need to run older so-called "legacy" applications. These organizations may use custom-built applications running on XP and may need more time before upgrading the OS, either for technical reasons, budgetary reasons or both.
XP is still the primary Windows OS choice among enterprise users. Just 10 percent of enterprises switched from XP to Vista, according to Forrester Research.
Nobody ever got fired by sticking with Windows XP. We’ll see if and when Windows 7 changes the enterprise rules.
Microsoft today released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. What’s new:
It includes all updates that have been delivered since SP1, as well as support for new types of hardware and emerging hardware standards.
As we have mentioned before, here are some of the key benefits of Windows Vista SP2:
- Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches
- Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology
- Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista
- Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration
- Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.
For "updates" in the first line, read "bug fixes" and you’ll get the drift – it’s a roll-up of all fixes plus minor feature upgrades which is just what a service pack should be.
Venturing a bit off topic – here’s a quote from the post above that I enjoyed:
Business customers with Windows Vista will find that the transition from Windows Vista to Windows 7 will be significantly more straightforward due to the high degree of compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7. If your Windows Vista SP1 deployment is already underway we recommend you continue with SP1 as planned. Then you can deploy SP2 using your systems management infrastructure. If you are in the early stages of deployment or still planning Windows Vista deployment our best advice is that you plan on testing and deploying Windows Vista SP2.
If you are like many of the business customers I talk to, you’ll just keep on installing Windows XP until Windows 7 arrives whereupon you’ll go through an evaluation process while still installing Windows XP until you are sure Windows 7 is not a dud.
Ed Bott has been reading the tea leaves and is predicting that Microsoft will be shipping Windows 7 in July 2009:
But here’s the reality: Windows 7 will ship before August 1. It says so right on the release notes page for the beta:
When the Beta expires on August 1, 2009, you’ll need to reinstall a released version of Windows to keep using your computer.
Yes, that could be referring to Windows Vista or XP, but I don’t think so. In fact, you can narrow the release date even further by looking at the leaked details of the Windows 7 Upgrade Program, which is reportedly due to kick off on July 1. (The always-reliable Gregg Keizer has a concise explanation of the program and its details, with some historic subtext.) For Windows Vista, Microsoft’s James O’Neill notes that the free upgrade program started on October 24th, less than two weeks before the RTM date.
Hit the link for a full explanation, but this seems quite credible to me since Windows 7 is really just a Windows Vista Service Pack with a name change and there really isn’t any need for an extended beta process.
However, the question that interests me more is how much Microsoft is going to charge the early Vista adopters for Windows 7 upgrades. If you are able to tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs, Microsoft will merely have traded one public relations disaster for another. A related concern is that if you are a business purchasing department, how would you like to explain to the CEO why you bought Windows Vista machines when Windows 7 was imminent? An upgrade that cost money would be the icing on that cake.
