Why Windows 7 Costs so Much

Once again, one of the Robert X. Cringley's comes up with a weird, almost-conspiracy theory to explain external appearances in the bizarre commercial operating systems market. This just happens to be the pro-Apple Cringely, so he attributes some small evil to MSFT.

If Microsoft convinces a substantial slice of the population to buy new hardware to run Vista SP3, that's fine with me. I have a bunch of people who will give me their old, perfectly serviceable, hardware for free.

Quoting:The better question to ask is why Microsoft decided to set the price point where they did? And the answer to that one is quite simple: Microsoft doesn’t actually want you to upgrade to Windows 7 at all.

No, the answer is 'Microsoft asks for it what their customers are willing to pay'.

That's why Windows XP for netbooks is only ~$20, why 'genuine' Windows + MS Office is only $6 for Chinese students and probably even cheaper for the Chinese governments. That's why (the municipality of) Paris pays less for its Microsoft software than - for example - London or Berlin.

It seems Mac-users are not willing to pay too much for their software, probably because they paid enough to Apple when they bought their hardware. Possibly they're also not willing to pay too much because the difference between two versions (10.5 and 10.6) is not that big anyway, and because 10.5 is still OK to work with, in contrary to Windows Vista.

I had a weird thought reading this "weird" article. What if it's not MS we have to worry about, but the OEM's? What if they're pulling all the strings, including MS's strings to sell more computers every time there's a new version of that 90% market share OS?

Just a.. theory.. Don't take this as a serious position. :P

Quoting:as businesses, for example, decide to upgrade a whole office with new PC’s rather than pay $119.95 per desk just for new software.

Actually Businesses who have lots of computers don't pay $119.95 per license, they buy a site license that drops the price to less than half that.

Also for buying new computers, unless they are due for replacement, is still a way more expensive way to go.

No it's just price gouging. But I don't care. Anyone silly enough to buy a Windows OS deserves to pay more.

Quoting:What if it's not MS we have to worry about, but the OEM's?

It works both ways, doesn't it? Microsoft makes sure people need faster computers, OEM's make sure people buy new Windows. Even if it's not an agreement, this is still practice; reality.