Vista: Cheaper = Better?

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Friday, February 29th, 2008

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Microsoft is lowering the price of Vista for all you good people out there. Ultimate drops to $219 from $299 and Home Premium drops to $129 from $159, leading analyst to gasp and gape in awe. Why is Microsoft doing this? Are they madmen, so drunk on their own power that they will turn down a twenty spot just because they can?

No. Apparently Home Premium and Ultimate were “new products” for the company, meaning they’d never created a software product aimed at such a slim demographic. My own belief is that folks are simply upgrading PCs rather than buy boxed copies of Vista. With all the talk of incompatibility with old hardware, folks like my neighbor Carmine — a former Hell’s Angel and big fan of Unreal Tournament — don’t want to be bothered with dealing with patches and drivers.

Anyway, if you’ve been putting it off, you’d better get cracking. I’m sure they’ll sell 100 million more copies on the news.

Microsoft chops Vista retail prices [News.com]

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