Windows Vista For Cheap(er)
by Brandon Miles ~ February 29th, 2008. Filed under: .CNet is reporting that Microsoft has announced plans to lower the cost of the Windows Vista operating system. “For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from XP or another copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159.”
Could this be a sign of struggling sales? One would think so, considering how relatively new Vista is in the PC market. But with such mixed reviews, and with the still recent massive migration to Apple’s Leopard OS (which released at $129 to rave reviews), maybe Microsoft figures anything that makes their software more accessible will be a good move. With Apple’s iWork (which is 100% Microsoft Office compatible) still at $79 versus the $300-$400 price tag for Office on either system, it was only a matter of time before prices started to drop. Combined with the growth spurt in the open source software market (Linux, OpenOffice, etc…), these price drops will probably become more of a trend as things unfold.