Windows 8 Pricing – will the OS live up to expectations?
Microsoft surprises us with cheap Windows 8 Upgrade
Anyone who’s a regular reader of RGT knows I like to throw my thoughts into things – and this is certainly an unexpected move by Microsoft. I have used pretty much every version of Windows since 3.11, with most of them being fairly decent (windows 98) to damn good (Windows 7) – and some being… well, not so good (Windows ME comes to mind).
However, a rather shock announcement has been delivered, that if you own a valid Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 license, you’ll be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Professional for just $39.99. The DVD version however, will cost you a little more, $69.99.
If you’ve purhcased a PC that has a version of Windows 7 SP1 on it (so in other words, a recent PC purchase, you’ll be able to upgrade for an insanely cheap $14.99, with the offer good until the end of January, 2013.
This is a gigantic shift in the upgrade pricing of Windows products, with the windows 7 Home Premium costing $119.99 and Windows 7 Professional $199.99 for the upgrade.
An image of the windows 8 upgrade advisor
Microsoft Learning from Apple’s OS releases?
This shift is certainly a huge surprise, but at the same time does follow the very cheap price MS released Windows 7 for at the start. I remember pre-ordering mine for about £60 for the W7 Home Premium.
Are Microsoft going to start following Apple’s Operating System price points, or could it be something else? Perhaps Windows 8 isn’t as popular with users (with both media and analysts included) as MS hoped and they just want to say they managed to sell a certain amount of units.
As always, we’ll keep you folks updated!
