Vista pricing leaked?
By Evan Blass 
posted August 28th 2006 8:05PM
posted August 28th 2006 8:05PM
Now that the commercial release of Microsoft's Vista operating system is just around the corner (well, probably), the question on most people's minds is, "how much is it gonna cost me?" Fortunately, the titular Ed Bott of "Ed Bott's Microsoft Report" over at ZDNet blogs came across some rather interesting information on that very topic this morning; it appears that Microsoft Canada's website accidentally posted the SKUs and matching prices (in Canadian dollars, of course) for all of the forthcoming flavors of Vista. Although the items have since been removed, Bott managed to copy down the prices, and they read as follows: $499 for Ultimate, $379 for Business, $299 for Home Premium, and $259 for Home Basic, with the corresponding upgrades listed at $299, $249, $199, and $129, respectively. Now keep in mind that these are Canadian prices for the Canadian market, so simply doing the currency conversions won't give us an accurate idea of what these packages will cost in the US. In order to put things in perspective, Bott compared the relative prices of future Vista versions with current XP versions in both markets, and extrapolated likely US pricing from that data. Based on his calculations, retail pricing for the full / upgraded flavors of Vista in America should look something like this: Ultimate going for $349 / $199, Business at $269 / $179, Home Premium for $239 / $139, and Home Basic priced around $199 / $99 -- in other words, not much more than you'd be paying for XP today, and nowhere near the high of $450 that'd we'd previously heard.
It's amazing how fast the hacking community is. With only a simple search on google, and your handy dandy bittorrent client any user in the world is able to access TB's of programs, games, movies, and music. I'm sure the people at Microsoft know what is going on. They are lucky for the most part that there is still only a small percentage of people who know how to effectively use search engines and file sharing networks. If everyone knew it could be disasterous. I know some of you out there, whoever is reading this, is running a pirated version of XP Media Center 2005 with pirated games such as Halo, WoW, PoP:TT, Dawn of War 40,000, etc and a collection of other nifty but pirated apps, with a hard drive full of albums you didn't buy and videos you didn't go pay to see. I bet 50 bucks I'll see a pirated version of Vista on Isohunt 2-3 months after it is offically released. I know for sure if its a good hack I may spend my bandwith and time bucks to cop that new Vista or not (I like XP). Cause a college student just cannot afford a brand new copy of that crazy OS. But for some: Ultimate Pirate Edition is surely a "free lunch".
@ mac or windows costs
"I'm going to finally make my move to Mac, it's sounding WAY less expensive to maintain and upgrade...."
right. and tell me how im going to put my AMD64 X2 with a Radeon X1900XTX in a mac? wait, can you even UPGRADE a mac? i will continue to use my Pirate Bay version of XP until Pirate Bay releases a new version ;) you go ahead and use a mac if it makes you feel special. Extra special forces has a spot opening up, the anti flamethrower division. You get your very own supersoaker! Thats creativity from a mac user right there.
"as i said earlier, mac are for creatives. there is nothing creative about designing a linux database for an atm. sorry."
You've obviously never done anything like this if you're saying there is nothing creative about computer programming. sorry.
I do know linux cost me nothing, where as vista's side..
I am not going to lie ... it would have been a better use of my time if I jacked off for a few minutes instead of reading everyone's bitching and I will probably whish I jacked off for a few more minutes instead of writing this.
At a job interview for an Engineering position that I ended up getting the job for - I was asked if I prefered one operating system over another for any reasons - and I said - I use whatever is best for the job and guess what - that is what they wanted to hear.
Computers are tools - I am not going to go out of MY way to spend MY TIME to get SOMEONE ELSES PIECE OF SHIT SOFTWARE to do something it was not designed for.
I have linux servers because guess what - they are good at that - the desktop enviornments are getting better but they still suck - dont try and kid yourself.
I have windows for office and it was great at work on the network - and windows media support - and matlab with database and custom written software thta only works on windows for simulating antenna radiation characteristcs.
I have osx because it is pretty and has a good calendar / email / taskmanager (expose) / parallels for my windows stuff.
I have custom built hardware becuase its cheap and upgradable.
I have apple laptops because you cant upgrade a pc laptop anyway and the apple laptops are better bang for the buck - try optioning up a comprable dell XPS laptop for the same price as a MacBook.
If you don't realize that computers are tools to make your life easier, and insist on using GNU software even though you probably have never looked at the code, refuse to use osx because your too leet, or dont want to use windows because it is made by M$, your a tool.
Chuckle_h0und said: Hell I'm still shocked that the default media player in OSX doesn't allow fullscreen playback unless you spend $30!
Look, MS is not providing a default mpeg-2 codec with a plain copy of XP. No DVD playbacks at all!
Only chance is to buy HP or other machine to get the codec preinstalled.
I can't see how it's a good argument to say that Macs are better because they can run Windows and MacOSX... most of us would live our lives in a virtual machine if we ran MacOSX! I want to play games, access the biggest range of software, use the biggest range of hardware and all that - not on a Mac... unless I 'pay' to get Windows on it......
@Intrepid:
Virtual machine? You are obviously still thinking powerPC. Macs run INTEL now. Get it? Intel. That means that they can execute Windows applications in real time on the actual hardware. That's what Parallels desktop is. It runs it INSIDE Mac OS on your native hardware. That's the beauty. You can have the applications and extra features like Dashboard and Expose at your fingertips while still running your faveourite Windows applications. If parallels isn't your style, you can install Windows natively using Apple's very own bootcamp software. That lets you start up your Intel macintosh in windows, natively, without ANY hardware emulation at all.
As for the person who commented about upgrading? Why bother? Compare the Mac Pro with a Dell. If you were to option up a dell to the level that you can get a mac pro for (quad core 3.0GHz Xeons), you'd be paying so much more. Throw in applecare 3 year warranty, and it's only a 300 extra fee. I'd like to see you run Windows XP and play all your precious games on that beast of a machine. Go on. Do it.
Arguing that Mac hardware is crap is NOT an argument. Not anymore.
"Does upgrade version count for me? I have Windows XP Home that came with my Vaio, but no CD. Only serial key and in the form of recovery cd."
Yes you can upgrade ;)
"Arguing that Mac hardware is crap is NOT an argument. Not anymore."
Not what I was saying, just that it's overpriced for the average user - because you NEED to buy Windows seperately.
And on cost, one thing Apple has thought of is the pending Acer invasion - growing at twice the rate of Apple. Asian manufacturers seem to have a nack for destroying American products...
Mac users, why bother arguing with these juvanile Windows fanboys? Just leave them in their own little world of historically poor quality technology. We don't need these guys to understand the reality of the Mac platform, can you imagine the crap they'd cause if they actually switched?
"can you imagine the crap they'd cause if they actually switched?"
Yeah... all the flaws in MacOSX might start to show up if all us real users started using it.
no ethan, macs are for smart, creative people.
everything you see on tv, film, web, magazines, video games and music (at one point or another) has been edited, designed or recorded using a mac.
why should mac users appologize for having an easy to use computer.
go play with your spreadsheets and minesweeper ethan.
Posted at 8:55PM on Aug 28th 2006 by el indiano [ ]
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The movie madagascar was made on linux pcs running amds opteron processor and i'm sure were many other movies
PS : i love macs but i hate this fan boy crap and what is better ect
Macs are for creative professionals because the creative pro doesn't have the time to deal with his computer. A creative pro has deadlines to meet and needs to get things done easily and efficiently. this is especially true for freelance workers.
As for those who keep referencing Photoshop and Macromedia (which is also now Adobe), these 2 product suites make up about 2% of the creative world.
Avid may be a good video editing software, but award winning movies have consistently been made on the Mac platform (e.g., all 3 Lord of the Rings movies)
Grrr.... too many options. I hate that.
Linux is still $0... and that's accurate for both Canadian and US dollars.
Haven't seen a reason yet to move to Vista. Seen plenty reasons why I shouldn't.
"wait, can you even UPGRADE a mac?"
andidyus = ignorant.
Probably the easiest machine to upgrade ever.
http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/mp-inside.jpg
That last comment was supposed to link to the above, but I guess it's disabled.