Vista Ultimate to cost $450 USD?

[Pi rules]

I found an article here (http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4463/53/) that suggests that Vista Ultimate will cost about $450 USD! Is it just me, or is that way too expensive. You could get very powerful CPU for that price after the recent price drops. I wanted to get it, but I guess I won't be able to afford it. Hopefully the more basic versions will be much less expensive.

[Dan18960]

I think this is a lot of speculation since M$ hasn't posted ANY information as to the costing of any of the beta products yet.

Even my distributor (who is a M$ OEM partner) can't give us a pricing level yet - even though in the past they have been able to give us a "ball park" average to new systems coming out.

First off, I think M$ will find releasing so many versions of an OPERATING system is going to confuse not only the end users but the IT departments of the major corporations who would have to support "something" company wide. It was / is bad enough when a small company (and M$ thinks 100 - 500 employees as SMALL) that is supporting a domain and a user wanting their own computer / notebook goes out and buys XP Home and then is squashed to find out they "wasted" their money because the operating system can't be made to authenticate to the company domain.

Second - With WordPerfect 13 being a GANGbuster suite at half the cost of today's M$ Office Professional suite, thinking that (according to the article) an Ultimate Office 2007 suite at $679.00 PER COPY is going to be marketable is a pipe dream! You will see the migration away from Access and PowerPoint to Paradox and Presentation if NOT to the Open Office suites.

I think I will sit out this blood bath for quite awhile until M$ learns that more is NOT better!

[athomsfere]

I would ignore any pricing you see online right now. M$ hasn't released prices.

Ultimate BTW, isn't going to be for the average user, and for a professional OS $500 isn't that bad (Not that I think thats where its price will finally stop)

[Tortanick]

I find it hard to believe that large company would waste $500 * 500 users = $250000 When there are free alternatives.

I find it even harder to belive microsoft have fallen that far off the sanity platform so I ignore these speculative prices. Would be nice if they priced themselves out of the market and killed botnets.

[PeteF]

I found an article here (http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4463/53/) that suggests that Vista Ultimate will cost about $450 USD! Is it just me, or is that way too expensive.

I'm with you, it's way too expensive.
We see what happened to AOL. MS still has some lessons to learn. MS
still thinks the whole world revolves them. AOL thought the same thing.

Unless Vista solves the majority of malware issues and releases a
truely secure OS, I don't think the masses will make the switch from
XP to Vista. Microsoft's only hope will be to force Vista on the masses
via new computer sales. From what I read recently, PC sales are down.
So what would trigger PC sales to increase?

We may finally have reached a point when large numbers of consumers
will opt to repair the old PC and stick with XP or switch to Linux,
rather than buy a new PC with Vista.

As I said, a secure OS is key to the success of Vista.
If the reviewers give Vista the thumbs up on security and people
believe the malware issues will be largely eliminated, the masses
will flock to it. However, the price has got to be right! Figure many
homes & small businesses have 2 or 3 PCs now so it better be
affordable for the average home or business to upgrade all their
PCs, otherwise they will stick with XP.

---pete---

[jcampi]

I'll bet MS prices the new version of office very competitively. They will not want to lose market share to other products and office suites. All you have to do is look at what Inetl is doing with their chip prices. I'll bet they regain market share back from AMD.

[Pi rules]

It looks like the "Ultimate" version of Office will have the "ultimate" price. That site says it could possibly be as much as $679 USD. :dizzy:

I like the comparisons Pete F & jcampi made to AOL (what could go wrong) and Intel (what MS should do).

I think PC sales will go up more when Vista comes out just from the hype. Whether it's deserved or not is a different topic, but I think at least some is merited.

I find it hard to believe that large company would waste $500 * 500 users = $250000 When there are free alternatives.
Hard to believe, but it will happen. For now, MS has a gigantic market lead (for home users) and a lead in the server world (I think, although *nix isn't doing too badly) so large corporations will still likely go with at least XP just for compatibility.

Ultimate BTW, isn't going to be for the average user
Not for the average user, but I thought it was geared toward power users and some corporations?

[mylanta]

Much as it is painful to agree with Dan here, I think I have bought my last copy of Ms Office as 2003. It is an overpriced simple suite that I have always maintained mainly because my clients use it but the costs are getting out of hand and the improvements just are not there.
As much as I had felt the same way about the last 4 Word Perfect updates, X3 is a major improvement and that is without even thinking about the ability to work with .pdf files I have yet to try to use. I did try the WP email program trial and like Outlook could see no reason to pay for it, much as I would like to get away from OE, I think I will probably move to Eudora when we go to Vista as Windows Mail, new version of OE, is not for me, it is too much like Outlook.

[Dan18960]

Much as it is painful to agree with Dan here,

Rich,

Take two aspirin, lay down for an hour, and you should be fine! :D

[mylanta]

Rich,

Take two aspirin, lay down for an hour, and you should be fine! :D

Damn I will try it!

[Terry Hanushek]

Pi

I think PC sales will go up more when Vista comes out just from the hype. Whether it's deserved or not is a different topic, but I think at least some is merited.
I'm not entirely sure the PC sales will jump when WinV is released. I just don't see a ground swell of interest in changing the operation systems. Most home users don't care about the o/s if it is working. WinXP is in a stable state. Unless WinV can offer a significant improvement in the computing environment e.g. better security, freedom from spam, etc., consumers will be apathetic.

OTOH I see most WinV sales coming with new computers rather than upgrading existing units because of the resource demands and disruption of an major upgrade. Manufacturers will pressure M$ to keep the WinV price within reason so their new hardware is competitive with existing models. Otherwise, enterprising retailers will gain market share with WinXP models.

Tortanick wrote: I find it hard to believe that large company would waste $500 * 500 users = $250000 When there are free alternatives.
Pi Rules responded: Hard to believe, but it will happen. For now, MS has a gigantic market lead (for home users) and a lead in the server world (I think, although *nix isn't doing too badly) so large corporations will still likely go with at least XP just for compatibility.
I agree that M$ has (and will continue to have the major portion of the corporate market. This has less to do with the technical merits of alternate operating systems and everything to do with the 'safety' of going with the major supplier. (IBM has dominated the corporate market for decades because of the mindset 'Nobody ever got fired for selecting IBM')

However, many (most) corporate users tend to be reluctant adopters of the new (upgraded) operating systems because of the per seat license cost and the even greater cost for rollout. My current client has several hundred machines on Win2K and is in no hurry to upgrade.

Terry

[Tortanick]

'Nobody ever got fired for selecting IBM

No body ever got fired for putting their head in the sand more like. If managers wern't so risk adverse they could be saving millions with free alternatives.

[Pi rules]

At least they have an Office Student/Teacher Edition for less, although OpenOffice is even cheaper. ;)