Microsoft on Tuesday announced retail pricing for Vista, its long-delayed Windows update, and said it will broaden testing to more than 5 million people.
Last week, pricing information had been briefly posted on Microsoft's Canadian Web site.
Then on Friday, Microsoft issued Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista, a near-final test version of the operating system.
Pricing for full retail versions of the software will be Windows Vista Ultimate, $399; Windows Vista Business, $299; Windows Vista Home Premium, $239; and Windows Vista Home Basic, $199.
Upgrades from Windows XP are priced at Windows Vista Ultimate, $259; Windows Vista Business, $199; Windows Vista Home Premium, $159; and Windows Vista Home Basic, $99.
The company said it is broadening its existing Vista customer preview programme. The programme lets developers and other business users obtain prerelease code. Microsoft said it will expand the programme this week to "technology enthusiasts" so that they can test the consumer-specific features of Vista.
Current customer preview programme participants will be able to access the latest Vista test code beginning this week. Microsoft will open the programme to new participants in the coming days, it says. Vista RC1 will post to the company's MSDN and TechNet Web sites for subscriber download this week. In addition, Microsoft says it plans to distribute RC1 DVDs to readers of a number of technology publications worldwide.
As for Vista's launch date, the timing remains unchanged, said Shanen Boettcher, general manager of Windows product management. Microsoft is aiming to wrap up development work in time to ship the operating system to large companies in November and have a mainstream launch of Vista in January, Boettcher said.
Talkback
Compared with the $199 for a 5-pack family licence ($129 single) for OS X and $50-60 for Novell SUSE it doesn't look very competitive (just to take two examples off the top of my head).
And with OS X there is less confusion, you buy the desktop or the server version, no trying to work out which matrix of features best suit your needs...
Why not sell just the Ultimate Edition and sell it for around the $100 mark to match its "competitors"?
Yes it looks pricey, but in the consumer market are MS really bothered about selling individual licenses when every new PC will have Vista bundled with it? And the upgrade from WindowsXP IS priced at $99. Then in the business world, I very much doubt that list price ever comes into consideration anyway.
What a RIP OFF!!
The unprecented greed displayed by Microsoft is the reason the proprietary source business model is dead in the water.
What can you actually do in Vista that you could not do day to day in Windows'95 - answer: nothing.
Microsoft's new version is nothing but the culmination of 11 years of stagnation, and if you want to pay for that, then you deserve what you get.
Apple's OSX is so far ahead it's untrue, and Linux does a perfectly workable speedy safe comparable job for free.