Five months after its introduction, Microsoft is discontinuing a program that offered some Windows Vista purchasers the ability to buy additional copies of the operating system at a substantial discount. Since Windows Vista went on sale to consumers at the end of January, US and Canadian buyers of Vista Ultimate have had the option of buying up to two additional copies of Vista – albeit the Home Premium version – for an additional USD 50 apiece. The company had said it would re-evaluate the ‘Windows Vista Family Discount’ after 30 June.
In a posting on the Windows Vista Team Blog, Microsoft product manager Nick White said the program would ‘sunset’ as of 11.59pm PDT on 30 June.
Why wouldn’t they want to milk families for every penny they can get? They’re Microsoft! This is a stupid move. Today’s families have multiple computers; many people have both a desktop and a laptop. One shouldn’t be expected to pay full price for multiple copies of Windows for PCs within a family, especially when that price is around $300.00 per copy. Thankfully, not everyone runs Windows.
No, the fact of the matter is the overwhelming majority of people don’t upgrade their computers to a new OS: They simply get it installed by an OEM when they purchase the computer. So, consequently, this program was serving a minute fraction of the market. My guess is that the sales volume for this promotion couldn’t justify its existence.
I’m not sure if it’s a stupid move. It could be that people were not buying into it.
What I would do is buy the OEM version. I have three machines at home capable of running Vista at home. If I made use of the Family Discount, it would have been $500. That’s a good savings over say three copies of Home Premium at $240 a pop.
However an OEM of is about $120 (for home Premium). So based on that price, the Family deal wasn’t any good.
Edit: nothing to say after all…
Edited 2007-07-03 03:40
… deserve cracking
My guess is that people said “Are you nuts! I don’t WANT another copy of Vista!”
If having the latest OS is a concern, and your conscience allows, replace your PCs with Macs. Mac OS X doesn’t have activation, product keys, Genuine (dis)Advantage, or any of that other Microsoft crap.
Another case of people modding others down due to disagreement of opinion, so I modded you up.
I agree with you. MS is getting more ridiculous with their licensing (if that’s possible) as time goes on, and the more they pull stuff like this, the more they push people away.
Whoever modded this guy down; how about owning up to it, and posting what you found so offensive or off-topic?
It’s certainly not off-topic, because the lack of activation, product keys, etc. is notable in reference to an article such as this.
Mac OS doesn’t have activation,product key or Genuine Advantage because it only runs on Apple’s Hardware.
Apple is even more evil than microsoft in it’s locking in of customers.
Want to play your Itunes purchased music on a portable
media device? You have to buy a Ipod.
Want to run MacOS in a virtualised environment? Sorry, you’re not allowed to do that unless it’s still running on Apple hardware.
Free software is important because it gives you the freedom to not have to deal with stupid licencing terms that restrict how you use your computer.
Switch to Free Software.
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The licensing is still there (eg the VLC MPEG licences), it’s just up to the users to comply to the licences rather than corporate bullies, like MS, sentencing you as guilty before you’ve even installed of software.
At the prices they charge… One should seriously consider an alternative.
OS X I believe can be bought for 3 computers.
As to people not wanting new OS. They do. It’s just they can’t get one easily anymore (I mean pirated version as it used to be).
As to why people do want the new OS:
1. Hype
2. New features, perceived and real
3. friends and relatives telling them to upgrade for
security reasons
4. etc.
Just my 2c
and a big difference between Mac and PC Systems. I have four G4 systems in my house. Ever since I purchased my second Mac I have been buying the OS X family pack whenever there was significant reason for me to upgrad my OS. I just don’t see the need to go out and purchase a new system everytime there is an OS upgrade. With the OS X family pack you get 5 licenses for $200 USD.
Or you could go with ubuntu and not worry about any of this licencing thing.
I just don’t see the need to go out and purchase a new system everytime there is an OS upgrade. With the OS X family pack you get 5 licenses for $200 USD.
In this regard, Vista still has a huge advantage over OSX – it’ll actually run on hardware I already own.
Have to agree with the poster who said it was a better deal to go with the OEM Home Premium 3 times over then Vista Ult at retail plus $50 a pop for 2 copies of Home Prem.
What floors me is that MS has been raising the prices of software for years, Windows is more expensive now then its ever been.
Proving itself aside, the price of Vista is a significant factor for me to not upgrade. It’s just too expensive.
Have you ever heard of inflation?
Assume that inflation is 5% per year over 12 years, then the OS that I paid $110 for in 1995 would cost about $200 today. Which could be par for the course, depending upon which version of Vista you’re looking at.
However, computers (at least at the low end) have been declining in price quite dramatically during that period. It is quite easy to get a complete system for under $1000 today, which would have been unheard of back then (unless you went for a relatively underpowered Amiga or Atari).
Have you ever heard of inflation?
I’d say thats just fine and dandy if hardware and other software packages weren’t more affordable now then they were in the past.
I can get better hardware at lower prices today then I could in the past, with software its not so much the same experience. At least not on the Windows side of the fence.
You can’t compare hardware to software. Hardware is material and mass production and perfection make it much much less to produce now than before. Software isn’t that simple. The people who make the software have employees who salaries keep going up and they dont get any reduced costs.
Assume that inflation is 5% per year over 12 years, then the OS that I paid $110 for in 1995 would cost about $200 today. Which could be par for the course, depending upon which version of Vista you’re looking at.
However, computers (at least at the low end) have been declining in price quite dramatically during that period. It is quite easy to get a complete system for under $1000 today, which would have been unheard of back then (unless you went for a relatively underpowered Amiga or Atari).
It’s early ’80s and Bill Gates is writing his business plan.
– Scam some product from some poor sucker
– Get some suckers license it for mass production
– Achieve majority market share
– Kill all competition by any means necessary
– Buy as much of the government as necessary to prevent any antitrust action
– Sweet, sweet monopoly
– Don’t need no stinking family discounts since everyone has to bend over now.
Bill G.
I doubt there are many people that want the spare licences.
Certainly in my family once a new computer was purchased the old one (and whatever os it happened to have) was passed down to the next in line. It was rare we bothered to upgrade the OS due to the hardware of the system (plus the fact it was working fine)
The amount of families that have 3 pcs which can justify a vista upgrade must be quite rare
That Vista is really not selling well and Microsoft need to get all the money from Vista they can get!
Surely this decision is only going to encourage users to pirate Windows?
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Sunset? Why can’t people just use normal phraseology when announcing these things? I struggle enough reading English as it is.