Digital Home Thoughts: Microsoft Lowers Price of Vista at Retail

"In what may be an unprecedented decision, Microsoft said Thursday that it plans to lower the retail prices for several flavors of Windows Vista. For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from XP or another copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159. Other developed markets will also see price cuts, while in emerging markets, Microsoft is eliminating the distinction between full and upgrade versions of Home Basic and Home Premium as it attempts to convince more users there to use genuine software. Analysts were surprised by Microsoft's move."


Wow - this is a bit surprising, especially given Microsoft's historical stance on OS pricing. Vista Ultimate sees the biggest drop, but even Home Premium's price drop of $30 is a welcome move. Now if they could only do something to counter Apple's OS X family pack, which gives the home user five licenses to install OS X for $199 USD. Doing the same thing with Vista would cost you $645 USD. Not very compelling, is it?