Jason Dunn
05-21-2009, 04:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10242555-64.html?tag=rtcol;pop' target='_blank'>http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-1...l?tag=rtcol;pop</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>""In tough economic times, I think it's naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista." In the business market, Windows 7 Professional is expected to be more expensive than Windows Vista Business, the version that Professional is replacing, he said."</em></p><p>Without firm pricing announced by Microsoft, it seems hard to get too up-in-arms about this, but one thing is for sure: this is not the ideal financial environment for Microsoft to be raising their prices in. I also think that, where consumers are concerned, Microsoft is going to run into trouble with windows Vista owners not wanting to upgrade to Windows 7 unless Microsoft can make it affordable for them to do so - and this is especially true in the case of multi-computer households. With Windows XP, many people upgraded to Windows Vista with new computers because they'd had their XP-based systems for years. Vista still feels brand-new in comparison, and the vast majority of consumers running Vista today are doing so on hardware that's less than two years old. If Microsoft is expecting those users to drop $129 USD (the price of Vista Home Premium Upgrade) on every computer in the house, that's probably not going to happen.</p>