Microsoft Confirms Over 50% Windows Vista Price Cut and WGA Failure
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 3.8.2007
Microsoft confirmed independent reports revealing that Windows Vista prices will be cut in half. On August 1, Zan Xiaoqin, representing 8844.com, a Beijing Federal Software online software distributor, indicated that the Redmond company will take drastic measures in China in order to boost Windows Vista in the competition with local pirated copies of the operating system.
Aiming to make Windows Vista more attractive, and at the same time to lure Chinese users away from counterfeit versions of the platform, Microsoft introduced an over 50% off price cut to the Home Basic edition.
As a result, Windows Vista Home Basic will be selling in China for just 499 renminbi - just $65.80. The initial price of the operating system was 1,521 renminbi, which means that Microsoft slashed the price tag by no less than 67%. And in addition to Vista Home Basic, the Redmond company also dropped the price for the Home Premium edition, from 1,802 to 899 renminbi, which is equivalent to a 50% reduction. The Microsoft initiative was interpreted as an obvious measure to counteract the growing piracy problem in China by offering its operating system at less prohibitive prices.
The Redmond company emphasized the fact that the slashed prices represent a move designed to allow Chinese users to enjoy the legal version of Vista. Microsoft's official estimated retail prices for Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium editions are $199 and $239 respectively, are absolutely no competition for pirated copies of the platform sold in China for under $10.
Back in February, following the availability of Windows Vista, Alex Kochis, Senior Product Manager for Windows Genuine Advantage applauded the commerce with very cheap pirated copies of the operating system as a success of the Windows genuine Advantage mechanism.
"While Windows Vista was among the counterfeits available it was cheaper (about $5 vs $10 for other software titles) because the vendor said it 'might expire'. While learning that a counterfeit copy of your product is suddenly cheaper than before might not obviously be a good thing in this case I think it is. The fact that the value of a counterfeit copy is dropping is a sign that the product is harder to counterfeit (if it were easier to hack there should have been a non-expiring version available) and while other common applications that are less difficult to hack (and so have at least the similar basic distribution costs) still cost more is a sign that the product in its counterfeit state is truly worth-less," Kochis revealed at the time.
And yes, while the WGA was "successful" in reducing the price tags for pirated Windows Vista, Chinese piracy managed to slash the operating system's price over 50%. I only hope that the conclusion here is not... pirate and you too shall get special Vista prices...
source:
news.softpedia.com
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Comments(14)
if vista was $50.00 like it should be they wouldnt have to worry about pirates. ms is
trying to rip people off, and in the longer, are getting ripped off.
never should have been a penny over $50.00. learn from this m$!!!! fifty bucks & not a
penny more.
$50.00 is plenty to pay for os.
50 for home and 100 for ultimate
sounds fair to me.
are they really fighting piracy? or are they actually fighting off linux (which is
legally free)?
also, if microsoft can afford to cut the price there, why not in
the states? hmm...
the problem is $$, do you guys really think ppl en masse can afford to pay one or month
salary just 4 software.
stupid 6 useless article. if ms really wants to sell
original to the masses they have sell at prices the masses can afford!
"and yes, while the wga was "successful" in reducing the price tags for pirated
windows vista, chinese piracy managed to slash the operating system's price over 50%. i
only hope that the conclusion here is not... pirate and you too shall get special vista
prices..."----yeah right, maybe they visit this and most other warez forums/torrent
sites--successful my a$$ i have had screensavers harder to crack!
nobody makes you buy vista!
like all consumer items, if people think somethign is
too expensive and they do not buy it, then... naturally, the company will drop it's
prices.
so... with that in mind it's everyone else to blame other than
microsoft for the high price of vista!
if your unhappy do not buy it, if you
have bought it and are unhappy, return it under whatever sale of goods act you have in
your country.
vista is so expensive because they spent 5 years developing it. that cost them lots of
time and money which they now have to make back. if it was developed quicker it would be
cheaper.....china seems to be doin good though. maybe we should all pirate it then
they'll cut our prices too :p
here is the deal. wake up people. ms has had bush pass laws so you can not sell your old
coa to anyone. infact it is dead even if you want to use it on another unit(unlike with
win2000 when you could)! they make the laws, they set the price, they will come and fine
you if you pirate, they will have the feds send you to jail! just bend over and enjoy the
rape, and no they will not use a condom, they don't have to thank$ to bush and law on
their side!
too many bugs in the actual release for this defective product - a real lemon, should be
laws against selling an operating system which microsoft know is defective (want my money
back and go back to xp!!! cant drag and drop large file to blank dvd!!!
hopeless for
data backup!!! no decent instuctions, even the help was written by monkeys (they paid
peanuts to their workers). microsoft should release the service pack asvp to fix the many
errors. come on microsoft if you take our money you have responsibility to sell a product
which will do the job properly such as allowing me to protect my data on a dvd!!!
microsoft is so retro they buy out other companies such as roxio who had the idea of drag
and drop files onto a cd without the hassle of using nero. now they integrated a firewall
to xp when previously everyone was using third party software... micosoft is attempting to
monopolize the market to prevent others bringing their ideas onto the market as a stand
alone software which can be integrated to windows. microsoft is too restrictive with what
can be used in vista and their anti security measures cause third party software to
crash...what happened to the promise of functionality. microsoft have painted themselves
into a corner and attempting to make us sheep only use microsoft licensed products with
microsoft validated and licensed hardware. an operating system is only a univeral base for
allowing our software to work independantly.give us an operating system which has a small
footprint and is not intrusive, and bloated with security measures. give away your basic
operating system for free and them offer the extras individually for a license fee so we
can pick and choose the elements we want to buy.....
yeah... it's all bush's fault. if he wasn't spending so much money in iraq the
federal government could have paid ms for a copy of ultimate for everybody. yeah...
that's it.
stupid liberal!
god you guys can type lol.....i cant read all that?
vista bucks so bad i got a pirate version and still wont use it.i wouldnt use it if bill
himself gave me a copy.iam running osx on my pc.works great.
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Oh well
By Oh well on 04.08.2007 - 02:08