Why is windows 8 so cheap?

[computernewb]

hi. i recently bought a laptop with windows 7 home premium. It says i will be able to upgrade to windows 8 for $15 USD. I was wondering why it is so cheap? Is it not a full version of windows 8 or something? I also went to other laptop websites and they were offering a windows 8 upgrade for $15 USD as well. I was wondering if anyone had some information on this.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/home

Thanks!

 

[The_Prophecy]

Microsoft is offering a promo price on upgrade copies of Windows 8 until January 31st, 2013. The upgrade price is $40 USD though. Not sure why you are seeing $15. Might want to call the laptop vendor and ask them?

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/07/02/upgrade-to-windows-8-pro-for-39-99.aspx

 

[bawchicawawa]

It's called 'promotion' to sell more computers before win 8 comes out.

 

[dudewitbow]

its a promo to

1. get more people to use win8
2. to make it so that people who recently bought a pc wont feel bad that a new OS was coming out, and should have waited a tiny bit for it

 

[computernewb]

how odd. it didnt even seem like they were promoting it. Look. its in small prints next to the windows option

http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP6165

and here is another one on newegg. again in small print. both for 14.99$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230408

 

[drwho1]

I guess that the EXTRA $$$ that we would normally pay is the cost of the START button.
Since the START button is missing, I guess that they are at least not charging for it.

 

[raytseng]

So they are helping the retailers to keep selling computers now;
Otherwise nobody would buy a computer during this summer until the new Windows comes out and people see what it is all about.

It would be like iPhone sales which have dropped off the cliff, since people are waiting for iphone5. Except affecting a LOT of companies not just Apple.

At the same time, they don't want everybody to just order it even if they don't need it, so they assign a (relatively) small price to it.

Also note, if you read the fine print on the promotion, there is a deadline to claim it; so it is a promotion just to get over this initial release hump and get some people on it; even if they are not maximizing how much they can charge for it.

 

[pjmelect]

They're making it so cheap so as to get the suckers to buy it. Nobody would buy it for the full price as Windows 8 is a load of garbage. Microsoft hopes to make its money by selling apps from their apps store like Apple so they could afford to give it away. Windows 8 should be called Windows R8pe.

 

[The_Prophecy]

They're making it so cheap so as to get the suckers to buy it. Nobody would buy it for the full price as Windows 8 is a load of garbage. Microsoft hopes to make its money by selling apps from their apps store like Apple so they could afford to give it away. Windows 8 should be called Windows R8pe.

That's entirely your opinion. I have the RTM build and I love it. Aside from an issue with it detecting the controller my standard rotating magnetic hard drives were connected to (which was promptly fixed by reinstalling the OS with all of the drives connected this time), it's working flawlessly. My data has been moved back over, and every single one of my applications and devices works. The Start screen still bugs me every so often, but since I use it about 1% of the total time I am using this system anyway, it's really nothing worth complaining about.

 

[boju]

because 7 8 9

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

What would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 in performance.

 

[soundieNYC1]

Microsoft hopes to make its money by selling apps from their apps store like Apple so they could afford to give it away.

This.
By moving to an app store Microsoft will make a cut of all apps and also have an their approval process and authenticate all software written for Windows 8 and probably Windows 8 RTM version.

Office 2013 RT for Windows RT comes with the
Microsoft is planning to ship a Preview version of Office 2013 RT as part of its Windows RT ARM-based tablets. The plan is for the Preview edition will be upgradeable to a final copy that will be made available in early 2013.

subscription-based = always brings in money monthly/annually versus buying the Office software once and keeping it for 5 years.

 

[Pinhedd]

Microsoft is offering a promo price on upgrade copies of Windows 8 until January 31st, 2013. The upgrade price is $40 USD though. Not sure why you are seeing $15. Might want to call the laptop vendor and ask them?

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/07/02/upgrade-to-windows-8-pro-for-39-99.aspx

I think it's $15 through OEMs, $40 retail. I could be wrong though

 

[geekapproved]

ROFLMAO.....at this post.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I think it's $15 through OEMs, $40 retail. I could be wrong though < correct

 

[soundieNYC1]

The Windows Store is visible only to machines running Windows 8 or Windows RT.

PC-like devices will be made by Windows RT partners, including tablets, traditional clamshell laptops and convertible devices.

Even with the laptops they will probably be more energy saving and remove the DVD-Rom drive and thus only USB stick for software install or else via the Windows App store purchase download.
Microsoft is pushing people away from the DVD-ROM and USB stick installs from software bought at brick and mortar stores or purchased via a software's website and downloaded on a PC and put onto a USB stick. This is the reason:

Apple takes 30% fee in revenue for apps. I was surprised that Microsoft decided to do 30% fee. They will always go up and will never go lower...
I thought MS would start out at 20% and over 3 years move to 25%. I forgot how greedy MS is.

Windows 8 Store: apps priced up to $999.99, Microsoft will take a smaller cut from top-sellers
July 23, 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/21/3173873/windows-8-store-app-pricing-flexible-cuts?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

MS wants people to move to Windows 8 in Q4 2012 so that by 2015 that many more people will be using the walled garden called the Windows Store. They need to Win8OS to gain traction as fast as possible. With tablets that is one of the markets, laptops are another. They are hoping maybe half of the high school grads starting college in 2013-2017 will purchase one.

 

[womble]

I think the $15 dollar thing is just for people who have just recently bought a Windows 7 machine.

Then there will the special offer period of $40 approx to download, they did the same with Windows 7 for the initial period.

After the special offer period they will up the price to full. Not sure what that pricing will be, hopefully less than before as they are hoping to milk things on the app store.

If Microsoft want to be Apple they could perhaps take a look at their OS upgrade pricing too. Vista to 7 seems a point upgrade as does 8 really, don't think there's massive value going from one to the other. There again I imagine they're quite happy selling full product and not so keen on the idea of people incrementally upgrading.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I think the $15 dollar thing is just for people who have just recently bought a Windows 7 machine. < exactly

 

[jsc]

subscription-based = always brings in money monthly/annually versus buying the Office software once and keeping it for 5 years.

Hmmm. I am still using Office 2003.

 

[soundieNYC1]

Hmmm. I am still using Office 2003.

Actually so am I...on Windows XP.

MS doesn't want this to happen again. They want to get people away from Windows 7 ASAP so they can stop offering Windows 7 on new desktops probably in 2 years.
MS wants people to go with Windows8 instead of Windows7 so they will visit the Windows Store and update their software apps. Subscription-based software is coming like the subscription pricing model Adobe started using with CS5.5 and now the Adobe's Touch Apps headlined by Adobe Photoshop Touch.

Adobe Creative Cloud membership provides users with access to download and install every new Adobe CS6 application and two new HTML5 products. ["$49.99 a month, with an annual subscription fee, or $79.99 for a month-to-month subscription with no fee."]
Photoshop, the most popular piece of software in the Adobe arsenal, will be available for a stand-alone subscription of ["$19.99 a month with an annual subscription fee, or $29.99 without the fee on a month-to-month basis."]
It's this kind of Amazon Prime membership subscription package that the Subscription-based software model is ramping up. MS already has Office 365 and will slowly convert away from the up-front software licensing fees.

Microsoft wants to get away from DVD-ROMs in boxes and physical media sales of their software.
All software must be installed via Windows Store for Windows 8. Only Enterprise IT groups can sideload software.
If they put out Windows 8 with their new Windows Store for Windows 8 [only] don't you think they will do their future OS upgrades as subscription-based? Surely they will start phasing out Window 7 as soon as they can (within 2-4 years)
Which do consumers hate less? monthly charges or annual charges. MS will probably go with annual payment for an OS subscription. You stop paying then you no longer can upgrade and surely within a year you will have firmware conflicts...

 

[Smeg45]

I can't wait when XP is officially unsupported. Everyone still using it will get infected with all sorts of nasty crap once antivirus makers follow suit. It will finally die.

 

[soundieNYC1]

this posting on slashdot & comments bring up the walled garden


Why Microsoft Shouldn't Copy Apple's iOS Walled Garden
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/10/16/2113232/why-microsoft-shouldnt-copy-apples-ios-walled-garden

 

[MidnightDistort]

Microsoft wants to get away from DVD-ROMs in boxes and physical media sales of their software.
All software must be installed via Windows Store for Windows 8. Only Enterprise IT groups can sideload software.
If they put out Windows 8 with their new Windows Store for Windows 8 [only] don't you think they will do their future OS upgrades as subscription-based? Surely they will start phasing out Window 7 as soon as they can (within 2-4 years)
Which do consumers hate less? monthly charges or annual charges. MS will probably go with annual payment for an OS subscription. You stop paying then you no longer can upgrade and surely within a year you will have firmware conflicts...

This is a good reason not to upgrade to Win 8. MS seems to want everyone to buy a new OS every 3-4 years and charging people for every upgrade. And yet people are like sheep and will complain but then do nothing but follow the herd.

If this is going to be the future of MS i'm switching to Linux and never looking back. Better to have a reliable OS that does not require me to switch to a new OS every 4 years.

 

[Pinhedd]

This is a good reason not to upgrade to Win 8. MS seems to want everyone to buy a new OS every 3-4 years and charging people for every upgrade. And yet people are like sheep and will complain but then do nothing but follow the herd.

If this is going to be the future of MS i'm switching to Linux and never looking back. Better to have a reliable OS that does not require me to switch to a new OS every 4 years.

So you would rather have an unreliable OS that has a new release with new bugs every 6 months?

 

[MidnightDistort]

^ i don't see why Linux would be unreliable, in fact i would be able to use my old PC with no problems. I can't afford to pay for a new OS every 4 years. Never needed to buy a new OS every 4 years. MS makes enough profit with the amount of users they have. Had Vista been better i would still have that OS instead of getting Win7.

It's the same with Xp, maybe they can't afford or maybe they don't need to upgrade to 7. Yet MS is acting greedy. If my old xp laptop still worked, i probably would have never gotten Vista or 7 in the first place. With all things considered Win 7 may benefit me for a nice 11 years (with 8 years left) before i have to find something else.