Dell Hints that High Windows 7 Pricing May Slow Adoption  

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Posted by FiXT— May 17th, 2009, 4:11 PM
windows 7 graphic 300x300 Dell Hints that High Windows 7 Pricing May Slow Adoption

As the rumoured Fall ‘09 debut grows closer and with the release of a free, practicaly fully functional release candidate – Microsoft’s Windows 7 is creating a lot of buzz – especially given the promising preliminary results. However, even though the release candidate is free, and will remain so until June 2010, Microsoft does intend to actually sell the operating system and so the question of price has been inevitably dredged up. Microsoft’s OS prices have sat at roughly the same price level for both XP and Vista releases, eventually dropping after full market saturation. However, in a recent interview with CNET, the marketing director for Dell, expressed concerned about what he claims, is a higher than normal release price for Windows 7


“If there’s one thing that may influence adoption, make things slower or cause customers to pause, it’s that generally the ASPs (average selling price) of the operating systems are higher than they were for Vista and XP,” Darrel Ward, director of product management for Dell’s business client product group, said in a phone interview, referring to the various versions of the Windows 7 operating system that are expected to appear.
Ward continued. “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.


Some schools and smaller businesses may not be early adopters due to price. “Schools and government agencies may not be able to afford (the additional cost). Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they’d like,” Ward said.


Source: CNET

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