While Windows 7 is looking to be a very good release from Microsoft (if not their best) there are still a couple of big things that Microsoft needs to address.  The first of which is pricing.  People could deal with multiple versions of Windows if the price was low enough that they wouldn’t feel like they weren’t being ripped off.

Apple is the one that has been famous for being expensive which is far from the truth when it comes to software prices.

OS X: $129.99
Vista Home Premium: $239.99 (originally $299.99)
Vista Ultimate: $319.99 (originally $399.99)
Ubuntu: FREE or $19.99 if you want to get support and a disk

The starting price of $299 or $399 is not only high it’s simply unrealistic.  Most people will never buy a new OS when they could just as easily buy a new computer.  Why would someone pay even $200 for a new OS when they could just buy a computer for $500 that will probably be better than their old machine and comes with the same operating system?

Computers have gotten faster and cheaper but this can’t be said for Windows at this point (excluding Windows 7).  If Microsoft would sell the OS for $129 they would have a Windows 95 rush on their hands.  People would ignore economic times and MS would make substantially more money just by the volume of software sold and not a high price.

Gizmodo has an article from yesterday asking similar questions and even suggests that they sell the upgrade for $49.  If this would be the case Vista users would not feel so ripped off.  This would be a good way for them to repay their customers and make people feel less angst towards them.

Check It Out> Gizmodo