Will the release of windows 7 affect the retail price of Laptops?

Is there any reason to believe that the release of 7 might cause a price-drop of hardware prices, laptops in particular?

Also, any idea if the "purchase a vista pc and get a windows 7 upgrade free" is US only or worldwide?

Cheers

 

If anything, prices will go up, not drop.

 

In the PC hardware world, the prices goes down with time.

 

Microsft and OEM notebook vendors hope to spruce up sales, the demand would dictate the pricing.

"Rumor" is that, starting July 1, every vista pc will come with a free upgrade to W7 - at least for North America and Europe.

Side notes for upgradability:

. Vista Home Premium -> W7 Home Premium
. Vista business -> W7 business
. Vista ultimate -> W7 ultimate

No mentioning so far about Vista home basic. No cross over from 32bits to 64 bits.

 

I doubt it. Michael Dell was in the news within the last month or so complaining that Microsoft was planning to price Windows 7 higher than the current Vista prices. (I assume he's talking about the OEM prices that companies like Dell pay to load Windows on new machines, not necessarily retail prices.) If that's true, then you might actually see a slight rise in new machine prices. Margins on hardware are awfully thin, and if the OS cost increases you can bet that it'll bump up the system prices.

But who knows? I guess we'll all find out together.

 

Well I wouldn't compare hardware (which must get smaller, cheaper, better, at a "predetermined" rate) to software. Software pricing is based on how much the manufacturer thinks they can get out of you.

Retail Versions At Release-

Windows 95 / NT 4.0 (96) - 209.00 Win95 / 319.00 NT
Windows 98 - 209.00
Windows ME / 2000 - 180.00 ME / 280.00 2000
Windows XP - 200.00 for home / 300.00 for commercial
Windows Vista - 199.00 for home basic / 299.00 for business

I don't know, looks pretty consistent to me. They definitely will be offering feature heavy, more expensive versions, but these 2 price points have stayed pretty consistent over 13 years... And consider that since 1995, inflation has gone up 2.46%, or the dollar of 1995 is now worth 1.40. Also to consider, having tiers of versions that cost more than the basic 200.00 version, means that the average microsoft gets from the home use crowd is actually way up (vista ultimate 399.00) In other words the average price Microsoft gets from a Vista home sale is more 300 than 200, but they can still keep that 200.00 price point, on paper at least.

My prediction Windows 7 basic 200.00 / ultimate 350.00 / business 300.00

EDIT - In theory, the software amount the OEM's are being charged/ charging should stay the same. It will be interesting to see what they do, since XP had advantages over Vista, and Vista seemingly has no advantage over Win 7. They are in a quandary IMO

 

But those aren't the prices that affect new machines. Hardware vendors don't pay "retail" pricing for their licensing. Those OEM license prices are what Michael Dell was referring to when he indicated that Win 7 was going to be more expensive than Vista. Whether his statement is accurate or not, well, I'd have no way of knowing. He may well have been just trying to preemptively drive the OEM OS costs down by speaking out like that. Who knows?

 

It's
June 26 but yeah.

 

Agreed, I should have mentioned the correlation. We normal folks don't have access to closed door meetings between vendors and microsoft. We can only go on what we have access to. And I was just showing the trend staying the same.

 

Any Michael Dell wouldn't have any possible motivation to encourage people to go buy computers now who might otherwise be sitting back and waiting on further Windows 7 news, would he?

You made the most valid point -- wait and see. Fretting over what pricing might be and whether it might raise or lower the price of a computer is pretty much a waste of time.

 

LOL. You might be onto something there!

Yeah, speculation is pointless. We'll all find out soon enough. I tend to agree with petermichaelw in that pricing will probably be consistent with the previous versions. After Vista it's hard to see them jacking up the price too much and risk making 7 an unattractive purchase. They need good buzz about now.