Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#21

Post by mutagen » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

rcchen wrote: post #7

Apple has historically made its profit through selling hardware, investing into the software to make the hardware and software work well together but extracting negligible returns on software. What would pursuing this type of upgrade pricing mean for a company like Microsoft, which relies primarily on software for revenue?

This upgrade pricing is good for Microsoft. Currently they face more competition from current windows users not upgrading to Microsoft's newest OS than they do from OSX and Linux. Microsoft gets people off XP and Vista, an old operating system and its widely reviled successor. They get to tout fast adoption rates and wide availability of the new features which helps them with both developer relations and with goes hand in hand with their tablet strategy.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#22

Post by gouranga » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #3

Competition is great! I'm very glad that Apple has managed to exert some pressure on Microsoft here. I really don't think that this would have occurred otherwise.

I don't think it's related to Apple at all. I can't believe people are trying to give Apple some credit for it.

Two real things:

1) No one ever buys Windows upgrades, so this is a motivator to shift to Win8. Consumers and businesses just buy a new PC and large businesses get licenses automatically.

2) They now have the opportunity of upselling inside the operating system (which they've been playing with for a long time - since 2007!).

That is it. No pressure from Apple.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#23

Post by polshaw » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:01 PM UTC

Lets be clear; this has little/nothing to do with apple. You can't spend $40 to switch to the latest OSX on your regular PC, so it is just not direct competition.

I can only assume they think this way is how they will get most money from selling to end users, and I wouldn't be surprised at that being the case. No doubt they make most of window's licence money from OEMs.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#24

Post by keithpeter » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:01 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #9

vijayr wrote: post #4

should we upgrade, or wait for the initial reaction from the public? So far, its only the tech crowd that has commented on Win 8, and it seems that people either hate it, or love it

Unfortunately, negative public reaction is heavily influenced by word of mouth. Will you lose anything by not upgrading? Not immediately, but over time yes. Will you gain anything by upgrading? Possibly, depending on your needs, leaning more towards yes over time. I've been using it 100% for a few weeks and spend 90% of my time in desktop mode (due to using Chrome, AIM, and Media Player Classic). Most of the time I f…

"The only time I see $UI is when I hit the windows key, type "chro" and hit enter to launch Chrome. In this use case, $UI isn't anything more than a bigger start menu"

  $UI = [Metro|Ubuntu Unity|DWM/dmenu]

Strange how these changes all come along at the same time. Does Mac OS have a text based launcher at all?

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#25

Post by r00fus » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #16

This is all about the app store. Remember Microsoft can make a good chunk of profit from each app purchase and nobody will be developing let alone buying apps if Microsoft cannot get eyes on it.

Apple has consistently stated that they don't make much money from their App Store (or iTunes content in general).

How are Microsoft (and Amazon, whose entire $199 Kindle Fire pricing) going to make money in this market?

No doubt they want folks on the store, but I question whether this is the reason behind the $40 upgrade pricing.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#26

Post by bishnu » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #16

This is all about the app store. Remember Microsoft can make a good chunk of profit from each app purchase and nobody will be developing let alone buying apps if Microsoft cannot get eyes on it.

Citation needed? Apple's app store isn't a huge revenue source by any means [1], let alone profit. I've seen no evidence that App Stores can be any kind of profit center.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-apple-revenu...

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#27

Post by thekungfuman » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

The main complaint I hear is the change of start menu behavior, but most people I know use a keyboard based launcher anyway. If you're typing the name of the thing you want does it matter if it's going into Launchy, the Win7 start menu or the Metro interface? As long as you quickly get to the app or file you want, the interaction (typing) is pretty much identical.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#28

Post by stonemetal » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

rcchen wrote: post #7

Apple has historically made its profit through selling hardware, investing into the software to make the hardware and software work well together but extracting negligible returns on software. What would pursuing this type of upgrade pricing mean for a company like Microsoft, which relies primarily on software for revenue?

A move to hardware? The recent surface demo and this as a hint of a more Apple like MS to come.

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#29

Post by SpikeDad » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #17

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

It's great to see Apple really sticking it to MS. Apple has no need to make money off their OS upgrades since the cost of the OS is already built into the hardware, but for MS, Windows is over 25% of their total revenue. Plus this is great news for web developers. Hopefully this means that IE6-8 will be going away much faster than was previously anticipated.

Why is it great? Apple is worse than MS in so many other ways. In a few years you are going to see Apple being the person that everyone hates. Now, people seem to like it.

Eh? Next you'll be telling us W8 is going to be the nail in the coffin of Appple?

There's NO question that the W8 upgrade pricing is a DIRECT result of Apple's usual $40 upgrade pricing.

BTW: Lets see how easy it is to update WXP to W8 - a single click in the Microsoft Store?

Re: Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to cost $39.99

#30

Post by amccloud » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #24

freehunter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, negative public reaction is heavily influenced by word of mouth. Will you lose anything by not upgrading? Not immediately, but over time yes. Will you gain anything by upgrading? Possibly, depending on your needs, leaning more towards yes over time. I've been using it 100% for a few weeks and spend 90% of my time in desktop mode (due to using Chrome, AIM, and Media Player Classic). Most of the time I f…

"The only time I see $UI is when I hit the windows key, type "chro" and hit enter to launch Chrome. In this use case, $UI isn't anything more than a bigger start menu" $UI = [Metro|Ubuntu Unity|DWM/dmenu] Strange how these changes all come along at the same time. Does Mac OS have a text based launcher at all?

Spotlight?