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Imagine, for a moment, that you’re in Steve Ballmer’s (probably quite sweaty and over-excited) shoes: the Windows 8 launch has been a bit of a flop, so what do you do? That’s right, jack the price up fivefold — because that will totally make more people want to buy your operating system.
In case you didn’t realise, the current quite-reasonable prices for Windows 8 aren’t set to last. At the moment, you can go snag yourself a copy of Windows 8 Pro for just £25, which is a pretty decent deal. Come February 1st, however, that price is gonna soar to $199, or about £125 if Microsoft keeps its dollars-to-pounds the same. If you don’t need all the features in Windows 8 Pro and are happy with standard, you’ll be able to buy that for $119, or around £80 here.
Whilst this might not seem like the brightest move Microsoft’s ever made, I’m not sure it’s as much of a mistake as some would have you believe. Come February, Windows 8 will have been out for three whole months. That’s a lot of time for people to upgrade from Windows 7, and pretty much everyone who was going to upgrade will have upgraded by January.
What Microsoft’s doing, then, is jacking the price up to capture new-PC buyers. Face it: if you’re buying a new PC, you’re most likely going to want to plump for the latest and greatest version of Windows, whether it’s £120 or £25 — £120 is about what the new version of Windows has always costed. It’s a pricing strategy that’s always worked for Microsoft, and there’s no reason for it to stop now.
Still, don’t let that catch you out: if you’re gonna be wanting a copy of Windows 8 in the future, make sure you go buy a copy right the hell now. Trust me, it only takes like 20 miserable minutes, and it’ll save you a buttload of cash in the future. It’s not like you’re doing anything productive anyway. [Microsoft via TechRadar]
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“it only takes like 20 miserable minutes” – after which you can have a lifetime of minutes made miserable by using it.
Do NOT upgrade. It really isn’t worth it.
It really is.
Why?
for the vast majority of people it isnt.
Faster start-up/shutdown, tighter social-media/Skydrive/Application integration, more powerful search functionality, exciting new Application delivery system, better file transfer management & task manager, better security, better handing of windows/multiple screens; and for those who aren’t close-minded haters of change:
An excitin UI that potentially compliments your tablet, phone etc. if you’re inclined to embrace Microsoft’s infrastructure.
Yes there are things to iron out…but I couldn’t go back.
*exciting
“An excitin UI that potentially compliments your tablet, phone etc. if you’re inclined to embrace Microsoft’s infrastructure.”
Can you honestly say it complements a standard desktop/laptop without a touchscreen? I can’t. I agree with you about the improvements to desktop “mode” but other than that it really irritates me that Microsoft have decided to force a tablet interface on non-tablet/touchscreen computers.
I can honestly say that the new UI compliments the traditional keyboard/mouse desktop experience. (I’ve been using it in its various iterations for about 15-18months – it took about 2 weeks to get used to).
If you want to; you can just use the “Metro” UI as a glorified hub/pretty replacement for the start menu. I fail to see how any normal interaction is significantly hamstrung by the changes. Turning my machine off using the charms menu takes one more click than it did previously; and I do think there should at least be the option of a physical “Start” button on the desktop to bring you back to ‘Metro’; but there are plenty of actions that are MUCH quicker with the new UI.
Embrace change. In my opinion; it’s worth a few week’s pain.
Windows 8 removes a lot of debugging tools so it is very hard to fix it when it goes wrong.
“better handing of windows”
Doesn’t it virtually remove ‘windows’ as we have come to know them and all metro apps run full screen??
Windows 8 is the best, fastest, most responsive – and if used right – most productive version of Windows so far.
So it’s a bit different. Get over it.
We can’t complain that Windows is ugly, awful and horribly slow to use for years and then complain -more- when they make the first moves in a long while to fix any of it.
Give me a solid distro of Linux any day, but Microsoft have done a good job with Windows 8 and I genuinely find it a lot better to work and play within than any previous version of Windows.
Also, it’s not as if the ‘price rise’ on Windows 8 is unexpected – or even a price rise, really. It was very well marked as an introductory offer. The specified period is now over.
Windows 8 is good but Microsoft made a great mess of RT version, specially taking 16 GB out of a 32 GB tablet does not sound great
How much are they paying you?
I found Win8 less responsive & knackered my battery life, but I do agree, they’ve done a cracking job on it. I’m pretty sure the less responsive is just my hard drive going, anyway.
Windows 8 also kills my battery life, get about 2 hours from it if I am lucky. I’ve gone back to Windows 7
I dunno about the battery life implications of it. I use it primarily on a desktop and the laptop I use it on had a rubbish battery either way.
I do know that my (low spec) laptop’s responsiveness and usability was practically doubled by the upgrade from Windows 7 to 8, though. The spring clean required by restructuring for ARM/RT has really helped slim down the bulk of the system (even if the physical space required has gone up).
It even helped free up a bit more memory for gaming on my desktop.
So it’s actually a heavier OS than Windows 7 with more impact on the CPU/GPU?
I wish Microsoft would solely focus on making the next version of each OS run more economically than the last, based on the same hardware. This would give the greatest boost in usability, not whacking a GUI on top of Windows that makes it a bit faster to Tweet.
That’s my problem in a nutshell, it is great if you have a touch screen, it is great if you want to install hungry ‘apps’, but in my experience at least it seemed quick but it drank the battery. Literally 2 hours from 4 with the same settings and updated drivers.
i wouldnt want it if it was 25 pence!
Microsoft is confusing the shit out of me right now. It is either making excellent decision or completely ridiculous ones. It’s like it’s got bipolar disorder or something!
This was always going to happen. There have been similar ‘introductory offers’ for every iteration of Windows since at least XP.
Great, I am going to have to buy it now that I know the price will rise soon. Why when something is “reduced” do I have such urges to buy it?
I think you can buy it now and once they send you the software key you can cancel the install and install at a later date
£25? Where from
Microsoft themselves, assuming you only want the digital upgrade download:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_WOL_Hero_ShopHP_FPP_Null
Thanks… So does that mean the higher prices you mentioned in the article are also for the digital upgrade? If so, how much for the FULL version with disc? A Kidney.
If I remember correctly, to get the disc, you have to add another £12 or so on. Not sure it’s worth it, though. It’s not difficult to get a hold of a Windows ISO (whatever version). The main thing you need/want is the key. Why pay more for a string of letters and numbers that can be e-mailed to you for free.
Its not that I want physical media. I just cant see an option on their website to buy the full version… only the upgrade.
I get the software through my technet subscription, I was just wondering if the upgrade price was going to be £125, what the expected full version cost would be.
It’s only the upgrade that is discounted.
You can do clean installs from the upgrade ISO….
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/clean-install-windows-8-upgrade.htm
Tip: There’s no need to order the Windows DVD since you’ll be downloading a full disc image which gives you the ability to make your own disc for backup.
From here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/buy
Ooops. I was a few mins late.
There will be an increase of sales prior to February price hike then Microsoft will decide to continue the current low price “introductory” offer? i reckon that’ll happen…
i dont get the hating, i have used Vista, Win7 and now 8, its really good, i have yet to crash, i enjoy the tiles and i have got used to not having a start button, TBH its quite a refreshing OS once you adjust to the change in navigation. My gran of 76 finds it much more intuitive and much simpler to use with the app system, she just sees email or weather or news etc.. and it just works which i like. Its fast, its good to work with, i like some of the apps and the extras over win7. you can still use it like 7 and its a little faster i think. I had a minor issue with a specific button for Dell. but this is more that Dell have not updated the driver rather than windows being poor. I find it closer to speed and use of Mac so i dont get why people hate on it so much.. i can only assume these people are trying to run it on a cheap as £300 old machine.. in which case what the hell do you expect?
I was not really planning on getting Windows 8 Pro but the vouchers I got (making the price £15 instead of £25) will expire soon so I did. Windows 8 Pro is a lot nicer than I though it would after using Classic Start Menu which basically bypasses the Metro UI. Now it looks and works like Windows 7 with all the improvements minus the Metro UI crap.
I had the developer preview, was qutie happy with it and only upgraded to full Windows 8 becuase the preview ran out and my laptop would restart every 2 hours until I did!
Are there any advantages of buying it on disk as opposed to the digital download?
I’m wanting to upgrade and do a clean install from Windows 7.
No. And it’s about a 2GB download, if memory serves.
“Are there any advantages of buying it on disk as opposed to the digital download?”
Advantage:
- You don’t have to burn it onto a disk.
Disadvantage:
- You have to wait for the disk to arrive per mail.
- Installing from a disk is slow compared to USB stick or straight from the HDD
- Knowing you paid extra and waited longer for the same thing
Thanks, download it is then!
I really liked Windows 8, but I recently went back to Windows 7 because all my games ran very poorly under Windows 8 compared to Windows 7. I’m glad I got my cheap copy of Pro, though. I will be going back once the gaming performance is back up to par.
Hmm on one hand my laptop is approaching it’s 5th birthday and I’m probably going to upgrade so not much point buying a new OS for it, but on the other hand since I’m probably going to upgrade to a desktop this could be handy just to have as an install.
Does anyone know if there’s an expiration date on the product keys they give you?
No there isn’t.
Cool
Would I have to buy a copy for every machine I wanted to install it on?
Is this actually the case or has Microsoft actually announced they’re releasing a full-price version that doesn’t require a prior version of Windows to upgrade from