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Microsoft Matches Snow Leopard Price With Windows 7, But Only for Students

buxtone17 said:
Setting aside the $29 upgrade for students, I've never understood...

1. Why Microsoft charges so freaking much for Windows.

2. Why Microsoft creates like 97 different versions of each of their operating systems and other softwares.

Would you like Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, Vista Super Mega Ultimate or Vista Intergalactic?

And how about this page.

Some of the "features" are "Best choice for laptops", "Have more fun on your PC" and "Additional programs and features".

Come again?
Click to expand...

That page is a riot! Could you imagine some poor sucker wanting to upgrade from Vista? They're obviously trying to steer you away from Home Basic (with checkmarks only on "most secure windows ever", "quickly find what you need", and "easier networking connectivity"). It isn't even best for laptops. And it doesn't have Aero? Holy cow! They can't even throw in their UI layer on Home Basic?

So I spend $199.95 (+TAX) to get something that makes it easier to network my computer (which unless I'm missing something, it already is if I'm reading your web page), gives me the most secure windows ever (which is a little like saying claiming you're the most trustworthy wall street securities trader involved in a Ponzi scheme ever), and gives me the ability to quickly find what I need (which I think at this point, amounts to being able to find a .EDU address so I can download this for only $29.95 - about what it's worth).

If Apple doesn't make some switchers out of this, I'd be surprised.
 
djellison said:
Sorry - what does this have to do with Mac?

This place is more obsessed with Zune and Win7 than anywhere else on the web.
Click to expand...

Windows 7 runs great on a Mac, and since my Wife is a student, I might just get this for $29.99 to keep my options open for software that will only run on Windows (there's not much of it that I still use, but there is some that I use once every two to three months).

Also, it should be noted that while it makes it easier if you have a .edu email address, there is an option for you, if you don't.
 
HLdan said:
Exactly, I just love how MS treats their customers like their dumbasses. Snow Leopard gives you the full experience with all the networking tools and drive encryption, the same as Windows 7 Ultimate, but SL is $29 and W7 gives the students the home premium version for $29. FAIL. And before any MS fanboy mentions that the students don't need more than home premium, the point is that MS is trying to advertise W7 for $29 against SL as if it's the same package and it's not.
Click to expand...

Isn't this article stating that Students can get Professional for the same price? Which is only missing BitLocker encryption?

Also, if you think drive encryption is going to keep hackers out of your data... you might want to think again. Go watch some Hak5... you will be enlightened. In one episode they demonstrated how to get around BitLocker and other drive encryption schemes.

I find it amazing how Apple fanboys are easily lulled into a false sense of security. Yeah, my OS X install is likely safer than my Win 7 install... but I'm still not so cocky as to believe it's invulnerable to viruses. (granted, I don't have antivirus protection installed on OS X... but I don't go around clicking stupid links either)

As stated multiple times in this thread (by myself and others) this $29 isn't even the best deal available to students. It's just the most publicized.
 
$29.00 for students with less features and less security

Oh ma... my school provide free copies to student Premium one too.. some of you should check with your schools you may get it for little or nothing...I got adobe suite that cost 2k from my school for $250.00 yeap...

MS. That is not a deal. maybe you should provide us with everything for 29 buck more or less why the timeline.. really struggling now..
 
Apollo33 said:
First and foremost: Windows is a software company. Unlike Apple, Windows depends on software sales (and software support costs for businesses) to bring in profit. Apple, however, is a hardware company. They simply make the software to run on the hardware. Hence why they don't seem as worried about users pirating versions of OS X. Those users have (theoretically) already purchased a Mac.

As to the second question: That was a thing they did with Vista, which was very stupid. They've learned from it. With Windows 7, there's Home Premium which has a limited feature-set that should be enough for most Home users. Then there's Professional for more techy or business users... which (unlike Vista Business) still retains ALL the features from Home Premium. Yeah, there's Ultimate but the only notable feature not included in Professional is BitLocker, which most people probably don't care about (and isn't that great). (Oh, and they call their business volume license thing "Enterprise"... but they've had it for each version of Windows and it's pretty much the same as Ultimate, so it's not worth mentioning.)

So really there's only Home and Professional now. Just like with XP. Nice and simple.
Click to expand...

the best feature of Ultimate is the virtual XP mode. only thing is that you have to have a CPU that is VT compliant and Intel screwed that up so you have to check.

i run x64 WIndows 7 and that means my checkpoint VPN client won't work. it works in x86. so i downloaded the virtual XP mode and it works very fast. a lot faster than the beta
 
MacMonster1985 said:
What do you expect? Look at their Xbox 360 console? People are perfectly happy to go back to it even after multiple failures, knowing well in advance of it's 50% failure rate. They are willing to pay for Xbox Live, something which should have been free in the first place. MS will treat the consumers as idiots as long as they're willing to be treated as idiots.
Click to expand...

oh, so it's ok for apple to charge $1.5k+ for outdated compute hardware?

give me break
 
As stated multiple times in this thread (by myself and others) this $29 isn't even the best deal available to students. It's just the most publicized.
Click to expand...

I thought most students could get it for free via msdnaa. I know I can, and I'm not even in the US.

What do you expect? Look at their Xbox 360 console? People are perfectly happy to go back to it even after multiple failures, knowing well in advance of it's 50% failure rate. They are willing to pay for Xbox Live, something which should have been free in the first place. MS will treat the consumers as idiots as long as they're willing to be treated as idiots.
Click to expand...

I agree that the Xbox 360 is a piece of **** hardware wise. But you have to understand the target market. It's a video game console, the people who bought a 360 instead of other console have their own reasons: exclusive games, exclusive features in Xbox Live, etc. They will come back because of this and because of mere brand loyalism.

I don't understand your reasoning about XBL being free. Apple charges for MobileMe, right? Someone has to pay to keep the XBL services up. I mean, ****, there is a huge amount of people using the service at any given time.

I love my PS3 and I don't see myself buying a 360 anytime soon, but I have to accept the fact the XBL is, atm at least, better than PSN.
 
dernhelm said:
That page is a riot! Could you imagine some poor sucker wanting to upgrade from Vista? They're obviously trying to steer you away from Home Basic (with checkmarks only on "most secure windows ever", "quickly find what you need", and "easier networking connectivity"). It isn't even best for laptops. And it doesn't have Aero? Holy cow! They can't even throw in their UI layer on Home Basic?

So I spend $199.95 (+TAX) to get something that makes it easier to network my computer (which unless I'm missing something, it already is if I'm reading your web page), gives me the most secure windows ever (which is a little like saying claiming you're the most trustworthy wall street securities trader involved in a Ponzi scheme ever), and gives me the ability to quickly find what I need (which I think at this point, amounts to being able to find a .EDU address so I can download this for only $29.95 - about what it's worth).

If Apple doesn't make some switchers out of this, I'd be surprised.
Click to expand...

I've already pointed out that the whole Vista version structure was flawwed. They changed it for Windows 7.

Pretty much you have two choices now, which are Home Premium and Professional (unless you're stupid and feel that you NEED Ultimate, which only really adds BitLocker on top of all the features in Professional.)

Professional has everything from Home Premium and then some.

The Vista Home Basic thing you rip on in your post was really only offered to Emerging Markets, AFAIK. Think small towns in Africa. I don't think you could have purchased it in the States.

Also, you say that Win 7 isn't worth more than $30... Well, I'd say an upgrade from ANY version of Windows (XP or Vista) to Windows 7 is worth more than an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Yeah, I like the built-in Cisco VPN support... and it's nice that Apple finally realized it was stupid to charge extra for basic media player functionality (how many people were actually stupid enough to purchase Quicktime Pro?)... and Exchange 2007 support is a nice feature, I guess... if you use Exchange. Otherwise it's fairly light on the features. Yeah, Stacks are better... and everything has very MINOR tweaks... but it's not really worth much. Windows 7 is clearly more polished than Vista, and thus has a justifiable upgrade price in my mind. Snow Leopard doesn't. Oh, right. It's 64-bit... but that didn't make my system magically run faster. Oh, and I've been running 64-bit since I installed Vista on my MBP last year. Wow, did Apple just COPY Microsoft? Turn on your photocopiers, Cupertino. Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows.
 
Winni said:
No. But unlike Snow Leopard, it will run great on a six years old computer.
Click to expand...

Hah. Good point. Any Mac made prior to 2006 can't run Snow Leopard. A fact most people seem to be forgetting. In addition, the first of those Intel Macs are required to pay for the Mac Box unless they've already purchased Leopard.

It seems like a good scheme to get anyone still using a PPC Mac to upgrade their hardware... which seems like something a hardware company (like Apple) would do.

And, well, a new $2000 laptop clearly isn't a bad deal... while spending $200 on a Windows upgrade is. (note: I purchased my MBP for that much... and this is even AFTER the student developer discount)

I'm not complaining about hardware costs, just trying to clarify that people judging Windows based on its cost are really just being silly, especially when the main source of income for Apple is hardware.

Also, I should note that the upgrade cost for Tiger users is $169 (which does include iWork and iLife 09)... So really, $200 isn't that bad of a deal. (Home Premium upgrade is just $120 if you don't need all the extra features of Professional)
 
Not a student, but I'll settle with a free copy of 7 Ultimate from the free public launch event at the end of the month. I got 3 free copies of Vista Ultimate last year from several MS events.

Oh, and before the bashing begins, Windows 7's actual version number is 6.1, not 7. 7 is really just a minor upgrade to Vista. It is more aimed towards people that did not go to Vista from XP. Win7 is basically an improved Vista. It doesn't have enough new features to warrant a major version number.
 
djellison said:
They're something you should do ANY time you change the OS. I did it for SL. There are many SL related problems which you will find "It's OK - I did a clean install and that fixed it"
Click to expand...

I didn't do it with SL and haven't had any problems... but I did just do a clean install of Leopard to a new harddrive a few weeks prior...
 
VenusianSky said:
Not a student, but I'll settle with a free copy of 7 Ultimate from the free public launch event at the end of the month. I got 3 free copies of Vista Ultimate last year from several MS events.

Oh, and before the bashing begins, Windows 7's actual version number is 6.1, not 7. 7 is really just a minor upgrade to Vista. It is more aimed towards people that did not go to Vista from XP. Win7 is basically an improved Vista. It doesn't have enough new features to warrant a major version number.
Click to expand...

That isn't entirely true. MS retained the major version of 6 to keep application compatibility.
 
macobsession11 said:
ya who really gives a crap what Microsoft is doing! Apple is still the best. Microsoft is always trying to keep up with Apple but they don't got nothing on us lol. lets start talking about Apple and not Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Holy Fanboyism... I like Apple, but ask yourself honestly how much of that is your peers talking... Kids...

I love how not one SUNY school is on that list. Hello, East Coast anyone? Microshaft is a joke.

I'll take advantage of this - only because I like the thought of getting something from them for more than 75% off of retail. A price that should be the standard from one of the largest companies this side of the nebula - complete with the UFO of Fail.
 
VenusianSky said:
Not a student, but I'll settle with a free copy of 7 Ultimate from the free public launch event at the end of the month. I got 3 free copies of Vista Ultimate last year from several MS events.

Oh, and before the bashing begins, Windows 7's actual version number is 6.1, not 7. 7 is really just a minor upgrade to Vista. It is more aimed towards people that did not go to Vista from XP. Win7 is basically an improved Vista. It doesn't have enough new features to warrant a major version number.
Click to expand...

As I've said before, Windows 7 is more of an upgrade to Vista than Snow Leopard is to Leopard. Just because Apple decided to up the version number doesn't mean much.

I mean, heck, Quicktime is at just version 7 on Windows and prior-OSX installs. Yet, for Snow Leopard, it is at version 10. Further proof that version numbers mean nothing. In fact, Office 14 is really only the 13th version of Office. They changed the codename for obvious reasons.

Also, the build number for Windows 7 (which is the number that REALLY matters) is 7600. Meanwhile, the current version of Vista is 6002.
 
Not a bad move by Microsoft. That said, the audience is too limited, features are limited, and it just adds to the jumble of confusing options for customers who want Windows 7.
 
Apollo33 said:
I've already pointed out that the whole Vista version structure was flawwed. They changed it for Windows 7.

Pretty much you have two choices now, which are Home Premium and Professional (unless you're stupid and feel that you NEED Ultimate, which only really adds BitLocker on top of all the features in Professional.)

Professional has everything from Home Premium and then some.

The Vista Home Basic thing you rip on in your post was really only offered to Emerging Markets, AFAIK. Think small towns in Africa. I don't think you could have purchased it in the States.

Also, you say that Win 7 isn't worth more than $30... Well, I'd say an upgrade from ANY version of Windows (XP or Vista) to Windows 7 is worth more than an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Yeah, I like the built-in Cisco VPN support... and it's nice that Apple finally realized it was stupid to charge extra for basic media player functionality (how many people were actually stupid enough to purchase Quicktime Pro?)... and Exchange 2007 support is a nice feature, I guess... if you use Exchange. Otherwise it's fairly light on the features. Yeah, Stacks are better... and everything has very MINOR tweaks... but it's not really worth much. Windows 7 is clearly more polished than Vista, and thus has a justifiable upgrade price in my mind. Snow Leopard doesn't. Oh, right. It's 64-bit... but that didn't make my system magically run faster. Oh, and I've been running 64-bit since I installed Vista on my MBP last year. Wow, did Apple just COPY Microsoft? Turn on your photocopiers, Cupertino. Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows.
Click to expand...

Sorry, you'll have to spew your misinformation somewhere else. I have an MSDN membership through work and I've been using windows 7 for a while now (Ultimate since I get it for free).

Here are my download choices right now on MSDN.

Windows 7 Enterprise (x64) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Enterprise (x86) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Home Basic (x86) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Home Premium (x86) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Professional (x64) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Professional (x86) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Starter (x86) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) - DVD (English)
Windows 7 Ultimate (x86) - DVD (English)

I would say a good deal more than just home and professional. Any idea what starter is? The difference between Ultimate and Enterprise? There appears to still be Home Basic and Home Premium, do you finally get Aero in Basic? Why do I have to choose between x86 and x64?

Perhaps you'd like to explain to me how this tangled mess of options is any better than before.

On the mac, my options are Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server. If I want 64 bit kernel I boot with cmd-opt-64 (or just switch to 64 bit kernel in the preferences). On Windows, if I bought 32 bit now I'd have to purchase 64 bit in the future if it turns out I really did want a 64 bit kernel.

Window 7 is nothing more than an less annoying, faster, better Windows Vista. There is no "feature" in there worth paying $200 for. People will, because they're updating from XP (most smart people gave Vista the skip). From XP, you get some features in Vista worth paying for. From Vista, there are few new features - all they did is polish what they already had.
 
I guess most people here have never heard of MSDNAA.
You can get all Windows versions (XP, Vista, 7 and Server) some Office and a lot of those programming software for free.
Over the years I have downloaded 2xXP, 4xVista and I'm about to download Win7 Pro in both 32bit and 64bit - all free and legal.


I never got any free software(e.g. Snow Leopard) from Apple,... :rolleyes:
 
Ha! Apple making MS squirm=
Dollars to donuts the price would have remained the same-or knowing MS-been pumped up except for the competition making them look foolish-and greedy.


The age of the dinosaur is over
MS is not going to make it into the 21st Century for long
 
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