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Microsoft Matches Snow Leopard Price With Windows 7, But Only for Students
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I think Home Basic was always for the people in the third world countries or those who cannot afford Home Premium who just needed an updated version of the OS. Home Premium was always the "normal" version.
Anyway, I find it interesting that Microsoft would do this. Sure, they're trying to match Snow Leopard, but isn't Snow Leopard just Leopard with tweaks and stuff while Windows 7 was built from the core? Developers of Windows should be raging :/. Unless they only get paid by like hour instead of partly from commission.
200$ is not that bad of a deal when on the Apple side, you get iLife '09 AND iWork '09 along with the OS ?
Again, you give 30$ more to Microsoft for much less software, and it isn't that bad of a deal...
Denial much ?
And why would you need a 2000$ laptop ? The 599$ computers from Apple run Snow Leopard just fine.
Windows 7 is the Mac's primary competitor. I don't see how that shouldn't be interesting to the Mac community.
Retail you are only supposed to see 3 versions. Ultimate, Pro, and Home Premium. Enterprise is Volume license only. Starter is supposed to be for netbooks (why I dunno). It is supposed to be less confusing for the end user, not a MSDN/Technet user.
Sometimes I'm embarrassed to walk in public with my macbook. I feel like a geezer wearing the latest fashions. I still insist the average age of a mac user is 14.
Make that 13.
Home Premium not Home Basic is the "mainstream" edition so it will definitely be available retail I'm not sure about Home Basic. [EDIT: I see you corrected that in your post].
It is also the version that MS is selling as part of their $149 "family pack" http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/31/microsoft-announces-pricing-for-windows-7-family-pack-upgrading/. So even for students there are still ways to get licenses for ~ $50.
This $29 deal is particularly a good deal for students who may need some of "pro"'s features.
B
Yeah, I know, I'm pretty in to the Windows world here at work, so I get it. I was more laughing at the dysfunction of the page than anything else. What kills me is that Microsoft still doesn't get it. Windows 7 is really nothing more than what Vista should have been. To charge as much as they are for the upgrade really points to the fact that Microsoft just doesn't get it. Windows 7 is not a built from the core in any real sense of the word. It is built on Vista, they just trimmed it down a lot so it runs on lower-end hardware than Vista ever could.
Apple at least seemed to get it. The experience of Snow Leopard over Leopard is a lot like the experience of Windows 7 over Vista. It's faster, more polished and will perform better on hardware like the mac mini. Apple, however, seems to be willing to eat into their pile of cash and recover not much more than distribution costs for the media to get people to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Believe me, $29 a copy won't recover the R&D they put into Snow Leopard, unless they sold tens or hundreds of millions of copies (or something crazy like that).
Apple saw it as _strategic_ to eat into their cash reserves some and spur the adoption of Snow Leopard, not to counter Windows 7, but to give people little to no reason to stay on Leopard. Snow Leopard has under the surface changes that the next versions of iLife, iWork, Final Cut, Photoshop, etc will be able to make use of, which could make the experience of working on a mac leaps and bounds above what you could get on a windows machine.
Apple understood Snow Leopard as an investment in infrastructure and refused to turn it into a money grab. It's too bad Microsoft didn't see Windows 7 the same way.
You clearly don't know much about Windows 7 versioning and this post proves it. As stated on Wikipedia: "Windows 7 will be available in six different editions, but only Home Premium and Professional will be available for retail sale in most countries."
Go to Amazon. You'll find Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
You can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions for a full breakdown if you really want to.
However, as I mentioned in the post you quoted... Home Basic is for EMERGING MARKETS, you twit. It's a crippled version of Home Premium sold really cheap to people in "third-world" countries that can't afford to have the latest hardware.
Starter is even more crippled than Basic, possibly for Netbooks or lesser devices.
Enterprise is Ultimate for businesses, as I already mentioned in one of my posts. Wikipedia even states that it removes the games included with Windows 7... so it's not intended for consumers.
Thus it really comes down to Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
Professional has all the features of Home Premium and adds useful stuff like XP mode (which is essentially a built-in XP virtualization... you need the hardware to run it).
Ultimate has all the features of Professional and adds BitLocker and VHD booting and a few other minor things that no one really needs. If people think they need Ultimate, maybe they should look into a Server version. Since most of the features exclusive to Ultimate are also in Windows Server 2008 R2.
I've got 10 free licenses for Professional and have no real desire to run Ultimate... I'd never use the extra features.
Let's start with me saying that I bleed in six colors and I'm a Mac consultant.
Now I'll opine about Window7. It works. It sucks way less than Vista and, in fact, runs okay on an old Sempron-powered Acer laptop with 1GB of RAM.
Snow Leopard is light years ahead of Windows7 but, for millions of Vista users who are afraid to make the jump to a new OS (and the hardware needed to run it), Windows7 is a good solution.
I bought the $29.99 W7 package for my HP notebook. (I teach so I also have a ".edu" eMail.)
Now I'll opine about Window7. It works. It sucks way less than Vista and, in fact, runs okay on an old Sempron-powered Acer laptop with 1GB of RAM.
Snow Leopard is light years ahead of Windows7 but, for millions of Vista users who are afraid to make the jump to a new OS (and the hardware needed to run it), Windows7 is a good solution.
I bought the $29.99 W7 package for my HP notebook. (I teach so I also have a ".edu" eMail.)
Uh... What you don't seem to get is that Apple can recoup their development costs for Snow Leopard on hardware sales. Certainly they're making a lot from selling hardware... And Snow Leopard can only LEGALLY be run on Apple hardware. (on Intel Macs, specifically) I mean, I paid over $2000 for my MBP. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that's purchased an expensive MBP.
Also, with reference to Final Cut... Apple just released updates to Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio PRIOR to Snow Leopard's release. Neither included 64-bit applications (or code that was otherwise enhanced for Snow Leopard) AFAIK.
You may want to do a bit more research before you open YOUR mouth from now on.
I love competition from the big guys. Gives the consumer better products and better prices.
With that said, screw all you anti-microsoft mac fanboys.
With that said, screw all you anti-microsoft mac fanboys.
Nothing in life is for free. You indirectly pay for your Windows 7 Professional through your tuition.
So you can't count. And this post proves it.
Starter if you want a netbook (they do sell those here in the US, correct?)
Home Premium x86
Home Premium x64
Professional x86
Professional x64
Ultimate x86
Ultimate x64.
I still count 7. Way too many.
BTW - save the pejoratives for someone who values your opinion.
Exactly! Power PC users got screwed so they are forced to buy a new system if they want to upgrade their OS. *Ca-chingggg!*
I'm with ya...been using XP since it came out and honestly, I can't think of what it is missing. I use it literally 16+ hours a day on numerous laptops, netbooks, desktops, and servers.
I don't need a prettier Start Menu or some other facelift.
When core computing architecture and technology updates come (USB 3.0, true dual-core apps tools, and "the next sliced-bread" comes along) then I will update.
It's not a Mac vs. PC thing...I just think us Windows XP users really have no NEED to upgrade. If we did have a need, we would have been screaming about something missing for the past 9+ years and either moved to Linux or Mac or Vista. Very few people have made that change by choice (meaning, new pc buyers were forced Vista).
I can see myself using XP for the next 5+ years easily.
-Eric
Unlike Apple, you'll actually get support from Microsoft for that amount of time for Windows XP.
The retail boxes will include both... but I think that just means they'll include both x86 and x64 discs. With my MSDN-AA membership... I had to download 32-bit and 64-bit versions separate. While they could fit them both on a dual-layer disc, it's probably far simpler (from a user perspective) to label them clearly on the disc. Then let the user decide which one to insert. The install process doesn't have a selection screen for "Would you like to install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7?"
Keep in mind, however, every disc (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) has the same contents. The serial number is what determines the version. This is to simplify the upgrade process for a user with Home Premium that decides they should have gone with Professional.
I sure hope so, given that the 50% preorder deal did not allow one to specify which version!
NOTE: In Vista all of the 32 bit installs shared a common install disc and the 64s had another (differentiated by product key only), I read that all that differentiates the different Windows 7 editions is just a config file on the disc.
B
It's nice that this isn't an Academic version.
The license for "Office Home and Student" precludes you from using it for any commercial use. The same applies to Academic versions of Windows.
MSDNAA versions of software are all academic.
The license for "Office Home and Student" precludes you from using it for any commercial use. The same applies to Academic versions of Windows.
MSDNAA versions of software are all academic.
Like balamw said, the images are probably both on the same disc and there doesn't appear to be a differentiation in serial keys this time. The major difference being the installation scripts.
Each key will activate the proper version.