Why is windows 8 so expensive?

AssaTM

AssaTM

AssaTM

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I was looking to upgrade to Windows 8 and I thought i'd be able to find some good deals or fair pricing on it like I did with Windows 7 but then I was shocked to find that the Windows 8 pro upgrade edition alone costs £150+!! why do they charge so much for it? surely a cheaper price point would mean more uptake in the actual OS meaning the same profit margin anyway? i'm just a little surprised it is THAT expensive :o

Im also asking it in relation to Apple offering their upgrades for a cheaper price, just a general question really :)
 
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Loooking in the wrong places, even on here its £106 for pro oem.
Oem is the new retail and nothing like the old oem.

Do you even need pro, most people wont.

Also this is why you should get in, on the launch price.
£25 bargain. Even if you dont install nit staright away, the chances are most people will want it by the time win9 comes out.
 
AssaTM said:
I was looking to upgrade to Windows 8 and I thought i'd be able to find some good deals or fair pricing on it like I did with Windows 7 but then I was shocked to find that the Windows 8 pro upgrade edition alone costs £150+!! why do they charge so much for it? surely a cheaper price point would mean more uptake in the actual OS meaning the same profit margin anyway? i'm just a little surprised it is THAT expensive :o

Im also asking it in relation to Apple offering their upgrades for a cheaper price, just a general question really :)
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Quite a few of us got Win8 for 15 or 25 quid when they had the special upgrade offer,you can get an OEM version of either 8/8.1 Pro from OcUK for around £106 inc vat which is like a full retail version.


Glaucus beat me to it,I type slow in my old age ;) .
 
AssaTM said:
Im also asking it in relation to Apple offering their upgrades for a cheaper price, just a general question really :)
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Apple "upgrades" are glorified service packs. If MS started actually charging for service packs then you'd get a comparison.
As Apple charge for these service revisions then when the "major" updates appear they look cheap - you fail to take into consideration the money you've spent on the minor updates en route.
 
Yeh that makes sense, i'm just used to seeing a few more deals for Microsoft OS's than I am currently, Windows 8 isnt a spring chicken anymore in terms of being brand new so im just surprised there isnt a few promos or deals around :)

and yeh I bought Windows 8 for my Laptop when it was £25 but I didnt have the foresight to think to buy it for my PC in the future too :o
 
stoofa said:
Apple "upgrades" are glorified service packs. If MS started actually charging for service packs then you'd get a comparison.
As Apple charge for these service revisions then when the "major" updates appear they look cheap - you fail to take into consideration the money you've spent on the minor updates en route.
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I'd be very surprised if they charged for an OS upgrade ever again. The last expensive one was years ago.
 
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but can someone explain why Windows 7 Ultimate is still more expensive than Windows 8 Pro?
 
ICEx21 said:
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but can someone explain why Windows 7 Ultimate is still more expensive than Windows 8 Pro?
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it's just the name. nothing more. no one actually needs ultimate. if they think do, then they really do have more money than sense.

as for windows 8 pricing, if you have a legit version of windows to upgrade from, you can still buy upgrade versions of 8.0 for 60 quid. you'll have to search on your own though. you can then upgrade that to 8.1 for nothing - either through the store or by acquiring an 8.1 ISO online.
 
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ICEx21 said:
Ok that I understand, but what I'm referring to is why is an older OS more expensive than a newer OS?
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Because Microsoft want to people to buy Windows 8 now and not Windows 7.

I've also never understood the argument of Windows being expensive even at £100.

People are happy to shell out £40-50 on a game that may last them a few months but whinge at forking out not much more for something that's as important as any component and that will be used and supported for years.

Weird logic.
 
Windows is good value, but the problem is it's starting to look expensive next to the competition. How come OSX, iOS, and Android are "free" yet Windows isn't?

It's a fallacy, of course, but that's not the way people are seeing it. It's especially true amongst smaller mobile devices since the "free" alternatives offer a more polished experience and a better stocked app store.
 
theheyes said:
Windows is good value, but the problem is it's starting to look expensive next to the competition. How come OSX, iOS, and Android are "free" yet Windows isn't?

It's a fallacy, of course, but that's not the way people are seeing it. It's especially true amongst smaller mobile devices since the "free" alternatives offer a more polished experience and a better stocked app store.
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Apple os is only available on apple stuff which is so over priced you basically are paying for the os.

Android makes its money through data mining and teh advertising of googles other services. and the play store (although I don't know what cut the play store actually get). Microsoft have a business standard product that is king for computing and make very little money from it other than the initial sale of the license.
 
reckon they should release the home version for £25, they'd get far more many sales, I'd upgrade my whole house if it was that price.
 
Desires says it pretty well. But I do think it is a bit expensive, but you can get it for much less than in the OP.

I got 8.1 Pro (don't require pro, not even sure what it has over the standard version tbh) from my Uni's software offer at the grand price of nought. So, remember to check that if anyone reading this is a student, or MS may do special prices direct as I know they do for office.
 
stoofa said:
Apple "upgrades" are glorified service packs. If MS started actually charging for service packs then you'd get a comparison.
As Apple charge for these service revisions then when the "major" updates appear they look cheap - you fail to take into consideration the money you've spent on the minor updates en route.
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I disagree, the changes between releases warrant more than them being called glorified service packs. Aside from driver and security updates, there's been a raft of changes like Airdrop, multi-touch gestures, Twitter/FB integration, Exchange support, Expose, iCloud etc etc.

Even if your point about paying for those features piece meal is true, you can't escape the fact that going from:

Leopard --> Snow Leopard --> Lion --> Mountain Lion --> Mavericks

has only cost £60-80, that's 4 OS iterations for less than 1 iteration of Windows.

Straying ever so slightly... :D I think MS will have to do something about their standalone OS pricing model in the coming months with the advent of SteamOS anyway, I can see that putting a dent in their market share so they'll need do something to retain. Not expecting them to release it for free by any means though, there's plenty of markets outside of Steam gamers.

Unless of course SteamOS is a bag of phalluses, then it's kinda moot.
 
It's only going to get worse as the Windows + Office cash cows get milked even more to prop up the multiple failing business units at Microsoft. It's going to be even worse for Volume License customers.

In an era of all but the most featured-filled apps being sub-£5 and most web services being 'free', £100+ for a desktop OS upgrade sticks out more and more.
 
They will have to give win9 sniveling metro square garbage infested spy cloud away for free.

oh yeh win7 is the new xp.. why pay for crap downgrades.
 
You can't compare the price of Windows to Mavericks

The cost of Mavericks is absorbed into the price you pay for your Mac. That £2,000 you spent on the Retina Pro contained a good chunk to the OS it's running.

If Apple licenced itself out to third party builders (like they did in the 90s :eek:) then the OS would probably be the same price or even higher.

Upgrade costs are both Free (in fact I think MS did it first)

Windows 8 > 8.1 = Free
Mavericks = Free (for certain people)

When the original 8.0 launched they had a few months where you could buy it for £24.99 (or £14.99 if you had bought a new PC recently)

all things being equal, windows is probably the cheapest OS around
 
Glaucus said:
Loooking in the wrong places, even on here its £106 for pro oem.
Oem is the new retail and nothing like the old oem.

Do you even need pro, most people wont.

Also this is why you should get in, on the launch price.
£25 bargain. Even if you dont install nit staright away, the chances are most people will want it by the time win9 comes out.
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Exactly. I bought 2x £25 copies on release and most people on here know I don't like Windows 8. Still may want to install it in the future though so it was worth it.

bledd said:
reckon they should release the home version for £25, they'd get far more many sales, I'd upgrade my whole house if it was that price.
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Yeah this would be much better.
 
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