We are starting to see the adverts in the papers now for upgrades to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. The Aussie price for the Win7 Pro Upgrade is $400 AUD and $430 AUD for the Ultimate upgrade. Ok – so let’s take a moment and look at the US pricing and we find that the US price for these products is $200 USD and $220 USD respectively. Hang on… isn’t the Aussie dollar doing really well now? Isn’t Australia the worlds first major economy to pull out of the recessions – in fact technically Australia did not enter the recession but thats a whole other story.
How then can Microsoft Australia hope to justify the massive price difference between the US and AU versions?
It saddens me to write this you know, because I know the individuals in the MS AU team are trying to do their best, but as I understand it, it’s the corporate rules that govern the pricing. Maybe if MS AU get enough feedback on this they will do something more about it. Why don’t we all just purchase it from Amazon.com and totally avoid this mess then. Maybe that will help Microsoft understand how wrong they are in their pricing policies. Vote with your feet people…it’s the only thing that MS hear.
So – yes – you can have Windows 7 real soon at a nice price… nice for Microsoft for sure, but not nice for the clients that wish to get up to it on their current hardware… Microsoft take a good long hard look at yourselves here… please… before it’s too late. I was hoping that the Windows 7 release would be the thing to really help spur on the IT recovery here in AU, but with things like this it makes me wonder if it will help or hinder…
What are your thoughts on this – do you see this as a kick in the guts for us Aussie resellers?
Wayne
Got to agree with you…. at AU$400 i can see no point in proposing this as a solution…
Better to purchase a new machine, with an OEM license – certainly in the SME Market space.
$400 wacks of pain factor – “it’s a low volume item” so put a high value on it… But instead of the opportunity to sell more copies at a lower price point, the decision has been made to drive SME’s to OEM on new equipment.
Just my opinion anyway.
Cheers
The Wayne,
My thoughts based on new prices for Lenovo A58 (with win7 pro oem) starting from $1150+GST (estimate sell to customers) is why spent $400 on the upgrade and then $$ for the upgrade. Most are going to be coming from Windows XP which will require a full install anyway. I see people will wait until their hardware requires a refresh at these upgrade prices.
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