The price of Windows XP...

[aeonf242]

Just a general.........
I was talking to a guy at work today and he needed a copy of Windows XP (legal, of course), as he's just a normal bloke (non-geek) he got a price of £190 from PC World for the normal version of Windows XP.....
ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY QUID!!!!!
I managed to point him in the direction of ebuyer where the OEM version is £54 and advised him he could buy hardware upgrades, etc for his existing biege box and save himself a packet....
I just couldn't believe how expensive this 5 year old product is, especially when you can literally buy a new PC cheaper with the OS included.....
What a bleeding rip-off.......

[ExceededGoku]

:O jesus, and the thing is people actually buy it at that price because they don't know where else to look

[directhex]

you understand the licensing differences between OEM and Retail Windows, right?

it's reasonable for someone who shops at PC world to buy the product with technical support.

[Stoo]

That Home or Pro?

If it's Pro it's cheap for retail, if it's Home (which I suspect) It's about £30 overpriced..

[aeonf242]

Originally Posted by Stoo

That Home or Pro?

Home......although I think you get a £10 discount if you buy online.....

[shiato storm]

expecting it to plumit with the arrival of vista

[Xaneden]

Even with the problems involved in upgrades and MS saying that makes your OEM licence null and void, it still works out cheaper in the long run. After all, it's what, 50 quid for an OEM home edition? Why not just buy another copy if you upgrade, it's still cheaper?

[Spud1]

Originally Posted by shiato storm

expecting it to plumit with the arrival of vista

Not until next year though =) So plenty of money to be milked from XP yet...

[directhex]

Originally Posted by shiato storm

expecting it to plumit with the arrival of vista

actually, the shelf price of windows has dropped continually with every new version - xp pro sells for less than 2k pro; xp home for less than ME.

other than the hyper realaction battle editions of vista, expect this to continue.

[Xaneden]

Indeed, I heard that they're going to market the standard versions (Home, Home Premium?) at around £90. I can't remember where I read this though, so don't hold me to it.

[UltraMagnus]

umm, they still sell lisances for win 98 for like £200......

you should have pointed him towards bit torrent, or linux.....

[directhex]

Originally Posted by UltraMagnus

umm, they still sell lisances for win 98 for like £200......

you should have pointed him towards bit torrent, or linux.....

if windows isn't worth buying, why is it worth using?

[Xaneden]

Originally Posted by UltraMagnus

you should have pointed him towards bit torrent, or linux.....

Bit-torrent to get Linux, that is. Hexus is very anti-piracy. ;-)

Generally, versions like 98 kept their prices for quite a while due to their popularity; ME was hardly a real replacement for it. Also, shops like 'Staples' and to a lesser extent, 'PC World' tend to forget to mark down older versions. Office XP was about 120 quid more expensive than 2003 last time I went in.

Originally Posted by directhex

if windows isn't worth buying, why is it worth using?

It's the most widely used operating system; it's not perfect, but it has a large software-developing community which produce software most users could not do without (and that isn't available for Linux).

Certainly by all means, try it out via dual-partition etc, but I wouldn't recommend giving up Windows without experimenting a bit, and making sure you have driver and software support that you need.

[Dihi Doctor]

In my experience Linux is fine, if you have the time to fiddle and get all the programs you need working. User-friendly distributions like Ubuntu are helping to make it more accessible, but Windows is still the best for software that "just works", which is what your average end-user works.

I keep my machine as dual-boot (WinXP/Kubuntu) for ease of use of common apps (OpenOffice still has a way to go to be compatible with Office) and for speed/ease of playing the latest games, some of which just will not work under Linux emulation

[directhex]

Originally Posted by Xaneden

It's the most widely used operating system; it's not perfect, but it has a large software-developing community which produce software most users could not do without (and that isn't available for Linux).

if it's got all these great features, then it's worth paying for. the price has been set by the manufacturer - anyone who doesn't think it's worth the asking price shouldn't be using it, end of story. same goes for things like msoffice - if you really need the features msoffice provides over cheaper competitiors, then pay for those features

[Dihi Doctor]

Originally Posted by directhex

... if you really need the features msoffice provides over cheaper competitiors, then pay for those features

The thing is, the main "feature" of office is that it's ubiquitousness, not so much the quality of the software being much better than the competition - I have to use office to insure that all my document formatting etc is correctly preserved when taking files between uni (where most PCs only use M$ office) and at home.