If you have been following the sound economic advice on the purchase of Windows 7, as provided by Gaj-It.com, then you may have been lucky enough to pick up a copy for the bargain price of £50 for the Home Premium version, and £100 for the Professional version. A snip considering the price of the full retail versions. We won’t go into what it costs to buy Mac OS X. And of course you may have found that the bargain price copies are in short supply.
The cynical and the doubting Thomas types that we are, smell the waft of an aquatic finned friend, and think that the Microsoft marketing department are grinning from ear to ear as news of their OS flying out the door, even before it has been released filters through the media. And you could even surmise that the reason that there is a shortage of the cheap copies is because Microsoft wants us to believe the demand is huge.
This is all part of the new Microsoft marketing that has seen the “Laptop Hunter” ads countering the fuddy-duddy image that Apple portrayed of PCs, and went unchecked for so long. And it looks as if they are hitting a nerve. Apple has requested that Microsoft pull an advert that sees a young go getter disregarding a Mac Book Pro as overpriced at $2000, and go for a Dell laptop with Vista at under $1000. The reason is that the pricing given is for the old Mac Book, and now they have slashed an entire $200 from that for the new model. Whoop-e-do.
Now to put even more pressure on Apple, it looks as if Microsoft will be opening up shop in a similar vain to the Apple stores popping up everywhere. Not only are they opening shops, they are looking to open their shops in as close proximity to the Apple stores as they possibly can, and in some instances next door. Not too much is known about the Microsoft shops, but I think we can assume that you will be able to buy all sorts of software and hardware based around the Windows ecosystem.
A part of me quite likes the new up for a fight Microsoft. But only if they don’t win.