Six months ago, after a long gestation period, Microsoft finally released Windows Vista. Vista is a huge release; not only because of the long list of new features, but also because of its sheer size, and number of bugs and other oddities and downsides. The development process that lead to Vista has left many with a very bitter aftertaste; features were cut, codebases were scrapped, release dates postponed. A few days ago, Microsoft released some sparse details on Vista's successor, internally dubbed 'Windows 7', and in order to prevent another Vista-like development cycle, here is what I would advise Microsoft to do. Update: APCMag reports that Julie Larson-Green, who was the driving force behind Office 2007's new Ribbon user interface, has been transferred to the Windows 7 GUI team.
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Member since:2005-07-08
I agree completely, but you can't apply traditional marketing strategies to software and other kinds of digital media. Different features and different price points works when the consumer associates the added features with added costs to the producer. For most kinds of goods and services, this holds true. But most software consumers understand that it doesn't cost Microsoft any more money to press a Vista Ultimate CD than it does for any other version.
Let's consider two illustrative examples. First, consider a miracle drug. People know that it doesn't cost the pharmaceutical company $100 to make that pill, but they know that it cost them a lot of money to develop. If the doctor prescribed a new version of the pill that included aspirin and costs $200, the patient would be rightfully pissed. They're OK with supporting the development costs, but they're not OK will getting ripped off for added features that don't cost much money to develop or manufacture.
Now consider buying a car at a dealership. You want the upgraded floor mats, but the dealer says they only come with the leather package, which costs $2000. You thank the dealer and tell him you're going to the competitor down the street. Wait a minute, now you can get the floor mats for $75. While it's silly that you have to play these games in order to get the features you want without paying for the ones you don't need, at least it's sometimes possible.
These examples are tangible goods where everybody realizes that you get what you pay for. We just don't want to be nickel and dimed out of our hard-earned money. Not even this much is true for digital media, where a lot of people have no problem with making a copy and not paying for it. Microsoft is in an industry where piracy is rampant, and they respond with seven different versions of Vista at various price points. What are they thinking?
Member since:2005-07-06
My guess is that Microsoft wants to offer Windows to people that don't need all the features and don't want to pay for them, but they don't want to lower the price of a Windows version with all the features because that would severly hurt their profit margin if everyone was able to get all the features for that reduced cost.
If they offer only one version at about what Ultimate goes for, then not everyone can afford it or is willing to pay that much.
It's not about making people pay extra for features, but making Windows more affordable to people who don't need/want all the features, without pissing off shareholders. Remember the shareholders.
Member since:
2006-07-04
I think it's clear that the reason for the different desktop versions is to provide a set of different price points; some accountant guesstimated the set of price points that would maximize revenue. People talk of OSX having a single OS at a single price point, but Apple makes most of its money on hardware (and they release an upgrade every 12-18 months at that single price point). Apple, being primarily a hardware company, makes different versions of Macs and iPods at different price points calculated to maximize revenue. Microsoft, being primarily a software company, does the same for software (thus the different versions and price points of Windows, Office, Visual Studio, etc).
Then of course, there's the EU-mandated "N" versions that nobody wants. :p