Geoff Spick16 June 2009, 2:05 PM
At every level of retail, the knives are out as customers look for their pound of flesh from Microsoft in the new era of OS pricing
It must be an odd sight, Microsoft proudly waving its shiny new OS at its Windows partners from the past two decades, only for those partners to start digging trenches, making demands and generally not playing the loving buddy. In the past, they had little choice, as Windows was largely the only game in town.
Now, we live in an era of free operating systems, budget laptops where pricing means every cent counts and where Microsoft has a vibrant competitor in Apple. So, its not a surprise to see stories
like this, indicating that Microsoft really won't get its own way when selling Windows 7 to the trade, or the consumer.
With other recent news indicating that the Android OS may
yet be a major competitor in the netbook market, it increasingly looks like Microsoft will be excluded from the only growing segment of PC sales. Sure, the huge desktop corporate market, full-spec laptops and new home desktops will remain its preserve, but if these markets remain depressed, Microsoft will not be raking in the cash it expects to make.
One unlikely source of income could from the many Mac users who seem happy to install the Windows 7 RC on their shiny Apple machines. How many of them can be tempted to swing both ways with a nice boxed copy of a Microsoft OS?