$751 for Windows Vista Ultimate: official Australian pricing revealed

James Bannan
09 October 2006, 1:34 AM

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Microsoft has just announced local Australian pricing information for all full packaged product Windows Vista editions. The top-shelf Windows Vista Ultimate carries an unbelievably hefty pricetag, though Home Premium costs roughly the same as XP Pro.

Microsoft has just announced local Australian pricing information for all Full Packaged Product Windows Vista editions.

The idea is that Vista will be offered at prices comparable to equivalent Windows XP versions, though Microsoft hasn't yet revealed upgrade pricing, which is what most people will be interested in.
So, the ERP (Estimated Retail Pricing) for Windows Vista is:

Windows Vista Home Basic - AUD$385
Windows Vista Home Premium - AUD$455
Windows Vista Business - AUD$565
Windows Vista Ultimate - AUD$751 (ouch)

As a comparison, boxed copies of Windows XP retail around the following prices (these prices were sourced from Harris Tech):

Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 - AUD$299
Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 Upgrade - AUD$159
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 - AUD$445
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 Upgrade - AUD$319

Bear in mind that these prices aren’t what some people will end up paying. OEM pricing will be different - businesses certainly won’t be buying boxed copies of Vista, and most users will probably hang out for that new computer purchase with Vista OEM.

OEM pricing isn’t generally available just yet.

But how do you do a direct comparison between XP and Vista?

Arguably Vista Home Basic is a pretty good equivalent to XP Home Edition, but XP Professional is closer to Vista Business than Vista Home Premium, and there’s a definite markup there.

As for Vista Ultimate, the most obvious difference is the inclusion of Media Center, and all the niceties which come with it. It had been be damn good to justify the extra $300 you’ll be paying over Home Premium.

So - if you haven’t started saving for 2007, better start now.

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daniel:

Well, it's not often I admit defeat, but this time I have to. I'm happy with XP thank you. I am not a young man and I am on a pension now through disability. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm grateful for the fact I have what I do now and will settle for that. Frankly, I'm a little confused as to what more Basic Vista has to offer that we don't already have or is available at other sites. Beats me!

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous:

I think M$ is digging their own grave with this over priced POS called vista.

Linux may well become the OS of choice for the many in years to come unless M$ does what is always have done to its competition. Buy them out...

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tezza:

I hear a lot of people smashing Windows stuff. Sure, its always had its problems, but for millions of people its a simple, usable operating system. You can get stuff done. And the big bonus - you can actually play games on it :). Oh - linux has no viruses? Neither does apple? That's at least partially due to the fact that they are only used by a tiny percentage of the population. 751 bucks for Vista Ultimate is bullshit, but wait for OEM. They won't sell many copies at that price - it will come down. Or wait for the BT release.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

ÃÂ¿QuÃÂ©?:

Presumably the prices announced are for full versions, not upgrades. Curently, an XP Pro upgade is about 72% of the price of a full version. That would make a Vista ultimate upgrade in the region os $540. We have four laptops in our home and so we're presumably looking at more than $2,000 to upgrade all of them! And then there will be similar upgrades to Office 2007 with concomitant major prices. I'm looking at $4,000 or $5,000 worth of upgrades; perhaps more. Then there will be upgrades of anti-virus software, CD/DVD burning software, etc etc etc. This could end-up costing me the price of a small car. Vista might be good, but what family can afford this cost?

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dimsim:

Windows vista came out for one and only reason....games. Take halo2 for instance. Bill gates is a greedy guy everyone that wants to play new microsoft games whould have to buy vista. Not talking of all the upgrades ul need to get for you comp and for your games!!!

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Derek:

Go LINUX......

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tyler Durden:

I have been a long time user, developer, and advocate of Microsoft and their technologies. My support over the last couple of years has been tested. When a company is making so much money, they seriously cannot work out what to do with it all because it piles up in the bank faster than they can think of ways to spend it, this pricing cannot be justified. I am all for them recouping costs and making a profit, but all you need to do is read the quarterly results. Pay close attention to Cash and liquidable assets column in the balance sheet for some mind blowing numbers. There is one plus however, Microsoft is all for innovation, and it will be interesting how innovative hackers will be to circumvent the anti-piracy measures Microsoft put in place. The incentive is surely there.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gurks:

"Vista might be good, but what family can afford this cost?"
Perhaps a family with 4 laptops.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Michael:

lol. classic :-)

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Ronald McAdee:

Lol, internet.

29 February 2008, 8:37 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Bill Gate:

Go Linux...

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin:

My goodness. I hope the OEM prices are somewhat lower.
I also wonder what the Government department I work for will do with Vista. I'm kind of expecting them to just upgrade, but that's going to cost bajillions.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

steve:

Why would anyone want to buy a copy of Windows. No one would buy an incomplete car, but Microsoft expects us to pay for an incomplete operating system - security updates to plug holes that Microsoft either can't see, or choose to ignor are released every 2 weeks at the moment. If it's up to us to constantly update the OS, then the OS isn't complete.

I made the error of paying for Windows ME (what an appauling OS that was) as well as OfficeXP and each of those peices of software were worse then their previous incarnations. Since then I've been using free software for everything unless there's no good alternative to a Microsoft product; in which case I use an illegal version. I know that's terrible, but I've already paid for poor quality software and I won't fall for it again.

It's hacked Windows XP and Office 2003 all the way for me. On top of everything else, I won't have too upgrade my hardware to run them.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Paris:

$751 for Windows XP service pack 3 with eyecandy.

There is nothing in Vista that is not available today from Microsoft or 3rd party software makers.

All the promised innovations were never implemented because it was beyond the ability of Microsoft and its coders to make it work.

It will take years and years before Vista makes serious inroads into the market. It has nothing exceptional to offer. I know because I have spent months as part of the beta testers using this thing.

For most people it will require upgrading their computer to make it work efficiently and properly.

Users beware, there is no joy heading your way.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

john:

"$751 for Windows XP service pack 3 with eyecandy...."

That doesn't work very well.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dave:

Will this cause Vista to go the same way as Windows XP has with 1 in 3 worldwide homes using pirated copies?

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Retired Nerd:

I still don't even see a reason to upgrade, XP pro or home works fine for what I use my computer for and I know for a fact that my friends and family don't use them for much more either, Basically Email and Photo's,I will be OEM only with a new PC.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Raindog:

only $751 for the latest flapping envelopes, that still leaves enough to buy those T3 shares, and that bridge the guy at the Quay was selling, will the value never cease?

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

John:

So what your saying is buy a copy of XP Pro this xmas with the coupon to get Vista for free next year and save yourself $300.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

anony Muse:

Are they joking? What kind of nutcase would pay $751 for an Ultimate Edition? Seems my status will only get me Home Premium.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

David:

Every time they release an OS the exact same comments from people are seen.

Its not as good as the last version
Its more expensive than the last version
My tech friend says its no good - stay with the previous version.
Its just eye candy.

Same comments - every OS release.

Maybe people will start seeing through these basless comments and see Vista for what it really is.. the newest and best version of Windows.

The feature Im looking forward to is the new implementation of the networking stack - I work over an ADSL VPN and browsing shares over the network is quite cumbersome (as all previous IP stacks have not been designed for fast but latent networks). They say in Vista that browsing network shares and working on networked share files will be a lot faster due to the improvments on fast but latent networks - Woot.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

wombat:

ok now what i dont want to bust your bubble but microsoft is just playing catch up to
apple osx
all the featuers that are in vista have been in os x for the last 2 years
nothing new nothing gained
all they did was again rip off ideas and just box them
i use both os
and i tell you you run osx for a lot os photo work runs rings around XP
and the best part is you can run osx on an older machine and still get performace out of it
none of this bs about reg or validate
sigh when will people really look at the bigger picture

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous:

Yeah and apple is playing catch up in becoming a proper IT company lol

29 February 2008, 8:34 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous:

That's exactly right.

A secure OS that is BSD based. They actually manufacture hardware under their brand name. Lead the market in personal audio players, have a mobile phone/personal organiser... etc.

That is no real IT company.

Idiot.

29 February 2008, 8:35 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymised:

"Lead the market in personal audio players, have a mobile phone/personal organiser... etc."

That is to say, Blanket Marketing Campain that outstrips any previous digital media player marketing, such that the average person on the street thinks that ANY digital media player is now an "IPOD"...
it's just sad that they had to nearly cram it down peoples throats before releasing it.

I use a mac everyday at work, and the 'it just works' is true when it's true, but they don't tell you about the other 35% of the time that it's not working.
...

I say, go windows if you can afford it and the system to run it - else go Linux. (there's a flavour to suit everyone!)

29 February 2008, 8:37 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

canuck:

Baseless or too much truth to it. Sure XP is better than 3.11 but win95, ME, SE were all dogs. People keep saying the same thing because nothing changes with MS, lots of hype, lots of advertising, lots of promises and LOTS of patches as soon as you buy it.

UBUNTU, free, easy to upgrade, almost maintenance free, simple install, secure. Everything windows promises AND I don't have to trade in my 2 year old machine.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

tom0_85:

I will be interested to see how well vista deals with multi-core cpu(s) cause if it works better than XP then i might, just might consider upgrading.

The only people who should upgrade are thoes silly gamers who have 10 Video Cards in there machine and want to use DX10 and view there games on a 600inch screen while playing at 1000 fps.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Terry tremethick:

Why can't MS learn from past failure. A significant amount of piracy is due to cost. If the cost was tempting like some good Linux OS's many would buy it and the amount of pirated copies would reduce. They are finding this with cheap legal music for downloading.

I am sure that is will have very useful features. It sounds great, but why not enable every person to own it? Bill Gates is a generous man isn't he? LOL

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Lucas:

The dawn of LINUX is here...!!! M$ will be old news sooner or later. Even if windoze was free I wouldnt use it!!

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Chris:

from a silly gamers with 10 vid cards, bring in the OEM....otherwise XPs FINE WITH ME!

hope the OEM version is cheap.

Has anyone throught of sending these comments to Microsoft guys?

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

jason:

We have users coming into our shop with 266Mhz machines looking to upgrade from win95 to xp. Vista will be a good excuse for them to buy a new box.

$751 is a lot of money. (close to the cost of the oem version of 2003 Server)

I personally would not buy any version of vista that has any limitations. I like to run on a domian with vpn links to various other networks. As far as eye candy goes. I dont care.. i turn all that stuff off in XP as it is so as not to waste system resources. I hope that $200 extra isnt just eye candy.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin:

"They say in Vista that browsing network shares and working on networked share files will be a lot faster"

Umm. MS have said the latest version is faster at every release. Is it? Well, I've never thought so.

"The only people who should upgrade are thoes silly gamers who have 10 Video Cards in there machine and want to use DX10 and view there games on a 600inch screen while playing at 1000 fps."

Nope... That ain't right... Vista is likely to slow the box down, so gamers will likely stick to XP for some time. No games use DirectX 10 yet, so there's no need to upgrade yet.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Wes:

A bit steep for the Ultimate Edition - a whooping $751!

If I do migrate to Vista I will probably go for the Home Edition.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Arthur Lowe:

Simple, for another $1000 you can get a brand new AppleMac laptop complete with the operating system and no viruses. Or for the price of 2 Vistas, a top of the range iMac with everything included. Life is too short to stress.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Kestrel:

Microsoft is encouraging piracy.

Nice going.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Nick:

All the comments are pretty valid ... and as for owning 4 laptops..not hard over time, especially if your kids need them for school. I build my own PCs so have four and two laptops in the house .. all legal XP (after some effort). Can;t see myself moving to Vista at all .. unless it can provide teleportation services or something likewise that can;t be sourced from third-party suppliers or is more than just window dressing. And as for the security aspect .. it's a bit like selling security doors to old folk - because you got them scared in the forst place!

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Scott:

I am a long time customer. Indeed even a systems admin. I have only a few words to say regarding this price... Apple must be LAUGHING. OSX new version out next year will retail for ~200 AUD. When you think of the cost of a laptop now, HP / IBM must not be very happy. OSX and Apple will be a winning combination for the new year.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Alan Laz:

Crazy pricing.

I write this from an AMD 1600+ PC with 512 mb RAM running (free) Ubuntu 6.06 perfectly. Elsewhere on the drive and now permanently ignored is Windows XP and all of its constant virus warnings, "Genuine" Windows warnings, and all the other constant annoyances from the US.

We now run our house and small business using OpenOffice and Gmail.

GoodBye Bill

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

sallan:

Microsoft can whistle a tune on my meat flute before i pay that for an operating system .. iam in the process of installing linux on all my pc,s and if you want a vista desktop install linux sled with the kde desktop envionment ... beats the hell out of vista and its free

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Ash:

Yawn. Ubuntu is free and, in most regards, better than XP. Mac OSX is cheap, and in most regards, better than Vista. I can see both these products becoming a lot more popular over the next year or so.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Daniel lee:

$751 is about Ã¯Â¿Â¥4,500 RMB, which is about one and half month pay in china. No wonder why China sold so many pirate copy of windows. Go , China, Go !!!

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous:

Does prison sound good?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

JibJib:

Uh, what a jip
It would take my life saving to get the best version

wtf :(

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

John Sheppard:

Really, do you think that the prices will stay like that for longer than 3 months? nuh uh...They're priced like that to get money out of idiots who have to have the latest. The prices will drop like they always do. Maybe Im wrong though. What kinda annoys me is the 4 different versions...the computer industry is so craphouse...its all based on artificially created need.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Paul G:

"....Can;t see myself moving to Vista at all .. unless it can provide teleportation services or..."

I think teleportation was dropped from the features list - along with all the stuff that made me interested in Vista in the first place.
After two months dual booting XP and Ubuntu 6.06 (my very first experience of a non-MS operating system), I find I haven't booted to Windows for nearly four weeks. With the next Ubuntu release less than three weeks away, I think I'll just save the disk space and the money and get rid of MS for good.
I now have four machines all between five and two years old running Ubuntu and doing WP, web, email, graphics, music and movie stuff with no problems at all over a home network that humms along.
Even sent a donation to the developers I was so impressed - and I'm usually difficult to get money out of!
Go Ubuntu!

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

woom:

go linux,no need for antvirus at all or spybot and ad-aware ,bugs just dont come at all.go ubunti

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gill Baits:

$750 - I didn't pay that much for my pc.
Besides, Im quite happy with my cracked version of XP Pro, so it may be sometime before I upgrade to a cracked version of vista.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Steven:

What a Joke.. I'll never pay that for an OS . I may have to go Linux. but only when XP Pro is not supported. I ever auto update my OS anyway, if it an't broke don't fix it.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

David Flynn:

PaulG: we have it on good authority that teleportation will be part of Vista Service Pack 1, although it'll be known as Microsoft Translocation Manager and will available in eight versions, starting with MTM Basic (which will only teleport to down the street). To promote MTM, Microsoft will resurrect the old Windows marketing slogan of 'Where do you want to go today?.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Paul G:

DF: Great news! But if I run MTM in Vista in a VMWare Virtual machine inside Ubuntu will I still be able to port to the real world? I hate it when you get stuck inside crappy software.

Do you have any goss on the Time Travel module? I understand that MS dropped it after receiving a bug report from a beta tester who claimed to be stuck 1856. I thought that's what beta testers were for! I was so looking forward to the "When do you want to go today?" campaign.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

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$751 for Windows Vista Ultimate: official Australian pricing revealed

Microsoft has just announced local Australian pricing information for all full packaged product Windows Vista editions. The top-shelf Windows Vista Ultimate carries an unbelievably hefty pricetag, though Home Premium costs roughly the same as XP Pro.

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