David Flynn18 January 2007, 7:06 AM
As the release of Vista draws near, Microsoft is piling on the upgrade incentives. In a bid to get families to buy more than one Vista upgrade, Microsoft is offering heavy discounts for the second and third copy.
With the consumer launch of Vista now less than two weeks away, Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its strategy to drive Vista sales and upgrades.
First up is the Windows Family Discount program, which is Redmond's solution for home networks needing up to five copies of Vista. Unfortunately the solution is skewed towards boosting sales of Vista Ultimate rather than being a simple multiple licence bundle, and it offers no more than three licences per deal. (For home networks needing more than five licenses, Microsoft suggests you sign up for a volume licensing plan.)
From January 30th, which will probably soon be known simple as V-Day, US and Canadian retail purchasers of Windows Vista Ultimate - either as a full or upgrade version - will be entitled to buy up to two copies of Windows Vista Home Premium online at US$49.99 each. This is just under a third of Home Premium's standard upgrade price of US$159.
(If you need more than two copies of Home Premium for your home network, you'll have to pony up for another copy of Vista Ultimate to get a second stab at the Home Premium discount).
Even so, it turns out to be an astonishingly good deal, even if you weren't going to buy Vista Ultimate in the first place.
Under the Windows Family Discount scheme, the Vista Ultimate + Home Premium bundle would cost US$358.90 if you bought an upgrade of Vista Ultimate (US$259) and two discounted copies of Home Premium (US$49.99 each).
This represents a saving of over $118 if you bought three off-the-shelf upgrade editions of Windows Vista Home Premium at Microsoft's suggested retail price of US$159 apiece (which would total US$477).
Microsoft also lifted the covers on the Windows Anytime Upgrade program, which allows users of any Vista edition to upgrade to higher editions by purchasing a license key online and upgrading from the install DVD (which is a mega-image containing copies of all Windows editions).
Users of Home Basic can jump up to Home Premium for US$79 or go straight to Ultimate for US$199. The Home Premium to Ultimate upgrade will cost US$159, which is slightly more than the US$139 ticket cost of stepping up from Business to Ultimate.
he scheme will be available in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan.
However, prospective Vista buyers would do well to accurately assess their need and choose the right flavour of Vista the first time around.
For example, upgrading from XP to Home Premium will cost you US$159, but to use Windows Anytime Upgrade to later step up to Ultimate will cost that much again, bringing your total spend to US$318. You'd have been ahead by $59 if you upgraded straight from XP to Ultimate in the first place.