David Flynn25 October 2006, 4:58 AM
Okay, so there's a catch: in order to score a super-cheap copy of Vista or Office 2007, you'll have to buy a new PC with XP on it within the next few months.
Microsoft today put truth into the long-whispered speculation that it would offer discounts on Vista and Office 2007 to those who buy a new PC before those products themselves hit the streets -- and for a while after.
Did we say 'discount'? Maybe that should be 'almost giving it away' based on the deals being offered by Toshiba, who were the first of Microsoft's hardware pals to run the red pen through Vista's official price tag.
From tomorrow, buyers of Vista-ready Toshiba notebooks preloaded with XP Professional or XP Tablet Edition -- which is just about all of 'em -- will qualify for an upgrade to Vista Business for a meagre $27 'shipping and handling' cost. The uber-OS itself, over five years in the baking, is free.
Laptops such as the Qosmio series which run Windows XP Media Centre qualify for a similarly gratis version of Vista Home Premium.
Budget-bin Toshiba laptops running XP Home Edition can be bumped up to Vista Home Basic for $99 or Vista Home Premium for $129.
Other PC vendors are expected to make similar announcements in the coming days under what Microsoft has labelled the Express Upgrade to Windows Vista program. This in turn is part of the Microsoft Technology Guarantee for Windows Vista and Office 2007. We could abbreviate that to MTGWVO2K7, but that'd be just silly (and really not much of an abbreviation, come to think of it). Instead, think of it as "systems now, software later".
The 'now' bit is as of Thursday October 26. The 'later' bit -- well, how much later? Microsoft still hasn't stuck a pin in the calendar and marked a firm release date for its next-gen OS and Office suite. But at least we know it'll be sometime before the discount program expires on March 15, 2007.
(The most recent timetable indicates that volume license business customers will get access to Vista sometime next month, while consumers should see shiny boxes sitting on retail shelves towards the end of January).
This sales sweetener is far from unexpected. PC makers, retailers and analysts all made plenty of noise (mostly high-pitched whining, mixed with throaty grumbles of discontent and the odd shrill forecast of utter apocalyptic doom) when Microsoft declared earlier this year that it would not to ship its XP replacement to OEMs in time to pre-load systems before the usual Christmas spending spree.
The promotion slots neatly into the recent Vista-ready campaign which added yet another sticker to desktops and laptops, this one ear-marking the machine as being capable of running Vista or Vista Premium.
While unlikely to put a rocket up pre-Christmas PC sales, at least it prevents them being stymied by consumer uncertainty over Vista. Of course, buyers who want that new PC now will later have to go through the process of upgrading from Windows XP to Vista. Those who can wait until early next year will not only get Vista pre-loaded but, as is always the case, get more PC for their money.
The upgrade discounts are also intended to defray concerns over the high sticker prices of Vista and to a lesser extent Office.
According to an article in eweek, Microsoft will also supply Office 2007 upgrades to customers who buy PCs pre-installed with Office 2003 for the cost of shipping and handling.