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After the posting of Windows Vista retail pricing by Amazon.com (see the article HERE), and the recent public disclosure of pricing by Microsoft, there have been a lot of questions regarding whether or not Windows Vista is worth the price. A lot of this will depend on how we relate value, and comparing the prices of other items which are commonly bought. We also have to examine what exactly we get when we purchase Windows Vista.
In addition to being an operating system which provides a platform to run many of the most popular software titles, Windows Vista also includes a multitude of its own built in applications. With integrated cd/dvd burning, a full featured media center and stand alone media player, a great new backup program, a movie maker, a number of entertaining games, and built in speech recognition software, Windows Vista includes many great stand alone applications. Of course there are third party apps that do the same and sometimes much more, but for the most part, the ones that come as part of the package will get the job done for the average user.
Value has to do with comparisons, and when you compare the price of Windows Vista with some other commonly used and popular software titles, it gives a little better picture of where Vista sits in the pricing game. Since Amazon.com first posted the Windows Vista prices, I used some of their other software prices as a comparison:
Adobe Photoshop CS2: $589.99 USD
Macromedia Flash PRO: $696.07 USD
Corel Draw X3: $249.99 USD
Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred: $164.99 USD
Beyond TV 4 Media Bundle: $92.99
Norton Save and Restore: $67.95 USD
Considering that the price of some stand-alone software titles are far above what Windows Vista will cost, and then looking at the comparative costs of software which has comparative features that are included in Vista (granted some of them offer more features, but the ones in Vista will work for most users), the final price of Windows Vista actually seems like a bargain. Of course, there is the question that many users have who are considering upgrading from Windows XP - why upgrade when what I have already does the job?"While it's true that many of the great underlying features of Windows Vista will not be seen until applications that take advantage of them are released, upgrading will provide better security, more functionality for basic Windows tasks, and hopefully, better stability.
While it remains to be seen how good the final product will actually be, and there are certainly still some bugs to be worked out, the potential for Windows Vista is great. Of course there is the hardware upgrade factor in cost to consider, but then again, it is not only Windows Vista that will require the better hardware, but many of the new software titles which will be released, and of course many of the new games.
Posted by jrfree1 at September 9, 2006 10:09 AM
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