Dell Believes Windows 7 Too Expensive

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» 17 May 2009

Dell Believes Windows 7 Too Expensive

According to a Dell marketing executive, Windows 7's price may pose as an obstacle to its widespread acceptance regardless of its trumping of its predecessor, Vista, in every other aspect.

Darrel Ward, director of product management for Dell's business client product group, said in a phone interview that ASPs (average selling price) generally cause people to hesitate accepting and embracing an operating system, especially considering the fact that the various versions of Windows 7 will probably be more expensive than either XP or Vista.

He adds that it's woefully naive of Microsoft to believe that they can increase the prices of their newest operating system (OS) and then still witness a stronger surge of buyers than if they lowered prices or at least maintained them like before. He assures that "the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista." He predicts that Windows 7 Professional is going to be a lot pricier than Windows Vista Business, its forerunner.

Obviously, the price issue will cause some smaller businesses and schools not to adopt the latest Microsoft OS offering. "Schools and government agencies may not be able to afford (Windows 7's price tag). Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like," Ward noted.

Despite price issues, Ward acknowledged that Windows 7's momentum is a lot more impressive compared to Vista when it was first launched. He said that when Vista was released, customers didn't have any demands for the types of services Dell is offering right now.

People from all walks of life are currently looking forward to getting their own copy of Windows 7 and have "already put plans in place to target the transition to Windows 7." The demand for this new Windows OS and the opportunity to meet that demand are stronger than ever before. This is good news for Microsoft, whose Vista platform was so unsuccessful that some consumers actually went on and "downgraded" to XP after upgrading to Vista.

Proper user migration from Windows XP or Vista will play a key factor in Windows 7's success, so Dell supports the upcoming OS's XP mode. "It's one of the things that Microsoft is doing that we think is helpful—putting an instance of XP virtual machine in the higher end SKUs (models). This is another alternative for compatibility. We'll fully support that in our product and consulting services," Ward praised.