The Windows 7 Rip-Off

Alright, it's time to give equal time to equal crimes. Earlier in the week I ranted a bit about Apple charging iPod touch owners for security updates. As if to not be outdone, Microsoft today announced pricing for Windows 7, and it's not pretty. I'm going to ignore, for the time being, the fact that Windows has gone the wrong way by offering more versions of 7 than they did of the ever-so-confusing Vista. OSX comes in one flavor only, which would be the equivalent of Microsoft offering only the Windows Ultimate editions and not starter, home basic, home premium, professional, business, enterprise, etc, etc ad nauseam. I'm even going to ignore the fact that Microsoft turned their backs on the Vista Ultimate purchasers by not offering any special pricing for 7 Ultimate upgrades. Ultimate purchasers, incidentally, are typically compute enthusiasts and therefore most well equipped to dump Windows altogether in favor of a Linux distribution. Lastly, I'm not even going to mention that the faults with User Account Control (UAC) should have been included in Vista SP2 instead of bleeding into an entirely new OS.

What confuses me the most about the pricing strategy is that it does not provide for a growing segment of the population: the multiple PC household. Microsoft obviously knows about this market segment. They offer 10 client licenses with Windows Home Server and 3 with Office Home and Student edition. Not only are they aware, but it's the direction Microsoft has envisioned for some time, dating back to when they first proposed the PC as the center of home entertainment around the turn of the century. So why, instead of capitalizing on this vision and rewarding those who have embraced it, is Microsoft alienating multi-PC homes by trying to squeeze every last nickel out of them for the latest OS? Apple offers OSX Snow Leopard full install for 5 clients for a suggested retail price of $220 (although Amazon currently lists it for about $130) or about $100 less than a single Windows 7 Ultimate license.

I have three PC's on which I was hoping to install Windows 7. A Windows XP desktop, a Windows Vista Ultimate desktop and a home theater PC (HTPC) that I'm currently building. I'll need at least one full install ($320) for the HTPC build, and 2 upgrades ($220/pop) for the desktops. In order to get Windows 7 on these three machines, I'm out $760 - $540 more than Snow Leopard would cost me and for two fewer licenses! Apple tax? Not in this case.

My next post will describe the benefits of purchasing Windows OEM versions instead of retail.

Update: It is now being reported that Microsoft will sell a family pack version of Windows 7 Home Premium, guessing the cost to be about $150 for 3 licenses. 

Update to the Update: Microsoft, in true Microsoft fashion, has now pulled the plug on the Windows 7 family pack after only 2 short months.  I can once again stand by my previous assertion - rip off confirmed.

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.

The Apple iPhone 3.0 Rip Off - for iPod Owners

Apple has done it to us again. By "us" I mean iPod touch owners, or the sensible younger brothers of the life-of-the party iPhone fans. With the 3.0 software upgrade, Apple has decided to shaft those of us without a $60/mo carrier subscription with a $10 upgrade fee. Granted, it's not as bad as the $20 charged for the 2.0 upgrade, but that's probably attributed more to the fact that they decided to charge $30 for the Snow Leopard service pack than out of the goodness of their hearts.

Last time around, apologists attempted to explain away the fee as an accounting requirement, which never made much sense, especially considering that they have been freely updating the iPod classic since its inception. Even if this is the case, this article freely admits that the pricing of the upgrade is not included in the requirement and has been left completely to Apple's discretion. In other words, if they wanted to charge $.01, they could.

Admittedly, I love the features included in the update and didn't feel too bad about paying for them. That is, until I learned that the upgrade included forty six bug fixes, including a particularly nasty one uncovered by this year's PWN2OWN hacker competition. Anybody in the tech profession is conditioned through experience that these types of security updates are not optional. Leaving your systems open to these types of vulnerabilities is an invitation for disaster. iPod touch owners have been forced to pay for 46 critical bug fixes in Apple's OS. Typically, software companies will issue bug fixes - especially for security vulnerabilities - without cost both as a concession that the OS should have been free from such issues to begin with as well as in an effort to keep the Internet as safe as possible.

Apple would be much more responsible if they broke their updates into bug fixes and feature enhancements, and charged only for the latter. Why don't they? I think there are a couple of reasons. Apple is very concerned about the perception of their products. They charge top dollar for the Apple brand because they have sold the "it just works" mantra. Apple prefers to razzle-dazzle consumers and media at trade shows with slick new features to distract from the ugly side of the software business - bugs. After all, what about 46 security vulnerabilities "just works"? In this way, they can continue to sell their differentiation from Windows, which is generally perceived as more buggy and susceptible. Image is everything.

Secondly, and also probably secondarily, Apple is a company that makes money hand over fist. They are just darn good at it, and their shareholders expect it. Thus, any chance they have to bring in an additional revenue stream they jump at. This motive would seem to be supported by the fact that they charged $10 instead of $.10 for the most recent upgrade.

So, until Apple decides to act more responsibly toward the computing community at large, iPod owners are stuck paying for fixes for bugs that never should have existed in the first place.

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.