>Neither has it escaped my notice that WIN 98 retails for $109 .. but only for the upgrade. The full price for first time users is $209. Sounds a bit like monopoly creep to me.<
Tell me who will buy a first time user version ? As I know, MSFT licences it to PC OEM maker for $40. If you buy a new PC, and it will just cost you $40. If you already own a PC, then it must have either Win 3.1 or Win 95 in your PC, so you just pay $109. The only case that you will pay for a full version is you build your own PC, and in this case, you still can buy an OEM version from your PC component shop.
Sometime, you should appreciate MSFT can come out good softwares on the low price. I don't know you work in the UNIX world or not. If you do, you will know how expensive there are. It costs around $1,500 for word processor (FRAME from Adobe), and cost $3,000 for Lotus, and cost $100,000 for DB (ORCL, SYBS, IFMX), and cost $1,000,000 for CAD. Do you know how come SUNW and ORCL hate MSFT so much ? If you compare the software price on UNIX and PC, you will understand it from your heart. So, don't complain too much. |
