By Rupert Goodwins, 25 June 2009 15:26
NEWS
Microsoft has set the UK retail pricing for Windows 7, which is due to launch worldwide on 22 October. Prices range from £49.99 for pre-ordered Home Premium to £229.99 for Ultimate.
The company has also said that, due to the European Commission antitrust ruling on Internet Explorer bundling, it will not be offering the cheaper upgrade versions of Windows 7 in the European retail market. All versions of Windows 7 in the European market will have the 'E' assignation.
"We will only be shipping E editions in the European Economic Community," Laurence Painell, Windows OEM & WGA product manager, told silicon.com sister site ZDNet UK. "We will no longer offer Windows Vista or XP dynamic upgrade and will not be offering upgrade products in [that] market, only fully packaged products."
He confirmed that European users of previous versions of Windows will have to reinstall all applications and data manually, although Microsoft will be offering guidance on procedures.
The standard retail pricing for Windows 7 will be £149.99 for Home Premium, £219.99 for Professional and £229.99 for Ultimate. The notional prices for the unobtainable upgrades for existing Windows owners are £79.99, £189.99 and £199.99 respectively.
However, UK shoppers will initially be able to buy the standalone product at upgrade prices for a limited period. "[The full retail price] is more than people would expect to pay," said Painell. "We will be offering fully packaged products at upgrade prices from the launch to the beginning of next year."
The operating system can also be pre-ordered at promotional prices of £49.99 for Home Premium and £99.99 for Professional. There is no pre-order promotion for Ultimate.
People buying Windows PCs from 26 June will have the option to upgrade to Windows 7 "at little or no cost", Painell said. "This is our Tech Guarantee process, and it operates through the retailers and manufacturers. It's up to them whether they charge for it, so it's important the consumer checks."
The reason for excluding retail upgrades from the UK, Painell said, was that the EU judgement made it impossible for the company to include Internet Explorer on the desktop. "It's technically possible to have an upgrade without Internet Explorer," he said, "but testing that would have delayed the launch. We may have a postage process, FTP access or some other technology offering to give IE to those who choose it. We're deciding between the different channels, and will be working through this and other things for the market by launch."
New PCs bought with Windows 7 could have Internet Explorer, he said. "We don't expect manufacturers to ship without a browser. We expect 100 per cent of PCs in market to have browsers. It's up to the manufacturer or retailer to have a separate agreement for that."
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
European commission costs us all £70 would have been a better headline.
2. Karen Challinor
Microsoft have just made my decision regarding the purchase of any more of their software for me
thanks guys, it's open source from now on
3. Jeremy Wickins
So, no matter how good this new version of Windows is, it is not going to take hold in the European market? It seems likely that a few months will pass, then there will be an announcement that sufficient "testing" has been done for there to be an upgrade version.
Might be a good time to start looking at the alternatives, though ...
4. Paul Tansom
Surely an upgrade simply upgrades the software on there and if IE is already there it can be upgraded (even if via the web). Admittedly IE *will* be on there, but I can't see the ruling restricting this - although I've not read up on it; it just makes sense to me, but then I'm not a lawyer!.
Of course for my money I would, and do, use Linux instead :) I also do a clean install between versions with Windows when I use it anyway, so bar the cheaper price, it is largely academic for me.