Will Ms offer free upgrades for buyers of new PC's from late summer

Hi there
We all know W8 will be released early in the new year.

While the pressure on to get people to move from XP to W7 prompted Ms to offer FREE upgrades for people who bought XP for a few months before W7 was finally released - there isn't such a problem with W7==>W8.

So do you think Ms's largesse in allowing Free upgrades for people who buy the older OS in the short period before the newer one is released will continue (Free upgrades) or will they make people pay the Full (upgrade) price if they want the upgrade.

I'm sure the PC manufacturers will attempt to get MS to provide free upgrades since this could stall the market quite severely for a few months (and around XMAS time too).

While sceptics weren't sure of W8 initially -- more and more people are actually quite liking it --although they do need to look at it more than once before they start getting to like it.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
We all know W8 will be released early in the new year.

Click to expand...

No we dont!!! if it ain't publicly released in time for the xmas market then it will flop, atm it's following pretty much the same path as Windows 7 which means it should RTM in July/August and release to public October/November.

There is no way MSFT will miss the xmas market.

z3r010 said:

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
We all know W8 will be released early in the new year.

Click to expand...

No we dont!!! if it ain't publicly released in time for the xmas market then it will flop, atm it's following pretty much the same path as Windows 7 which means it should RTM in July/August and release to public October/November.

There is no way MSFT will miss the xmas market.

Click to expand...

Yeah - that's one of the things that clobbered Vista (along with being a bit of a dog at the time). They will not want to make that mistake again.

My moles in MS tell me that security around an OS release has never been so intense - much that has been released inside the company in the past is still under wraps and not available except to the team members themselves.

Sinofsky seems to be of the opinion that nothing is going to get in his way - and that means that target dates *will* be met, even if expectations have to be trimmed (after all, they can always put out a patch!)

I'm actually wishing that Microsoft prices the full version (not upgrade version) of Windows 8 at under $100

jimbo45 said:

I'm sure the PC manufacturers will attempt to get MS to provide free upgrades since this could stall the market quite severely for a few months (and around XMAS time too).

Click to expand...

In the case of Windows 7 Dell was offering free downgrade to XP, after the release of 7.

I don't see why you talk about Xmas, Windows 8 will be release in October, if they offer a free update it will be for the one purchase in August and September, not after the Official release of Windows 8

IceFire said:

I'm actually wishing that Microsoft prices the full version (not upgrade version) of Windows 8 at under $100

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You are dreaming, it won't happen. Even the upgrade will be over $ 100

I think that would help Windows 8 along, especially considering some Windows 7 laptops have larger touchpads that are suited for Windows 8's touch gestures. Honestly, they should have a link on the Taskbar or Desktop that takes you to a fun demo of Windows 8 to get the user intrigued. And if they want to, at the end of the online demo (or a software app), a user can choose to upgrade to 8 for a much lower cost than buying a copy of 8. It does need to be very cost considerate to work though. A 100 dollar upgrade is a dream, but maybe 150 would be better and would be more logical.

And Windows 8 will come out by late September early October. Microsoft needs the back to school season to kickstart off Windows 8, which leads up to the Christmas seasons.

Hi thar,

MS needed to wean users of XP to an envisioned long term replacement - which is Seven.

The same enticements to upgrade users en masse to a test OS/direction - Win8 - are not as imperative as it was with Seven; so generous upgrade offers are more than likely to be a lot more restricted this time around.

Cheers,
SEB