Vista Price Changes on the Way?

Microsoft raised a few eyebrows late last week with an announcement that it is planning significant price cuts for some versions of the Vista operating system. So far we only have details of the US changes, which apply to the upgrade versions of Ultimate (down from $299 to $219) and Home Premium (drops from $159 down to $129), but according to a CNET News report the company also has plans to reduce prices in other ‘developed’ markets which presumably means Europe and Japan. There will also be changes too for emerging markets, where the distinction between full and upgrade versions will be eliminated. Microsoft is not known for radical price cuts and there’s no shortage of theories, from poor sales figures to competition from Open Source operating systems and Apple Macs but there is no doubt that sales of Vista have been significantly lower than XP during the comparable six months post launch period and a number of major PC and laptop manufacturers continue to offer buyers of Vista hardware a free ‘downgrade’ option to XP.