Posted on July 31st, 2009 by Tim Danton

The scandal that is Microsoft’s Windows 7 pricing in the UK

So, how much bad news can you take in one lump? Because we’ve just received news of Microsoft’s Anytime Upgrade pricing for Windows 7 in the UK, and it makes for about as much jolly reading as a Stephen King novel.

And just to make things even worse, we’ve now had confirmation there will be no Family Pack of Windows 7 until “at least” 2010. So, if the worst comes to the worst, that means it could be 2011. Or later.

I’ll tackle the Anytime Upgrade prices first – just to explain, these are the “in-place” upgrades you can choose, so if you buy a Windows 7 Home Premium laptop but decide you want Windows 7 Professional you just need to buy a new key and your OS is converted on the spot.

Here are the three key potential upgrades:

Windows 7 Home Premium –> Professional: £120 inc VAT

Windows 7 Home Premium –> Ultimate: £125 inc VAT

Windows 7 Professional –> Ultimate: £85 inc VAT

Take a moment to digest that (especially if you’re a business user that wants to upgrade your Windows 7 Professional laptop to Ultimate so you can take advantage of advanced features like BitLocker 2 Go). And now take a look at the US prices:

Windows 7 Home Premium –> Professional: $90 (around £54)

Windows 7 Home Premium –> Ultimate: $140 (around £84)

Windows 7 Professional –> Ultimate: $130 (around £78)

That almost defies comment. Yes, dollar-price exchange rates fluctuate; yes, Americans have to pay a sales tax in most states, which isn’t accounted for in those prices. But, really, we have to pay that much more than our US friends? Anyone fancy a mass trip to New York?

And then, just to rub our noses in it that bit more, we have the fact that UK users can’t buy the Family Pack of Windows 7 due to the ridiculous mess that is the Windows E edition (in short: there’s no Internet Explorer built in to the EC editions of Windows 7, and Microsoft says that makes it technically impossible – right now – to upgrade direct from Vista).

The Family Pack allows Americans and Canadians to upgrade up to three Vista computers to Windows 7 in one fell swoop, all for $149. So, um, that’s £89 then? And remind me, how much does the upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium cost for us UK buyers? Oh yes, £80 inc VAT. So for three PCs, that’s a rather princely £240 inc VAT.

Rip-off UK pricing doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Naturally, Microsoft was keen to make its spokespeople available for comment. What? Oh, you say that when we tried to call – after receiving this bad-news email at 5.15pm this evening - all we got was voicemail? Surely not.

Ah, but what’s this that Barry Collins has just forwarded me if not Microsoft’s answer to our anticipated question “The prices seem high, how do you justify these?”

A. First, we know most customers buy a PC preinstalled with the right edition for them – that is the easiest and by far the most popular way to get a new operating system. That said, Windows 7 WAU pricing is comparable to – and in some cases significantly lower than – Windows Vista WAU pricing. And while Windows 7 pricing is comparable to previous versions, new features add value through richer scenarios and more possibilities, offering a simplified computing experience with more options to enjoy and use media on their terms, work anywhere and get more done.

Right, well that’s okay then.

Look, I love Windows 7. And I will, at the earliest opportunity, convert all PCs I can touch to the OS. But until Microsoft learns to treat the UK, and the rest of Europe, with the respect it deserves, it will continue to get negative press.

Tags: anytime upgrade, Microsoft, rip-off, Windows 7

Posted in: Rant, Windows 7

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12 Responses to “ The scandal that is Microsoft’s Windows 7 pricing in the UK ”

Paul Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 7:35 pm
It’s not just software – compare these two HP laptops, one in Future shop Canada, one in PCWorld, UK, both high street stores. Their specs are as close to identical as it’s possible to get, the Canadian one is 560 quid (after sales tax and using current dollar/pound exchange rate), the PCWorld one is 749 quid, a 33% markup

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10126463&catid=

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0268704434.1248998381@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdhadehllhhjhgcflgceggdhhmdgmj.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=101739&category_oid=-27757
David Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
“new features add value through richer scenarios and more possibilities”

Can someone translate this into English?

Ta.
Jon Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Trouble is people will pay it. Look at other examples – when the Rocj Band game first came out for example, or the ridiculous prices for virtually everything Apple produces (although to be fair they do that everywhere). Some idiot, somewhere, pays it and makes it a feasible business proposition.
Glenn Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
and they wonder why people are so ken to download stuff off sites and try to hack stuff. i know people will do it anyway no matter what the cost. the eu complains about browser integration what about us getting totally stuffed by all these american software houses.
Paul B Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
@Paul – To be fair, in the example you chose, the two laptops aren’t the exact same model. The Canadian model isn’t available to buy in the UK. Also, it has integrated Intel graphics, whereas the UK model has an Nvidia 512MB GPU. And, PCWorld are generally quite expensive.

Not saying that we don’t pay a premium, here in the UK, though.
Paul Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Paul B – yes you are correct I realise they are not exactly comparable the NVidia is a better graphics chip that the Integrated graphics chip but it’s still a heck of a markup – especially when most laptop owners aren’t bought for serious gaming and the Intel chip will play back dvds etc without problem.

Likewise you can’t (from what I can see) buy the UK model in Canada. Call me sceptical but I think they sometimes give each country it’s own model number so direct comparisons cannot be made
John K Says:
August 1st, 2009 at 12:41 am
I’m guessing our domestic situation is pretty normal these days — two desktops, two laptops, acquired over a number of years, all running XP.

Does anyone at Microsoft actually expect me, or anyone like me, to pay more than £300 for the pleasure of upgrading to win7?

I’ve run a trial of Win7 out of curiosity, and it’s a good OS. But I won’t even be upgrading my own desktop because (a) as the one-man domestic IT department, I refuse to support more than one OS at a time, and (b) even if I found £300 under the mattress tomorrow, I can’t imagine deciding that upgrading a perfectly serviceable OS would be a sensible way to spend such a big chunk of the household budget. Who buys these upgrades?
Chris Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
This issue seems to be a hardy perennial in these forums. Most of the time the finger of blame is left hovering in the direction of malevolent foreign (read ‘American’) capitalists and their avaricious ways. Somehow it is never resolved and the mystery allowed to linger. Wake up people! Just do the maths. It’s your own Government that is ripping you off, VAT, import duty and shipping charges. If you order retail they even send it by the most expensive means available. These additional taxes explain everything. Now could PC Pro find another issue to whip up the mob with?
Matt Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
They have a monopoly in the world, so not sure why the pick on UK more than any other nations? They could fleece everyone.
Note: Amazon UK are selling Windows 7 for £70(inc VAT, £59 exc) or €82, Amazon Germany €120 and Amazon USA $120 so in theory Amazon have a work around?
Are Microsoft just winding us up? in reality selling their OS to UK machines at the same price as USA but putting a silly price online? why
Rik Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 4:31 am
I’ve only been using a computer for about three years. I seem to have spent more time learning than I have doing, especially about PC security issues, which is understandable. What irks me is M$’s regularly outdating its own OSs, charging for the upgrades, and so many users flocking to stump up the cash. Then there’s those constant security issues. I’m currently dual booting a laptop with Vista and Linux Mint installed. For what I need – and I’m an average home user – Linux MInt is easy to use, updates are a sinch, security issues are virtually non-existent and it costs absolutely nothing. Booting to Microsoft just becomes increasingly less attractive. People need to vote with their fingers and download an alternative to anything not M$.
Lloyd Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
What is the point of this rant?
“I don’t like what your doing but I’m still going to give you all my money. Just remember I don’t like it!”

Microsoft couldn’t give two hoots about your bad press so long as everyone keeps buying the products it churns out.

Personally I feel cheated by M$. I got Vista pre-installed, it’s obivously built with only 2 things in mind
1) Making sure that it’s hardware partners get a hefty chunk of your money with it’s 100’s of MB of bloatware loaded at boot, making people think the computer can’t handle the OS. When the truth is the OS isn’t far short of being a criminal venture.
2) Tie you deeper into the Redmond way of working; OpenGL support dropped on release, bugs and unfinished/not working basics like file transfering. “It’ll keep them upgrading to more of our software for years” to quote that Bond vilan.

It’s been laughable over the past 2 years with the take off of netbooks, Microsoft has been stopped in it’s tracks a forced to do what it should have done with Vista, release an OS that works and works on hardware specs that existed at the time Vista hit the shelves.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! EITHER STOP BUYING OR STOP BITCHING! Because M$ only cares about 1 of those options.
SKGiven Says:
August 6th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Remote Desktop connections to Vista and Windows 7 are too slow due to the underlying slow responsiveness of both platforms. It’s as simple as this; if you need to connect remotely to your computer regularly, don’t even consider a Vista or Windows 7 upgrade! Besides, I doubt the “possibilities” offered by Windows 7 justifies an update from Vista Ultimate. I think the possibility of most people finding all of the Windows 7 new features is slim, let alone remember how to use them the next time they try. By the way the search facility in XP is so easy to use, why change it in Vista and then again in Win7? It is now total rubbish and endlessly thrashes the life out of your hard drive.
Update issues. If you only use your computer occasionally, stay away from Vista – you will spend ALL your time installing updates and get absolutely nothing done on the system. The number of updates is a good indication of how poor the operating system is! Obviously it is too early to tell how Windows 7 will fair in this respect – but that’s a good enough reason to stay away from it, never mind putting on the Win7 update. Yes, that’s right, Win7 is just a Vista revision that actually works! It’s not like it was built up from the ground.
If you live in the UK and you buy a new computer system, Make Sure you get the Operating System you want – it’s now as important as the computer hardware specs, given the upgrade prices!
I don’t think it is fair to Blame the Rip-Off-UK culture on one company though, everyone else is at it too, especially the retailers!
Think about this. What are net books used for?
So if you can’t upgrade to Windows 7 from a Vista version that has IE, it’s a bit of a crippler!
I thought Microsoft spent millions to let you uninstall IE from Vista and XP, so why can’t you just uninstall IE, upgrade to Win7 (should you feel your pockets are too heavy) and then install IE again?