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Posted on November 13th, 2009 by Chris Brennan
Windows 7 or Snow Leopard: which is better value for money?
In the latest part of our bid to convert a Mac user to Windows 7, Chris Brennan explores the ever thorny issue of pricing
I’m nearing the end of my month with Windows 7 and so I’d thought it would be a good idea to have a look at the pricing structure. If I’m going to invest it’s probably best to know just how much I’m going to have to spend on this OS.
The laptop I was supplied with came with Windows 7 Ultimate, but having listened to the PC Pro podcast on the subject I’m under the impression that Home Premium will be more than sufficient.
It’s a bit odd as a Mac user to have the choice of operating system as the Mac OS comes in just two flavours: Standard and Server. If I step back to Home Premium from Ultimate am I likely to see any difference whatsoever? No, not at all seems to be the general consensus which begs the question why does Microsoft put that doubt in my mind?
If you’re going to make your Home Premium product so all encompassing why bother with a Professional or Ultimate edition? Did the extra capabilities in the other versions really cost that much more to develop?
Apple makes great play of its single version approach and though I’m not exactly confused to the point of delirium by the three Windows options the pricing does seem to add to the overall complexity of making the right choice.
According to my local PC World the difference between a full boxed copy of Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate is £20 which seems an odd sum, why produce two editions so close together? Of course, the ability to upgrade is a simple solution to this problem and should I find that I’m missing out on that desperately needed feature that’s only available in Ultimate I can always add it at a later date.
Having said all that, the simplicity of the Macs single upgrade approach does have its drawbacks too. My copy of Leopard cost about £90 if memory serves, and Tiger the same before that, and Panther come to think of it.
The latest OS upgrade, Snow Leopard cost me £25. There was just the one version of each of these and I was getting the full copy for my money. However, I’m sure they’re nowhere near the value of a full new version of Windows, with the exception of Snow Leopard that is.
I’m not really sold that Apple OS iterations are simply service packs, there’s more to them than that, but they’re not complete new systems that’s for sure. So, despite the slightly more complex approach to choosing the Windows OS that’s right for me it certainly feels like it’ll be better value over its lifetime.
Click here to read the rest of Chris Brennan’s blog on converting from Mac to Windows 7
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November 13th, 2009 at 10:23 am
It looks like now a PC can install a retail version of Snow Leopard using Free Empire Efi, or Rebel Efi, or Boot 132 loader.
http://prasys.co.cc/2009/10/empire-efi/#more-2127
I wonder how many people will forgo the multiple expensive flavors of windows 7?
November 13th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Snow Leopard didn’t really cost you £25. Its cost is covered by the assumption that you already paid for a Mac and the price you paid for hardware covered some of the software costs. Since Apple control their own hardware they can afford to offer Snow Leopard (or any other operating system they release in the future) at lower prices than Windows.
As for Microsoft’s pricing structure I admit it baffles me, but since Home Premium provides all my needs and thanks to the EU I was able to get a full copy for £67 inc p&p I am not too bothered.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Snow Leopard was really just a marketing ploy to get people to upgrade to the Intel chipset. A cheap way of saying older hardware users no longer matter.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
As a student, I can get Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional for £30.
Not to mention the Office 2007 Ultimate for £38.95 which includes the useful OneNote application and Office Live Workspace.
Does Mac have anything student-friendly?
Also, as hinted at before, one should look at the TCO not just OS prices i.e. hardware and applications cost too.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:06 am
If your university is a part of the microsoft academic alliance and you are on a tech course you can get free copies of Windows XP 32 and 64 bit, Vista Business 32 & 64 bit, DOS 32 and erm no just 16bit DOS, Expression Studio, Visual Studio and others I can’t remember. Apple offers a free iPod with a laptop.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Snow Leopard is only €20 if you have Leopard installed on your Mac. If you have Tiger on your Intel Mac, it will still cost around €100 for the upgrade.
If you install Windows 7 on your Mac, you will need the full retail version (unless you already had a previous version of Windows on the Mac). For “Windows” PCs, you can go for Upgrade versions or OEM versions – although the legality is in question.
OS X on non-Apple hardware – it is technically possible, but still illegal; although here in Germany the term that states it can only be installed on Apple hardware is inside the sealed package, any terms you cannot read before paying for the product are null and void, so it seems that OS X falls into a quasi-legal loophole here.
I have a Windows 7 PC and an iMac here. I tend to use the iMac more, because my iPhone is synced with it. When I had a Windows Mobile in the summer, I used Vista more, because the ‘phone was synced with Vista… I really don’t see any real day-to-day advantages from either platform.
Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista and light-years better than XP (mind you, so was Vista).
At work, Windows 7 makes sense, at the moment, because we use Microsoft Office, with JetReports and Microsoft Navision as our main tools. We do have a Citrix server, so, from home, I can connect with the iMac or the Windows 7 machine to do work.
OS X excels in some areas, Windows in others. I wouldn’t say either has a distinct advantage, unless you have a specific application which only runs on one or the other.
As to the different versions, HP is all most home users require. Pro is HP + Domain logons and a few other dodads for use in an office network – group policies etc. Ultimate/Enterprise offers a lot of nice tools for managing large networks of machines and locking them down (BitLocker, for example), which the average user doesn’t need.
This is annoying for me, I want/need some of those abilities – AppLocker would be brilliant at work, but it means either upgrading all the machines to Ultimate or joining one of the MS licensing programs to get Enterprise, which is a pain, because we effectively have to pay twice for Windows, so it doesn’t make financial sense at the moment.
From the Home User’s point of view, it means they get all the bits they need for a lower price than getting everything and not using half of it. On the other hand, for the business user it means having to pay more.
OS X’s simplicity of versions is great, and I wish MS would adopt it. That would mean that I can replicate my office environment at home and test policies etc. more easily, but I wouldn’t be penalised for wanting to learn more about Windows…
November 16th, 2009 at 11:09 am
…when Microsoft will release a version of Windows for the Mac.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
About 7 years ago…