Microsoft earned $1.5bn from "Vista Capable" scheme

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 5 Jan 2009 at 12:48

Microsoft earned $1.5bn from sales of PCs that were labelled "Vista Capable", even though they struggled to run premium versions of the operating system, a court has heard.

The software giant is currently being sued in the US by plaintiffs who claim the company "unjustly enriched" itself by using the stickers to sell PCs that weren't suitable for Vista Home Premium or Ultimate editions.

An expert witness in the case claims Microsoft reaped a handsome reward from the sales of such PCs.

"I have... reached the opinion that Microsoft revenue from the Windows XP licensing on Vista Capable but not Vista Premium Ready PCs sold to Plaintiffs was $1.505 billion," University of Washington economist Keith Leffler told the court, according to Seattle Post Intelligencer.

How much of that $1.5bn Microsoft would have earned without the stickers on the PCs is open to debate, as many customers arguably wouldn't have cared if the computer could run Vista or not.

The case is becoming something of a drag for Microsoft. Late last year, CEO Steve Ballmer was ordered to testify in the case, having previously claimed he had no direct input into the Vista Capable scheme.

A series of Microsoft emails presented to the court in November suggested that Microsoft had lowered the Vista Capable requirements at the behest of Intel, which had complained that the decision to omit its 915 chipset could cost the chip maker billions of dollars.

Microsoft has repeatedly denied misleading consumers with the Vista Capable scheme.