Something Completely Different: Vista & Office 2007 Prices

Blogger's Note: This will be the first of my Something Completely Different entires. These entries are not the usual Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, related topic that I usually post in the blog. However chances are they are going to computer/Internet related or may be not.

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~Something Completely Different~

Earlier this week information about the prices for Windows Vista and Office 2007 started leaking out. My favorite source for Technology News, CyberNet Tech News first posted this information last Sunday (August 27th) with their article: Windows Vista and Office 2007 Prices. A couple things to keep in mind...first, unlike Windows XP, there four versions of Vista (not counting upgrades) and second those prices are a rough conversion based on the Canadian Prices posted on the Microsoft site.

However, a couple days later, CyberNet via the Longhorn Blogs posted the prices for Windows Vista as they appeared on Amazon.com:

Vista Version	Regular Price	Upgrade Price
Home Basic	$199.00	$ 99.95
Home Premium	$239.95	$159.00
Business	$299.99	$199.95
Ultimate	$399.99	$259.00

Now, I have no idea what the difference is between the versions but still these prices are a bit over-inflated IMHO. Oh and by the way, you will need to have a DVD-ROM or recorder/rewritable drive in order to install Windows Vista.

Now here are the Office 2007 prices as they appear on Amazon.com:

Office Version	Regular Price	Upgrade Price
Office 2007 Home/Student	$149.00	N/A
Office 2007 Small Business	N/A	$279.00
Office 2007	$399.99	$239.00
Office 2007 Pro	$499.99	$329.00
Office 2007 Ultimate (DVD-ROM)	$679.99	$539.00

Again, not sure what the difference is between the versions. But I can make one suggestion, before you shell out $150 to almost $700 for MS Office 2007, take a look at OpenOffice.org. It is Open Source, very much similar to MS Office and best of all....it is FREE!!!