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Re: [Rival] Signs of Weakness in Vista: Microsoft Does Clearance Sale

  • Subject: Re: [Rival] Signs of Weakness in Vista: Microsoft Does Clearance Sale
  • From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:19:12 -0800 (PST)
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On Jan 1, 3:11 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Microsoft offers a Vista two-for deal
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Under terms of "The Ultimate Offer," testers can go to any retail or online
> | store and buy a copy of Vista Ultimate (full or upgrade version) for full
> | price and Microsoft will match it with a second complimentary Vista Ultimate
> | Upgrade product key.
> `----

Following the link
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1071

The deal is only available to MSDN subscribers, who were supposed to
stop using their Beta versions of Vista about 6 months ago.  It seems
that many of those writing "Rave Reviews" of Vista didn't actually
have legal copies of the product.

Microsoft gets to do something really wierd.  They were able to counts
all the beta copies given to MSDN subscribers as "Shipped Licenses"
since they were shipped by Microsoft to the subscribers.  Now they are
able to triple that count by offering the 2 for 1 deal to MSDN
subsribers, allowing Microsoft to claim 3 "shipments" for each of
those MSDN subscribers.

Notice that Microsoft isn't offering "Free" versions, they are
offering duplicate licenses, but supposedly, the second license is for
the "Test" machine (MSDN subscribers are supposed to use a different
machine for testing than the one they use for actual work, but
Microsoft doesn't enforce that very well.  It does protect Microsoft
from the liability of having some MSDN tester going ballistic in the
media because they lost all of their work files when some Beta version
provided by MSDN trashes their hard drive.

Remember that MSDN subscribers pay up to $1500 per user per year,
depending on corporate discounts, level of membership, and other
pricing and discount factors.  Microsoft uses them as their beta
testers, in exchange for free "samples" which they are supposed to put
on a machine that is to be used exclusively for "Testing" purposes.

Given that many MSDN subcribers have been paying since the first
announcements of Longhorn, they have paid up to $9,000 ($1500 for 6
years) for "test" software, and now Microsoft wants them to fork over
another $300-400 for Vista Ultimate, for which Microsoft will give
them a "Free" copy of Vista Ultimate - "For testing".

Pardon me if I'm underwhelmed by Microsoft's generousity.



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