Discount brings street price of Windows Home Server down to $100

After a price reduction over the weekend for the shrink-wrapped System Builder Edition of Windows Home Server, at least one online retailer extended that discount to customers, while others sell out their inventories at 62% higher.

The OEM editions of Microsoft operating systems and applications are typically sold without the fancy box, and with licenses that stipulate their use in pre-installation for computers that are to be resold, but that stipulation has historically never been enforced. Almost a decade ago, the OSR2 bundle of Windows 98 -- what many at the time called the most stable edition of that system, even though it wasn't really a separate build -- ended up being sold in retail establishments such as Egghead and CompUSA.

Now, a similar plain-wrapped version of Windows Home Server -- the simplified version of Windows Server devised for homes with multiple computers -- could see a similar uptick in adoption. After price cuts for the OEM edition that were supposed to go into effect November 1, Newegg.com is offering WHS with Power Pack 1 for $99.99, plus free shipping. Not long ago, the product's MSRP was $239.99.

But even an announcement issued over the weekend touted that Amazon.com would be offering similar discounts, a check by BetaNews this morning shows Amazon still selling the OEM edition for $190.96. And although online retailer ZipZoomFly.com had apparently, according to Google's caches, been offering the product for $99.99 as well, this morning it's listed at $161.99.

And while Buy.com was said to have joined the discount party, this morning that retailer lists the product as unavailable.

Microsoft's announcement also stated that the discount reflected a 30% price drop, while at the same time citing the price difference from a street price of $160 to about $100. Many news services ran with that announcement without first checking the math.