RSSWindows 7 volume licenses to be discounted September 1
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published July 13, 2009, 5:48 PM
At this morning's Worldwide Developers' Conference in New Orleans, there were some who had prematurely speculated that Microsoft was ready to release Windows 7 to manufacturing (RTM) as soon as today. When it didn't, the headline went out that Windows 7 was "delayed" -- it wasn't.
But some business customers will begin ordering Windows 7 a few weeks later than anticipated, maybe not so much on account of delay as bad speculation that was never responded to. September 1 will be the start date for volume license customers to place their orders for Windows 7, including for upgrade versions. As a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon, Microsoft will discount the price for Windows 7 Professional upgrade licenses by 15% for a six-month promotional period. That means that volume license prices could start at $152, while Vista licenses during the same period remain at a base price of $179.
The remaining questions include what happens during the interim period between September 1 and October 22. While the latter date is officially when the product begins distribution, Microsoft is likely to release RTM code to partners and subscribers to its MSDN and TechNet developers' channels in an earlier time frame. That means some businesses could be able to obtain legitimate Windows 7 licenses over seven weeks prior to the official release date.
A similar window of opportunity was worked in for Vista's business license customers, though for somewhat longer: Volume licenses were made available in September 2006, in advance of that operating system's official release the following January.
Though the actual upgrade procedure may not be a smooth one, upgrade licenses to Windows 7 Professional will be available for Windows XP customers as well as Vista. What's more, Microsoft representatives continue to explain to customers that license holders to Windows 7 will have downgrade rights that extend all the way to Windows XP Professional. Those rights, reps are saying, will extend from 18 months from the date of general availability (October 22, "GA-day") or until the date of the first Windows 7 Service Pack, whichever comes first.
As one of Microsoft's online forum moderators explained last month, the downgrade process will not need to look for an activation key stored on the system in order to effectively downgrade from Win7 to WinXP. That's good news, because it means upgraders can do clean installs of Windows 7 that still count as upgrades, rather than trudge through the process of upgrading to Vista first. All downgraders need is a valid Windows XP installation disk to effectuate the downgrade; it's this that the downgrade process checks for, not activation keys.
"I"m sorry about Vista - really I am. It won't happen again. PLEASE look at me Mr. Corporate, I *NEED* you to believe in me. It was just a blip in the continuum - a momentary lapse of reason. Really. See? I'm even gonna cut ya a deal. Hey Meester... "
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|I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn the same/similar deals were given for 2000/XP/Vista.
One would assume, had such pricing not existed, it would have been stated as such and not implied or given to the reader to "assume" this was new to Windows 7.
This way, they can avoid outright lying, but give the intended impression by simply not giving all of the details.
Of course, we all know the writers for Betanews would *never* stoop to such low levels for the sake of a few page hits...right?
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|"This way, they can avoid outright lying"
Wha whaaaa????
That never stopped them before... :) :) ;)
As to the concept that XP/2000 got the same deal, I think it's pretty well carved in stone - but it was never so apropos than it has been with Vista. We're talking major PR hit and that matters in the echelons where appearances are more important than reality - in other words, the CorporateSuitLand.
Hence my semi-facetious comment...
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|Umm, the last paragraph is completely backwards.
The references to "downgrading" should be referring to *upgrading*. The post was talking about going from XP to Win7, NOT downgrading from Win7 to XP.
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|Thought that made little to no sense....
"Everyone seems to have a hard time understanding that the upgrade looks for a genuine copy of XP or Vista and has nothing to do with activation keys of either. So in short, if your copy of XP is genuine then you're good for the upgrade, the upgrade will work down the road as well so long as you have the XP installation disc to re-install XP and re-upgrade back to Windows 7."
Basically, if you have a genuine installation (or the disk), you can do an upgrade copy.
Interesting stuff, considering how easy it is to get a disk or "fake" a genuine installation of XP.
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|meh, its easy to fake a genuine vista install two if you know where to look for the info on how, its not like the DRM/activation is going to stop somebody with a little computer knowledge and the skill to do things like flash a bios and run a few commands from the cmd prompt ;)
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|Heh..
Who need a bios hack? One, it looks like a clone of any old vista DVD might work, and two, there are plenty of utilities out there to fake the genuine without any BIOS issues. (Google "Orbit30")
Not condoning anything, just stating the possibilities.
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|yeah, all those software based activators can be detected IF ms wants to work hard enought at it, they really cant start blocking SLIC's tho due to the fact it WOULD endup impacting legit customers who own systems from OEM's like dell/gateway/acer/asus/exct.
and its not really a hack of the bios, its just a simple mod, so freaking easy, and lets you activate any windows version even server ;)
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|Meh...
Easier to get it to "genuine" for the 10 minutes it needs to be without "modding" anything but the OS you're dumping.
...at least, IMO. But then again, while I have no problem throwing new firmware on my phone or router, 3rd-party BIOS mods still manage to seem just dangerous enough for me to avoid.
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|i can now laugh at all those who said 7 would RTM today, backed up by what? pure speculation ... lets keep the news backed up by facts folks, enough with rumor crap
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