Microsoft earned $1.5 billion from Vista Capable program
Microsoft’s ill-fated “Vista Capable” program, which we have covered at length, actually earned the company money. Some new estimates say that the Redmond based software giant may have earned upwards of $1.5 billion thanks to the upgrade program.
Computers purchased before Vista were shipped with XP with the rights to upgrade to Vista as soon as it was released. Some coupons could be redeemed directly through Microsoft and some had to go through the OEM such as Dell or HP. A majority would fall in the OEM category.
Regardless of how it had to be redeemed, if the PC was only “Vista Capable” but not “Premium Ready” then the computer in question would only be eligible for a copy of Vista Home Basic. A few unlucky users were issued copies of or upgraded to Vista Premium but found that their shiny new computer wasn’t capable of running the newer fancy features.
The Seattle PI has an estimate that says this program could have earned Microsoft money that it would not have otherwise received. Maybe, maybe not. The world will never know the true answer to this.
With a new operating system on the horizon at the end of 2006, people may have skipped purchasing a new computer then and waited until Vista was officially available before buying. There would still have been problems because computers were and are still being sold with Vista basic. Not that anyone will touch them now that the truth is out there.
And now here we are with Windows 7 about ready to come out possibly as early as this summer. You can bet that people are still buying computers with Vista and rest assured no one is getting a free upgrade to anything this time around.
Businesses are still sitting around with aging XP machines and may move straight to Windows 7 though it’s not clear if it is possible to move directly from XP to Windows 7 because that has so far been omitted from upgrade guidelines.
It would be nice to see some kind of Windows 7 free or reduced cost upgrade program. I’m just saying it would be nice.
The same idea applies to Apple with Snow Leopard due out this year – no one is going to get a free upgrade from that company either.
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January 5th, 2009
I got a Dell D820 in January of 2007 and got it with XP with a “free upgrade” to Vista via Dell. So now this January I ordered a Dell E6500 and its coming with Vista Ultimate. Agree it would be nice of MS to offer a “free upgrade” to at least anyone who buys Vista any time in 2009 on, but I’m sure we won’t be so lucky.