Windows 7 pricing latest: $137 family pack, steep discounts in UK
Unconfirmed but credible reports suggest there will indeed be a Windows 7 family pack, priced at $136.95 – which may upset some who’ve already bough multiple copies in an advance sale. Meanwhile buyers in Britain look set to get some major discounts both before and after the system’s release.
As Dave Parrack reported at the weekend, speculation about a family pack began mounting when a blogger noted references to it in the licensing agreement of the latest leaked edition. It appears the scheme will work differently than one of the same name with Vista. In that case, buyers of the Ultimate edition were allowed to add the Home Premium edition to extra machines at $49 a time. The Windows 7 scheme looks to be a three-for-one deal with Home Premium, though there may be some qualifying criteria.
Today Ed Bott of ZDnet notes two online retailers have a family pack listed, albeit with an ‘Out of Stock’ label. They price it at $136.95 and $144.95 respectively. The listings are particularly credible as they list a dedicated Unique Price Code, the number which appears on barcodes and is unique to a particular product.
If the basics of the deal are indeed three Vista-Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for $137, the complaints of some readers which came when the story first broke may have some validity. One man noted he’d bought three copies under the limited-time advance payment offer; at $150, he may well be out of pocket. To be fair, there will be few people in such a position and, while the principle may sting, it’s hardly an earth-shattering sum of money to be down by.
Across the Atlantic, British buyers will (as usual) be paying more for the software in direct comparison to the U.S., but the discounts on offer are much steeper. Whereas the advance payment offer in the U.S. cuts the price of a Home Premium upgrade from $120 to $50, the equivalent U.K. deal from some retailers is a two-thirds price cut, from £150 to £50.
There may also be savings on offer for those in the U.K. who wait until release. It’s reported that the official £150 price for a Home Premium upgrade will be cut to £79 between the October 22 release and the end of the year. Depending on currency fluctuations, that means there’s even a slim possibility the system will be slightly cheaper in the U.K. than the U.S. for a couple of months.
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