Mesh Computers pays its customers to upgrade to Windows 7
It’s pretty much universally known that consumers hate Windows Vista. Or at least a high proportion of them do. Maybe it’s an unfair hatred, borne out of early experiences and a prematurely made opinion, but it exists nonetheless. It seems PC manufacturers also hate Vista, so much so that some are wiling to pay their customers to upgrade to Windows 7.
Poor Windows Vista. It’s had a very bad press throughout its young life, and although most of it was justified, I still can’t help feeling some pity for the way the operating system has been treated. Microsoft has moved quickly to replace the OS, developing Windows 7, a new and improved operating system which is like Vista on acid without any of the known issues.
Windows 7 is being released on Oct. 22, and everybody in the industry is now gearing up to that date. In an effort to prevent any consumers from deciding to put off buying a new Vista-powered computer in favor of waiting for a Windows 7-powered one in October, Microsoft recently announced its upgrade program.
This basically means anyone who buys a Vista PC in between now and October will get an upgrade to Windows 7. Microsoft charges manufacturers a fraction of the retail price for this upgrade, but charges it nonetheless. This has lead many PC manufacturers to pass some of the cost on to consumers, although many are offering the upgrade for free.
Mesh Computers, a London based computer company, is going a step further. It is actually paying its customers £5 ($8) to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. A Mesh spokesperson told PC Pro:
From Mesh’s internal testing it appears that customers who run with Windows 7 will actually place less of a strain on technical support and customer service. The value of that reduction in support calls has been valued at £5.
From Mesh’s point of view, Windows Vista was the first step, whereas Windows 7 can much more accurately be characterized as the fulfillment.
This is an amazing piece of customer service and a nice bit of PR to boot. But Mesh is correct in its pronouncement that Windows 7 is, in essence, what Vista should have been all along. And with that as a fact, paying customers to upgrade would seem the logical thing to do.
It would, of course, have been nice to see Microsoft offer all Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7 but that was never going to happen. So instead, the PR victory goes to Mesh Computers.
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