A Modest Proposal for Windows 7 Pricing

Although Microsoft has announced which versions they intend to ship Windows 7 in, they have not said anything officially about pricing yet. Part of the anouncement that was suprising was that they said that they will ship Windows 7 Starter edition globally. Starter edition dates back to XP, and it was the edition intended for cheap computers in emerging markets. A stripped-down and low cost version, starter edition only allows 3 programs to run at one time, among other restrictions. Right now XP and Vista starter are sold as a low-cost OEM option in countries like Thailand and India, but now Microsoft is saying that they intend to ship 7 Starter to all markets. But they haven't said how much they will charge for it. Here's my suggestion ... Make it a free download from Microsoft, just like Visual Studio Express. Basically make it "Windows 7 Express" - a free, yet feature limited, version.

This would make great sense for all parties. First, who in their right mind would pay for an OS that only lets you run 3 programs at once? I'll stick with the OS I already have, thank you very much. But serously, actually, 3 programs would be ok for many home users, and a free version could be an upgrade path off of the old OS they are currently using. This could prevent piracy in many markets. Second, Microsoft would benefit, for many users would decide to upgrade 7 Starter to a paid version of Windows 7 for more features, thus getting revenue they would have otherwise missed. This would target a group that would never upgrade otherwise, so if they didn't end up buying a higher version it still wouldn't be lost revenue. Third, for enthusiasts and IT pros, think of how nice it would be to have a free, limited version of Windows for virtualization and testing! Few are likely to buy a copy of Windows for these purposes, so again, no real lost revenue. But it could result in many more people worldwide using Windows 7, which overall is more profitable for the Windows brand.

And while we are on this, let me say that Windows upgrades should be much cheaper than they currently are. If it cost between $25-$50 to upgrade to Windows 7, many more people would upgrade. Also they should have a family upgrade package that would allow you to upgrade 3 computers to Windows 7 for $90 or so. And having a free starter edition and cheaper upgrades, piracy rates should go down tremendously.

Think about it!

Note: Despite the title of the post, I wasn't meaning it to be satire ... I think the idea here is a good one ;-)

Thoughts? @reply me on Twitter.