Windows Anytime Upgrade and Family Pack Pricing

The Windows Team Blog has Windows Anytime Upgrade and Family Pack pricing posted today for all of you interested. It looks like the Windows 7 Family Pack is going to be the way to go for a lot of us that own multiple systems.

The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available starting on October 22nd until supplies last here in the US and other select markets. In the US, the price for the Windows 7 Family Pack will be $149.99 for 3 Windows 7 Home Premium licenses. That’s a savings of more than $200 for three licenses. This is a great value and we’re excited to be able to offer it to customers.

Awesome news right there!

And i ask again - why only US, why not in countries where pricing does really matter. But no, we will give it to those who already get it cheaper...

FYI, upgrade licenses only...still a good deal, as long as XP counts as an OS you can do an upgrade from.

Originally Posted by JasperW

FYI, upgrade licenses only...still a good deal, as long as XP counts as an OS you can do an upgrade from.

Yes, you can upgrade from either XP or Vista.

Originally Posted by faugusztin

And i ask again - why only US, why not in countries where pricing does really matter. But no, we will give it to those who already get it cheaper...

I'm not sure I agree that we get stuff cheaper here in the US. and I'm not sure which countries your wishing in was available in. But if you talking about Europe (not sure if it's available there or not) I would guess that they aren't offering it there because of the way the EU has been treating them.

Yay for family pack!

Pretty good value there. I was sort of expecting it to be much more.

Originally Posted by faugusztin

And i ask again - why only US, why not in countries where pricing does really matter. But no, we will give it to those who already get it cheaper...

It's an American company...so why shouldn't we get first dibs? Especially when they get treated like shit elsewhere (*cough* EU) and pirated like mad in other places (*cough* China).

Hmm, I pre-ordered one for $50 already for my main system... But I'll probably install it on my netbook as well and one other system, so I guess I'll just get the Family Pack and have a spare license. Seems like even using just two licenses it'd cost me the same or less than buying them independently... What restrictions are there supposed to be on how you use them? Is it supposed to be for use within the same household or whatever?

Originally Posted by faugusztin

And i ask again - why only US, why not in countries where pricing does really matter. But no, we will give it to those who already get it cheaper...

Reading helps

Originally Posted by The article

If you live in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or the US (13 countries) – you will be able to purchase the upgrade from Microsoft online directly within Windows 7.

Now I could have reasons to be pissed because my country is not there. But I don't care. Technet.

Originally Posted by Soggy

But if you talking about Europe (not sure if it's available there or not) I would guess that they aren't offering it there because of the way the EU has been treating them.

Originally Posted by markt435

It's an American company...so why shouldn't we get first dibs? Especially when they get treated like shit elsewhere (*cough* EU) and pirated like mad in other places (*cough* China).

Uh uh, it's just that. Microsoft, an enormous corporation which aims to make money, will simply ignore millions in potential sales out of pure spite.

They're probably far more concerned with OEM licenses anyway, this is still a nice bone though... After all, it's not something they've done before AFAIK (unless it was pre-Win 3.1).

Although full WinXP Pro licenses did give you the right to install it on a desktop and a laptop didn't it? Or was that a figment of my imagination.

Originally Posted by Impulse

Although full WinXP Pro licenses did give you the right to install it on a desktop and a laptop didn't it? Or was that a figment of my imagination.

Office licenses did allow a desktop and laptop. As far as I know, windows licenses always only applied to one system.

Originally Posted by Raudulfr

Reading helps

Yes, it helps. Family pack is US only right now. Don't be confused by the fact, that they are talking about 2 different things here.

And to those who talk about why not offering elsewhere - well :

• it helps lowering piracy, this increasing income. Especially in countries, where the average monthly wage is ~700€ and W7HP costs 200€, W7Pro costs 309€ and W7Ultimate costs 319€.
• they did something comparable before, but nowhere near 60% price cuts you get - for some time they offered OEM Windows XP Home legalisation packs.

And yes, US gets everything cheaper. VAT in Europe is 19%, so even if you add that to US pricing you still get :

• W7HP - 199$ * 1.19 = 236$ vs 199€ * 1.42 = 283$ - 47$ difference
• W7Pro - 299$ * 1.19 = 356$ vs 309€ * 1.42 = 439$ - 83$ difference
• W7Ult - 319$ * 1.19 = 380$ vs 319€ * 1.42 = 453$ - 73$ difference

Add a fact of family pricing to that, add a fact that the prices of Windows never really changed since W95 got out of comunism (read in a way Pro version was allways around 300€ for US, even when we were nowhere near close joining EU).

Yes, you could say MS is a american company - if you don't count people who are working at MS HQ but are from other countries, and if you forget the thousands of people working for MS at different countries.... They even say "...60 percent of its sales now come from outside of the United States.".

I would accept the fact that this is because "they are threated like a shit" if :

• MS would not use 1:1 EUR/USD exchange ratio.
• Sony would not use 1:1 EUR/USD exchange ratio.
• Gaming companies would not use 1:1 (or even worse) EUR/USD exchange ratio.
• Apple would not use 1:1 EUR/USD exchange ratio.
• ... and i can continue with list

The point is, first we get screwed because companies don't even try to check the fact, that US is not the strongest currency in the world for a long time, that exchange ratio between EUR/USD is floating between 1.25 and 1.45 for 3 years now (mostly in 1.3-1.4 region). Then we get screwed by not being offered the same or comparable packages as in the USA.

Heck, we still don't have possibility to use iTunes or XBOX Live. Seems like some companies don't know about the fact that EU is one market and i should have a option to use these services, even if they don't "support" my country.

I don't blame MS for offering "deals" in the US and not Europe.

How many multi-million dollar legal actions can you stand???
Everytime MS turns around some Euro-court is suing them for something.
If I was MS I'd essentially tell the EU to enjoy windows XP.......because that was all they were ever going to see from me again. (but they won't, because they like money)

Anyway...................so this Family Pack isn't full new licenses???? It's upgrades???

I was under the impression you couldn't upgrade (exactly) fromXP or MCE.
I'd be happier with a new disc and three keys and just do a fresh install of W7 on my home computers.

magoo, ok, forget about Europe for now. There are cca another 170 countries which doesn't get this offer too. Why ?

Oh and you can say the court thing about MS. What about rest of the examples ? Games ? Consoles ? Branded computers (Apple, Dell,...) ?

iTunes was a similar "monopoly" legal action in Europe I believe as well.
The XBox 360 is owned by MS thus back to the original argument.

Face it, you can only piss people off so much and then they are tired of the bullshit. Ask yourself why a company can offer a "lifetime" warranty in the US and then has to limit that warranty on the same product to 10 years in the EU???
You whine about how you never get these products or how the pricing or product selection is different, and then turn around and sue the very same company for some bullshit like bundling a browser product or wanting to protect the product's exclusivity.
Life just isn't fair sometimes.

How about illegal sales and copies......China rings a bell.........but I guess some companies are less apt to worry about that because the raw sales are so overwhelming, they'll accept some piracy.

Oh............and for the "other countries"..........well some don't like the US.......see Iran.........
Some, I'm sure are due to language differences.
Some would not be worth the time due to small sales volumes or have historically not purchased much product............I guess you have to realize this is a "world-wide" release.......I bet more than 10 or 15 copies will be sold on day one, ya think?