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Vista too Expensive? Downing Street Petition.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/VistaOvercharge/
There is a huge difference in the price that people in the US and the UK are paying for Windows Vista the new Microsoft Operating System. As an example of this, in the UK a full copy of Vista Ultimate would cost you £350, in the US it would cost you £195. The US version of Vista is exactly the same as the UK version. There is no difference. Therefore I can see no reason for there to be such a huge difference in prices between the UK and the US other than Microsofts belief that the UK customers will pay more than their US counterparts. I ask people to sign this petition in the hope that the Prime Minister will bring pressure to bear on Microsoft over their pricing as it is my belief they are simply overcharging the people of the UK and therefore are ripping us off.
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Most people who plan to buy vista proplerly, will go OEM. The prices are roughly the same in the US and the UK, about £50 for Home Basic, £70 for Home Premium, and £120 for ultimate. Retail generalls affects the copy you see in PC world - the kind that someone who doesn't know as much as computers will pick up (why the hell were you in Pc world in the first place??).
Because there's a lack of information about alternatives (OEM, importing, linux etc.) it's not really fair, and the purchaser will pay the money because he or she think they need it, and they've got no other choice.
That's basically why the government should have an interest, because it's exploiting people who know no better. It's not so different from when nestle sold baby formula to mothers in africa. They said that it would make their babies grow healthily, so they spent money on it, when there was other baby formula available cheaper, and their income was limited anyway, AND that they were spending money they couldn't really spend to afford. That case is much worse though, because the baby formula was worse than breastmilk, and some babies ended up dying from malnutrition. It's why a lot of people still boycott nestle.
But all the same, the principle of setting an otherwise unreasonable price, because people aren't aware enough, is ethically wrong really (selling a crap phone on eBay for twice its value for example) - obviously Microsoft has proved Windows is not worth £300 because they don't sell it for that in other countries. But most consumers won't know it's half price in America when they pick a copy off their shelves.
However, so far there hasn't been a mass migration to Vista, probably because of the price, and because people are becomming more aware they don't 'need' the latest and greatest.
This is very true and they probably also remember all of the "issues" with XP when it came out.
p.s You feel quite strongly about this dont you :P
I went so a seminar on the effects of globalisation, it's really wrong that people who don't know all the facts get ripped off. You know what MNCs said? They said it was an insult that people in the third world are 'stupid'. Blatantly reversing my argument. We all know about healthy eating because we are taught it, our government has a good education infrastructure. In many other countries, it is an unfortunate and sad fact that corporations with commercial interests will be 'educating' people as to what is good for them. We've banned adverts for cigarrettes, etc. People like to think they make their own decisions, but most people (including myself, oh chocolate
I've seen people buy computers when they didn't know how to use one, because everyone is expected to have one. They only used solitaire and sometimes word, but spent over £600 on it. I felt bad for them, they should have bought a pack of cards, some writing paper, and spent the rest on a holiday.
You're right, but the principle is similar, charge more than the 'fair' price because people will pay, but as I pointed out more and more people are deciding to stick with XP or move to linux because they're better informed these days. Anyone who buys the retail version is being conned, really.
Hey, just thought I'd bring up this thread to let you know of number 10s response (if anyone cared).
So, they've acknowledged 'regulation may be necessary where competition is not working effectively', however then rather than say whether they believe a massive difference in price is justifiable given the same costs, they just say complain to the OFT.
Whilst we all knew (tech enthusiasts) that the government wouldn't step in, it would be nice for them to say yea, it is a rip off. *shrug*
Anyway, just in case anyone cared
When it comes to the time I ahve to upgrade, I can be confident there will be cracked, hacked, and improved pirate versions about.
Oh wait, there is already.
Vista is pretty rubbish anyway isn't it?
What does it offer Xp can't do?
FANCY GRAPHICS!1111!!! zomg!1!1.
That's about it. Also it's like the initial XP release and vunerable to pretty much anything except MAC viruses.
It does offer DirectX 10. Although, I'll worry about that when it's an issue... in like... 3 years?
It costs less than WoW, so really depends how much you use windows
Problem is competition is working effectively, people are buying it, when people stop buying it and microsofts targets dont get hit, the price will likely go down or they'll put some more money into marketing it. The competition commission won't do a thing, because there is no problem with competition - it's demand and supply - there's obviously enough demand at the current price to justify it unfortunately, even though it's not ethical so to speak.
I mean, I cba to explain in detail right now, but it's about a monopoly abusing it's power. Simply put, in a free market, for oranges say, there are lots of people supplying it and lots of people wanting it. The 'market' dictates the price which is fair where most people (suppliers and consumers) benefit.
However, in the case of a monopoly, you can increase the price, for some decrease in volume of sales, but revenue (price * quantity) MAY be higher. So even though Microsoft would have been perfectly happy to sell it at £40 and would have made a profit, and someone would have been perfectly happy to buy it, that transaction did not occur. Which is ok for Microsoft's chief executive because he has a bigger bank balance, but society loses out because the more trade, the more goods we all have (in theory), the better off we are.
Based on a theory that there is a limited supply of everything and that it should be distributed according to what people are able and willing to pay for it. Unless it's bad for us, like cigarrettes. Or good for us, like healthcare.
Though the economics for information has always been a funny one.
If I didn't know better, I'd accuse you of being a bit red!
Are you a patriotic American or not!?!??
Capitalism inevitably leads to monopolies and us, average joe, losing. Then people get fed up and we either go right or left totalitarian. Depending on who stands up and gets counted.
because theres such high barriers to entry to the 'os' industry, there isnt much/any competition from non-free OSs. But the competition commission generally stop mergers from creating a monopoly, and using techniques to price people out of the market, which microsoft arent doing atm.
It seems unfair but all that petition really comes down to is people asking the government "make it cheaper for us please", there's no backing for it. It sucks but what they said is right, they can price however they like in these circumstances.
It doesn't inevitably lead to monopolies. My personal view is demand and supply is perfect, after all why should a refuse collector who's contribution to society is relatively small be able to have the same rewards as a drugs researcher whose contribution is relatively large. Having said that, the UKs record on R&D investment is atrocious
But you need the government to intervene where monopolies occur, because without competition it does become overpriced.
Moral: Don't buy when it's new. Always expensive and full of bugs. I waited a few years and brought Windows XP Pro for £94, nice and stable with Service Pack 2.
If demand and supply was perfect the government would never have had to intervene in the first place, would they??
'Free' markets don't take into account welfare and ethics unfortunately
As far as I'm aware the price of Windows OSes doesn't tend to drop dramatically over time. No real bugs either, just some odd bits of software took a few weeks (months ago) to release working versions. I.e. daemon tools broke Vista when I tried using the old version for XP. But right now it's pretty ok.
Still think it's unfair for RETAIL (£300 for ultimate, which is no better than home prem) is so much more expensive in the UK than the US when there is no difference in the cost to produce.