Comments on: Why is Microsoft even offering Windows 7 Ultimate?

Before the company upsets even more people, should Microsoft ditch Windows 7 Ultimate?

[CDubber]

"Microsoft: confusing customers (and thoroughly enjoying it) since 1975." (TM)

[MrReason]

I completely disagree with this column, except in terms of pricing on the update for Vista Ultimate users to Windows 7 Ultimate. Anyone, including, home users who likely have lots of personal information on their computers or laptops should own Ultimate and invoke bitlocker. That is why I own Vista Ultimate and have locked down my desktop and notebook computers. To go out and buy a separate stand alone encryption program would likely cost the difference in price between the different flavors of Windows. I support having an ultimate version, unless they add bitlocker to the Professional version or sell it as a separate low cost add on. That being said, we Ultimate users are certainly getting the short end of the stick in terms of pricing. We are the trail blazers, the loyal customers who bought the best product, only to be treated as substandard customers in terms of pricing. Most customers reward their best and most loyal customers with additional discounts above what is offered to the typical customer, yet Microsoft has chosen to do just the opposite. It's quite appalling. My guess is they thought they could get away with soaking the big corporate customers who might need Ultimate without giving any thought to us individual "enthusiasts" who also own Ulimate. BIG BLACK EYE FOR MICROSOFT ON THIS ONE!

[sanjayb]

It's wishful thinking that anyone except the paranoid and bug businesses will use BitLocker. Average Joe six pack could care less.

[Havoc70]

@ Mr Reason.


HERE HERE man i 150% agree with you on this, its crap that Microslop (yes i spelled it like i wanted it) screws over their highest paying customers. We were promised lots of extras for the Ultimate edition of which we got dreamscape and poke, wth is that? Promised cutting edge programs only to be bent over and told oh nevermind we arent doing anything else, and then do further screw over the higher paying customers with Oh sorry screw you no upgrade price for you.

Personally i wont be buying any version of 7, can you say TPB!

[myles taylor]

I know this will start a flame war and all, but why is Microsoft charging for language support? I don't understand why Microsoft can't get on the bandwagon of offering only one version. It makes it easier for customers, easier for support staff, easier for everyone. It really "grinds my gears" when they say things like "There is a small set of customers who want everything Windows 7 has to offer." Why not give everyone everything Windows has to offer? Why turn off features? Just give everyone everything for a flat rate.

[qcdude3]

its simple because there would be a large number of people that would ***** that they were having to pay for a lot of capability they would never use. The result would be tiered options just as are being offered upfront now.

[deuceswyyld]

Why Windows 7 Ultimate will sell more copies than any other version of Windows 7: Windows XP Mode is not included in any other version of Windows.
Why Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) will sell more copies than any version of Windows 7: Apple releases only two versions of its software: a base OS package and a server package.
Why Microsoft can't release one end-user version of its OS like Apple does: Bill Gates needs another yacht.

[Idyot]

Windows XP Mode is a downloadable add-on for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

[queticomn]

Is it free, NOT, I PAYED for my windowsXP license already. As said above Gate$ does not need any more yachts an M$ does not need any more cash.

[Idyot]

See footnote #2 on this page:
http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102

[queticomn]

Its not listed free anywhere on that M$ store site. Furthermore, its not even included with windows7 home premium.

Thank you Sun Mircosystems for Virtual Box, which i will be using to run XP on my SuSE Linux Box. :)

[jerrygibby]

Why would a Vista Ultimate buy Windows 7 Ultimate? So you can do an upgrade without a complete new install. Down upgrading to Pro would take weeks to load and update software programs.

[famu97]

Man this article is right on the money. I bought Vista Ultimate thinking I was getting some great and grand extra features and the truth is that it only had some extra themes and BitLocker which I never use. When I did the feature comparison of Windows 7 Pro & Windows 7 Ultimated, I could clearly see that the two t things that Vista Ultimate only had - which was Group Policy & Domain Support, are not part of Windows 7 Pro. There is absolutely nothing mentioned in the online comparison of Windows 7 Pro & Vista Ultimated that the typical user will miss. BitLocker is not compelling enough. Besides, if you want encryption you can still get free open source encryption like PGP that's better.

[sanjayb]

They say that the main reason MS has all these different versions is not to suit specific customers but to ramp up the price of the full version of Windows. Having an Ultimate version for Windows 7 just seems to reinforce this theory. Well kudos to MS if they suck in people to buy the Ultimate version. Some people have said that you deserve to pay all that money if you get sucked in to buying Ultimate. However, is the average Joe going to know the difference between the versions? In most cases the average Joe will get fooled by the name - Ultimate is better than Premium and would buy accordingly.

I wish MS would just stick with no more than 3 versions of their OS - Home, Enterprise and Server. You don't need anymore than that.

[TalhaAsmal]

As far as I know, BitLocker on Vista needs a TPM to be enabled, something that is only available on high-end motherboards or as a separate module. On Windows 7, all you need is a USB flash disk, which will contain all the information needed for decryption. This makes it much more accessible to the average user, and thus makes more sense as an 'ultimate' feature than it did in Vista.

[rohitharsh]

Seriously??? Sometimes I never get he idea behind any of these article? WHY ARE THEY OFFERING ULTIMATE VERSION? Because they have an option too however silly it might seem to you just as everyone has an OPTION NOT TO BUY it. Hence this whole discussion id just to generate traffic.

[kheechun]

I think enthusiasts are not necessarily computer experts. They can be people who are just interested in whatever Windows 7 Ultimate has to offer, and with a lot of money to spend. This actually sounds more like obsession rather than enthusiasm though.
I do however agree that Windows 7 Ultimate is rather redundant. I think Microsoft just wants to earn some extra bucks from these obsessed customers with some extra bucks to spend.

[camarriott]

I'm selling carbon credits for 30 bucks a pop if anyone wants one.

There is one other feature that Ultimate has that Pro won't provide. It's the ability to install/run the Windows XP virtual machine.

[SalaciousPuck]

Waaaah.....I hate it when Microsoft acts like a company with a marketing department. They should be communist hippies with one communal product for everyone. They need to stop focusing on the market, and only make shiny happy software.

Look, if you don't want Windows Ultimate - DO NOT BUY IT. If XP does what you need it to, stick with that. If you have learned to live with Vista, just keep on keeping on. ****** think that you have to reflexively buy the latest and only the 'greatest' product, and that's exactly why companies market high end fluff like this to ******.

Windows 7 is a service pack, so what? If I could sell $50 - 200 service packs - I would - even if most people who buy the upgrade won't have any functional reason to buy it. They are the ****** I'm talking about, and I hope they all overpay for the Ultimate Supremo version too.

[Brad_W_Hagedorn]

More than creating a high-end option for exceptionally demanding users, this move makes lower end consumers of the Windows 7 happier. Quick analysis here:

http://blog.endeavourpartners.net/2009/07/07/why-offer-an-extreme-version-because-of-extreme-aversion/

[rtlsnke]

After over 20 plus years of being a faithful MS follower, I am now moving totally away from Microsoft and their monopoly. I have been using Windows 7 RC for a couple of months now alongside Ubuntu and find that the open source programs to be more to my liking. Quicker startups, less memory usage, and much much more. My HTC Touch has been passed on for a Palm Pre and its WebOS platform again open source. Goodbye Microsoft and Apple, thanks for starting this amazing world of personnal computing but you are getting too expensive and Open Source is finally arrived in a package that the average user can handle.

[queticomn]

^5

[LANjackal]

So, if MS should ditch Ultimate, what should they do with its extra features? Please try to address that issue next time, thanks.

[msjonker]

Do your homework before shelling out the cash for Ultimate, simple as that. Most Ultimate users probably weren't forced into buying Ultimate.

[qcdude3]

Everyone seems to work this discussion from the wrong end. Adobe makes a terrific photo software program that costs $600+ (???) because there is large population of potential buyers that don't need all the horsepower of Photoshop nor are they willing to pull the trigger for that amount of money Adobe puts out "elements". More sales, no hassle for Adobe, the user is kept in the Adobe family everyone is satisfied. Microsoft did the same thing they built a complete OS then offered less expensive options depending on the user?s needs. I don't really understand the issue. All this effort over $20 or $50 on an OS that will be current for 3, 4, 5 years. Damn that?s one Latte a year, or a couple three bottles of water. The articles author must be both bored and technically weak to tackle this enormous issue.

[queticomn]

In this Economy people are tired of being Nickel and Dimed, ans as i skip around town a notice which O/S a certain business or company is using more often then than not its windows 2000.

[sklinger83]

The one feature that sold me on Vista Ultimate over Home Premium is the Remote Desktop Host capabilities. The Ultimate Extras proved to be pretty non-existent or useless to me. I needed the feature, although I'm not sure it was worth the 130 buck Anytime Upgrade (which are a PITA btw). I went with the 50 dollar Home Premium upgrade this go around and will find another solution for remoting into my box.

[obvio-capitao]

I'm with Dvorak on that:

It is all part of an ill-advised scheme called "subtractive marketing" or "fake versioning"?purposely taking features out of a finished product to create an artificial range or selection.

This is all the same one product, folks. What is the point of selling six versions of the same code base? It does not cost one nickel more to manufacture Windows 7 Ultimate than it costs to manufacture Windows 7 Home Basic, and the differences are confusing to just about everyone.

Microsoft could sell a single version of the new OS at some median price just as easily as it can sell disabled versions of the product for various prices. The public will realize this eventually.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2349780,00.asp