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Vista Home Basic: of lemons and lemonade
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
Acer is talking openly about what many OEMs are privately expressing frustration over: the weak
value proposition offered by Windows Vista Home Basic. The many-headed hydra that is Vista has at least one gimp head, according to complaints.
If you ask Jim Wong, senior corporate VP at Acer, Microsoft has crippled Home Basic so thoroughly that it is essentially just an excuse to wring more money out of OEMs. Wong told PC Pro that “Premium is the real Vista,” drilling home his view that Home Basic is a lemon that consumers will shun entirely. The real problem, Wong says, is that “[OEMs] have to pay more [for Home Premium] but users are not going to pay more.” This, he says, will result in a 1-2 percent increase in the cost of manufacturing a new PC, and Wong insists that the OEMs will have to eat that cost rather than pass it on to consumers. He did not elaborate why this cost cannot be passed on to consumers.
…the accusation that Home Basic is a ploy to force OEMs into using Home Premium, we have serious doubts about that, too. First, Microsoft could have simply nixed Home Basic altogether, and raised prices regardless. There’s another reason why we think Microsoft takes Home Basic seriously: Anytime Upgrade.
In Microsoft’s eyes, a Home Basic sale is an upsell opportunity. If Joe Consumer decides that Aero Glass is the spice of life, the company will sell him an upgrade for a nominal amount. Microsoft has not yet released pricing on Anytime Upgrade, but we fully expect it to be based on the difference between retail versions. Vista Home Basic: of lemons and lemonade
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