Software shopping on Vista Eve

Walmart’s 22-cent sale and other marketing marvels

Should auld operating systems be forgot
And never brought online
Should auld OSes be forgot,
As for Vista we wait in line
(with apologies to Robert Burns)

Having blown the lucrative holiday season by shipping the consumer version of Windows Vista a mere five days before Super Sunday, Microsoft tried to make amends to retailers today by throwing a coming out party in Times Square with a live appearance by Bill Gates. All that was missing was a Waterford ball dropping at 11:59 to mark the arrival of, well, January 30.

Meanwhile, online retailers are busy making up for lost time and profits by offering discounts on boxed versions of Vista and Office 2007, support services to take the sting out of upgrading from XP, and new PCs with Vista pre-installed.

Some online deals I came across are reminders that caveat emptor applies as much online as it does in brick-and-mortar stores:

• Renowned discounter Walmart is offering a deal on Vista Home Premium, Full Version that was breathlessly described as “below the manufacturer’s suggested price, so we cannot show it here.” To see the price, I had to add it to my cart. So what was Walmart.com’s price for a product that lists for $239? An astounding $238.78 — a full 22 cents below list (see image above). That doesn’t include an estimated shipping cost of $4.97, bringing the total to $243.75. Even with the shipping, Walmart.com may be cheaper than buying local, but not by much. Walmart’s discount on Office 2007 Standard Upgrade was even more minuscule—just 8 cents below the $239 list (not including shipping).
• For those looking to upgrade from XP, I couldn’t find the upgrade version of Home Premium at Walmart’s site. But Samsclub.com is selling it for $144.88, while Compusa.com was charging $159.99 with free shipping. A major shopping bot listed prices at several other online retailers ranged from $155 to $179, in some cases with free shipping. It pays to shop around.
• For $19.99, anyone who brought their PC in to Circuit City by 3 pm today and bought a copy of Vista or Office 2007 can pick up their computer, fully upgraded, at the store just after midnight tonight. Were people that desperate for Vista that they’d drive back to their local Circuit City at midnight? Presumably, anyone who took this offer had created a backup copy of all important files on their hard drive and thoroughly researched the Vista-compatibility of their printer, scanner, and other peripherals before taking the plunge.
• CompUSA is offering, until March 31, an “experience guarantee” to anyone who has Vista installed in-store or at home by CompUSA. If you don’t enjoy Vista, the store will uninstall it, reinstall your original operating system, and refund your purchase. The fine print warns: “Our guarantee does not cover data loss,” so you’d better do a thorough backup beforehand. Any restoration has to be done with 14 days of installation and you are responsible for restoring data, files, settings, configurations, drivers and applications, which can be time-consuming. I almost forgot: CompUSA says it doesn’t guarantee that Vista will be compatible with all your hardware or applications.

— Jeffrey Fox

Comments

[Monica Sanders]

MicroSoft Office 2007. I have tried to use Office 2007 (Microsoft Word) which is loaded on school computers and have found it is not user friendly. I like 2003 and will keep that.

[Professor Tony Rector-Cavagnaro]

If you are an educator the upgrade to the Vista Home Premium edition can be purchased for $69.95 plus state tax with free shipping from www.academicsuperstore.com.