New Cat in the Jungle

For so long I have been questioning the price of Windows. At $500 for a full copy of the Ultimate Edition of Windows Vista I just shake my head and wonder why it costs so much. But as someone reminded me the last update for Windows was XP which came out back in 2000, I think. Now I still think that $500 for a new OS is a little excessive. Having said that Mac has come out with a new version of the OS every year and at $149 CAN ($129 US) a pop that adds up pretty quickly. And each upgrade typically has something worth upgrading for. Now I must say that my computer came with 10.4 so I have not had to upgrade but based on what I can see from the rumours web sites people are counting down the days to open their wallet and shell out the cash for the newest operating system.

I'm thinking that Steve Jobs is a marketing genius. $150 for a new operating system sounds so reasonable... especially when you can compare it to the price tag of Windows. There are no upgrade options, or different versions of the operating system. It costs less then an upgrade to Windows Vista. So all things considered $150 doesn't sound so bad for the latest and greatest. And a year down the road there will likely be a new cat roaming around and people lining up to buy it and bring it home.

Now there was a time when Microsoft was introducing a new operating system every year as well.... But after Windows XP they focused the efforts on Vista (Codenamed Longhorn) and there was a lengthy gap between operating systems. I could be wrong but I don't believe that a new operating system will be introduced in the Windows world in 2008.