I just came across Windows 7 Professional at £149.98 on Amazon whereas across the channel in France Windows 7 Professionnel E costs € 284,90
According to xe.com today this gives you:
149.98 GBP = 172.710 EUR
So currently on Amazon France and Amazon UK the difference between the same flavour of Windows 7 is €284,9 - €172.710 = €112.19 (over £97 difference)
What is interesting is that the Windows 7 Ultimate version is also available on Amazon.com at £159.85, so for 10 pounds more you get the Ultimate version! The Ultimate version doesn't appear in many other places at the moment and not on the French Amazon site either but having a Vista Ultimate version on my Dell I was wondering why Ultimate had been left out of the previous offers. In France there was a 49.9 Euros offer between July 15th and August 15th on the Home version. I guess this is also a time specific offer but I must admit I still find it is a very hefty price after having paid so much for the really dissapointing Windows Vista Ultimate and actually having re-installed Windows XP because Vista was so bad.
I then installed the RC of Windows 7 on my Dell XPS as you can read. Windows 7 is great so far but I'm concerned at the moment that Windows seems to be selling the full product as an alternative to the upgrade because they haven't been able to come up with an appropriate solution for upgrading from Vista Ultimate to the European version of the Windows 7 Ultimate. This may explain the difference in pricing at the moment between the US and the UK. A kind of "sorry you are going to have to do a clean install which will waste a lot of your time, instead of an upgrade like in the US"...
My question is why should I pay pretty much the same price as I paid for Vista for a new version when the previous one was so bad I didn't even use it!
Note: When you check the Microsoft stores these differences are also visible:
In the US, Windows 7 Ultimate is available for $319.99
In France, Windows 7 Ultimate is available for €299.99 (eq. $430 xe.com on 23/08/09)
In the UK, Windows 7 Ultimate is available for £199.99 (eq. $330 xe.com on 23/08/09)
So much for the talk about the US prices being higher than in Europe for once! They are as usual higher in Europe than in the US, even though there won't even be a simple upgrade option and you have to backup then do a clean install then transfer data over. Granted this is the best solution in the long term but not having the upgrade option is a pain...
You may want to check the article on CIO about Windows 7 Ultimate and why people should be getting a free upgrade from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate : Free Windows 7 Upgrade for Windows Vista Ultimate users
One possible caveat: Most, if not all, of Microsoft's software contains regional restrictions within the license, forbidding you to buy the software in one location, and then install and use it somewhere else. (i.e. buy in the UK, install and use in the EU.)
Of course, many private users really don't give a dang about regional scope, they just want a legit copy. However, if you are in a situation where more strict compliance with the EULA is important, you might want to keep this in mind.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)