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Why Windows 7 Costs so Much - Cringely on technology

For a stark contrast, compare Windows 7 with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, its would-be competitor.  I won’t get into the argument over which OS sees the other as competition, maybe they both do. In the marketplace, however, the upgrade version of Snow Leopard costs $49.95 ($99.95 for a five-machine family pack) while there are twenty different versions of Windows 7 to choose from with the most popular (Windows 7 Home Premium) priced at $119.95.

Is Windows 7 really worth $70 more than Snow Leopard?

via cringely.com

Must say I like the family package for the Mac OS, this way people will pay for an upgrade. Why should a family invest xxx USD into an operating system? In my case we have 4 computers one of them is still using win 2000 (yeah that an old one), one is a XP machine and the other two notebooks running on Ubuntu. If I need to buy a new (desktop) system I would consider a new license for a windows OS, if it's cheap...

Free Security package for Windows

Yesterday Microsoft announced a free security package for windows. Finally they offer some supporting software to make the windows system more safe. This afternoon I checked the page via the network at work (a windows network) and noticed you need to validate your windows license first, but is this possible with older versions too, for example windows 2000?

I understand the MS wants to fight back illegal usage for their software, but they should make the access more easy. At home I tried to access the same page again and I got this surprising result:

So not supported in the netherlands?

Microsoft Launch WebsiteSpark: Free Software For Web Developers

The WebsiteSpark program announced today provides eligible individuals or organizations with 3-year licenses of Visual Studio 2008, Expression Studio, Expression Web (also part of studio), Windows Web Server, SQL Server and DotNetPanel. To be eligible, an organization or individual developer must be in the business of building web applications or websites for others (ie. clients) and also have no more than 10 employees.
via techcrunch.com

This is a nice opportunity for beginning web development companies. Just rent a web server for some $ and start deploying your windows web server.

I hope this promotion will help Microsoft to manifest their position in the professional market.