Digital Trends
Locking pirates out of Windows Vista was a no-brainer for Microsoft following the rampant pirating of Windows XP, but it looks like the company hasn’t become quite proficient enough at weeding out pirates from paying customers. Microsoft announced on Monday that it would remove the so-called “kill switch” built into Vista that cripples the operating system in response to suspected piracy, due in part to customer complaints.
Microsoft—and the whole PC industry—has a little bit of a problem as they head into the 2006 end-of-year holiday season: Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 aren’t going to be available to consumers until early 2007. So consumers might put of the purchase of PCs until the new software is available, creating a sales slump during an all important retail period.
So, to encourage consumers to buy PCs over the holidays anyway, Microsoft has announced a plan to offer coupons good for low-cost upgrades to Windows Vista and Office 2007 when they’re available. In conjunction with computer manufacturers and systems builders, Microsoft will offer coupons with new computers pre-installed with Windows XP or Office 2003.
Software giant Microsoft announced today that Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 has entered testing with the companies customers, developers, and partners, and is expanding their Vista Preview program so more customers can get their hands on early editions of Windows Vista and get acclimatized to its new features and requirements. At same time, Microsoft finally caught up with Amazon.com and confirmed estimated U.S. retail pricing for the various editions of Windows Vista.
Samsung Electronics has found another use for all that flash memory it’s manufacturing: packing it into hard drives. At next week’s WinHEC 2006 conference, Samsung plans to demonstrate new Hybrid Hard Disk (HHD) storage devices, which combine a conventional magnetic platter storage with NAND flash memory.
Microsoft today continued its gear up for the launch of Windows Vista as it formally unveiled a number of new initiatives to help customers make the most informed decisions. These new initiatives specifically include a preparation Web site, a program which will identify both PCs now available that are compatible with Vista as well as forthcoming ones which meet or exceed the new OS’s technical requirements and a diagnostic tool help customers narrow down their Vista choices.
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