Don’t get me wrong – I love Vista. It was a huge upgrade from WinXP. Unfortunately the media has turned it into a monster – which had drastic effect on sale and helped to boost sales of OSX and Apple hardware. The problem is not the software itself – it runs great, fast, and has many killer differentiating features.
The biggest problem on the Vista marketing front was the myriad of versions that they had for sale. In an era where less is more, offering half a dozen different versions of software served only to confuse potential buyers.
Take a lesson from Apple and don’t version your product – as much. While in B-School we were pressed to learn versioning principles and the “Goldilocks” theory of pricing. In consumer software I really don’t think it works (enterprise / SMB market is a different animal). Less is more.
Here’s a tip for Microsoft – which could be huge. Offer two versions of Windows 7 – Lite and Pro. Windows Lite should be a low cost, small footprint version – for $99 – that would run on a Netbook or older hardware. Windows 7 Pro can be the full fledged version at $199.
Both are priced to sell and easily distinguishable from each other. C’mon Microsoft – learn your lesson.
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