After announcing its Windows 8 upgrade plan for newly purchased Windows 7-based PCs in early June, Microsoft recently announced a new upgrade plan allowing consumers to spend US$39.99 to upgrade their Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 system to Windows 8 Pro, while an upgrade DVD will be priced at US$69.99; however, sources from notebook vendors expect the promotion to be unlikely to provide any strong benefit in raising PC demand, but simply boost the new operating system's market penetration.
Microsoft is allowing consumers that purchase PCs between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 to upgrade their Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro for US$14.99 and the operating system can be downloaded right after its official launch.
The sources pointed out that Microsoft's Windows 8 upgrade plans have not achieved strong results because the operating system is mainly pushing touchscreen controls and the Metro interface, but most current PCs do not support touchscreen controls. As a result, purchasing PCs purely for the purpose of a cheap Windows 8 upgrade is not worth it.
Microsoft aggressively promoting Windows 8 upgrades
Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes file photo
Article translated by Joseph Tsai
