The Mind of Alex

All respect to our brothers and sisters across the pond, but it seems that you are about to be screwed. By now we are all familiar with the odious decision of the EU to block the installation of the Internet Explorer browser inside of the Windows 7 shipping box. Sadly, it seems that Apple is allowed to ship the horrible fantastic Safari browser wherever it pleases. But, now there is word that less for more is even better than less with more.

If you are buying Windows professional for example, take a look at the pricing disaster (via ComputerWorld):

“Windows 7 Professional, the key retail edition for businesses, will sport a price tag of €285, or $400.60, and £189.99, or $313.84, at Saturday’s exchange rate. In other words, EU customers will pay twice the $199.99 U.S. price; U.K. buyers will pay 57% more.”

It doesn’t take a judge to make that seem fair. Of course, MSFT can price Win7 at whatever level they want, it’s their own product, but after our initial positive reactions to the US price structure, this is quite disappointing. Whatever happens, Win7 is going to boost the land of Windows in the world, just as Bing is doing it on the internet. It would just take less time if half of the world was not being screwed at the checkout counter.