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From: burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Microsoft Upgrade Policy
Message-ID: <1991Feb14.180333.24332@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 14 Feb 91 18:03:33 GMT
References: <1991Feb14.023744.14888@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
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Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
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In article <1991Feb14.023744.14888@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> dmk8r@plaid.cs.Virginia.EDU (Darrell M. Kienzle) writes:
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, anyone who qualifies as
>"a computing professional" qualifies for Excel 3.0 for $129.  I have a friend
>who received this offer from Microsoft simply because he was on the right
>mailing list.  Coincidentally, being a REGISTERED OWNER of Excel 2.1, I was
>offered the exact same upgrade price!
>
>I am also a very loyal owner of Microsoft Word 5.5, and was told that it
>would cost me $150 to upgrade to Word for Windows.  I now read on this
>newsgroup that any owner of any competing word processor qualifies for a
>special $129 price!
>
>Needless to say, I am not at all pleased with these developments.  Gone
>are the days of free minor upgrades - now Microsoft charges big bucks for
>what are often bug fixes.
>
>I understand that upgrading software can be expensive, but this is getting
>a little ridiculous.  They have managed to completely alienate a formerly
>very loyal customer, and that never makes good business sense.
>
>Is there anyone else out there that is feeling equally dumped upon ?
>
>Darrell Kienzle (a poor graduate student who can't afford an update a month)
>dmk8r@Virginia.EDU

Upgrades for academic editions cost more than the orinal cost for some
products also.

Like the saying goes "Make hay while the sun shines". Microsoft can afford
to charge high prices for their upgrades because windows is hot and people
are willing to pay for it. 2 years ago, people weren't. 2 years from now,
maybe they won't be. But, MS will have a big cash cushion to fall back on.

Final note:  Microsoft stock prices (Approximate) MSFFT, NASDAQ

5/1/90       58 No formal Windows announcement
5/20/90      78 After the  "        "
2/13/91     105 Selling lots of windows stuff now.

Robert