I know, I know, you just can’t wait to get your hands on a copy of the revolutionary new Windows Vista when it’s released on January 30th. Well lucky for you, Microsoft has answered your prayers by promising Vista will be downloadable through the Windows Marketplace.
Additionally a new service will be launched, titled Windows Anytime Upgrade, that will let you fork over your cash to Microsoft 24 hours a day. The service will make it easy to instantly upgrade to a higher, more expensive version of Vista straight from the Start menu. The same service will also offer owners of the most expensive version of Vista—Ultimate—the option of buying two copies of Vista Premium for about $50 each.
While Microsoft isn’t really trying anything new here—they’ve offered paid software for download for quite sometime—they are venturing into a new field by offering an entire OS for download. My question then is this: should Apple try something similar? I can see an online software store taking off, even if it just offered iWork and iLife at first, maybe it would someday offer Leopard. Do you think Apple would be good to try something like this? I mean, really, what do they have to lose?
[via Information Week via Slashdot]
I NEVER buy download SW IF there is a physical disc available. I can sell the physical one if I am not satisfied with it or after I am done with using it. Can't do that with downloaded versions.
Very good point ^ I never considered that...
Also, what happens if your system crashes, won't boot off the hard drive, and requires reinstallation?
What are you going to boot off of in order to download the operating system again?
Well I totally think this would be great for Apple to do something like that. I'm sure Mac users would always appreciate easier access to some of their support and products.
Software downloads are always convinient, especially for people that's always on the move. I can be in NY today and in Lima tomorrow and since US versions are always more complete, I would have to wait for my next trip to the US to get the software.
However, I think the vendor should include a mandatory backup disc in the case of an OS pruchase (although I never order a backup disc when I buy software online).
For those of you that will say, "oh but that purchase won't be allowed with a non-US IP address", just connect to your US-based VPN and that should do the trick!
Some sites I've bought software from have temp links good for a week, should someone need to re-download software for whatever reason (link is usually in the receipt/e-mail); Ipswitch (WS FTP) is a good example of that. With others, demos are unlocked via a key (which is common place for downloaded software) or online activation. From software to multimedia, downloading is the future.
Sidenote: this is why I feel the HD DVD war is moot, I can download HD movies online now.
The way I understand it, there will only be one disk shipping for Windows that encompasses all the different versions (Ultimate, Premium, etc). That way, when you decide Media Center Edition isn't powerful enough for you, an upgrade just enables the software already installed on your computer without a download.