Apple vs. Microsoft: Yet another upgrade pricing fiasco

From ZDNet Blogs

Once again, Apple shows Redmond how it should be done on pricing upgrades, especially ones with plenty of internal fixes. Will Windows users feel grateful when Mac users get their upgrades for half to a quarter of the price? Or is it another sucker moment?

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, Phil Schiller, senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, laid out the complex upgrade pricing for the next version of Mac OS X, called Snow Leopard: $29. And $49 for a 4-seat “family” license, which brings the cost per seat down to $12 and change.

Given that Snow Leopard is mainly a behind-the-scenes upgrade, although the fact that it frees up 3GB of disk space is not to be scoffed at, Apple have been smart to peg the upgrade at $29. I don't usually have a problem paying the $129 for an upgrade, especially as it's always the full system, but I must admit that it makes for a pleasant surprise, and a black eye for Microsoft given the Vista fiasco.