Microsoft wants to do some hard selling. You are familiar with Hard Selling right? You are. I know you are. You do know it. You know you will know about it. You will make sure you know. Hard selling is basically the company telling you to go get it. Buy it. Now! Usually this is done by a very forceful advertisement, yet for some companies, Hard Selling is putting a very low price tag to a known expensive item. That is exactly what Microsoft is doing to Windows 8 at $39.99 a piece.
One of the problems of launching Windows 8 is the unfamiliarity that it will entail. People can make the jump from Windows XP to Windows Vista and from Windows Vista to Windows 7 simply because they look very similar, and show an improvement from the previous one. It means that they won’t have to go back to computer class to make sure they know how to use the new OS.
Windows 8 is completely unfamiliar. It does not look anything like the previous versions. Calling it a complete visual overhaul is an understatement. Microsoft even argues it is also a complete coding overhaul.
If you are afraid or doubtful about a specific product, it would be reasonable for you to avoid it as much as possible. Most would try to wait it out and see if some of the people they know will jump the gun and observe from their experiences. In this way, you have the opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes or successes.
With Windows 8, Microsoft cannot afford to wait and let people slowly adapt to the system. For this to work, Microsoft has to make sure the OS is adopted quickly. That is why they put the OS in people’s faces and say just upgrade already, it’s a steal!
Microsoft is practically giving it away at that upgrade price of $39.99. The disc price would hit you at $69.99, but even that is nowhere near compared to Windows 7 prices.
All this is like Microsoft starting right over from scratch, without anything to look back on. They need it to succeed. Even at a loss so that they can gain more in the future. If it fails, the whole plan to unify their products fails. This could lead to lower mobile and gaming system sales due to the failure of the OS.
The low price tag may also deter current pirates into finally going legit because the price is just right for the pocket. It might even become the least pirated copy of Windows in the long run, compared to the high rate of Piracy for Windows 7 and Vista, which a lot of people deemed too expensive.
Hard selling can mean that a company is desperate, but it could also mean that they believe so much in their product that they practically guarantee that it will work for you. That still remains to be seen from the preview that people are getting. What we do know is that this is a very large campaign for Microsoft, and we might never look at PC computing the same again. Will you be upgrading at a price like this? Or are you still too afraid to make the jump?
 Image Sources: blog.techarmy.org, salereaping.com, ngzhian.wordpress.com, windowsgracias.wordpress.com