The release date for the latest flavour of Windows has been announced along with a nice little ad from Microsoft inviting me to upgrade. Thanks, that would be nice!
Of course, when I followed the link I knew deep down that this would be another of those “available to US residents only” kind of deals and so I was not surprised when, despite not saying anything on any of the pages leading into the shopping cart, there were no international options available.
As our state shares the same abrieviation as the Microsoft home state, I was tempted to select WA and see how far I got with it but in the end I figured it would just be a futile jesture.
I had a similar problem with Adobe when I upgraded my web developer package from MX2004 to version 8. I’d bought the package from Macromedia who had no problems letting me access the US store and downloading at that price. After they’d gotten bought out by Adobe that all changed and Adobe refused to let me access the store- I’d even cried foul on that citing the free trade agreement between the USA and Australia as a justifiable reason but in the end, due to time pressures, I was forced to pay the Australian price. Six months later I received an email from an Adobe office in Dublin saying that they concidered this matter closed. They hadn’t even corrosponded with me!
I am definately planning on upgrading – I am still running XP on three computers with Vista on my notebook. We’re already running Windows 7 Release Candidate on a testing machine and I’m liking it more than Vista.
