PC vendors compete on offering Vista upgrades

Computer vendors are offering competitive Vista upgrade packages during the ongoing IT Month exposition in Taipei, hoping to boost sales ahead of the official worldwide launch of Microsoft Corp's new operating system.

"We are concerned that consumers may adopt a wait-and-see attitude ... and that could affect computer sales at the annual expo," said Benjamin Ou (歐明哲), a senior product marketing manager at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Taiwan Ltd.

As the long-awaited Vista operating system will be launched worldwide on Jan. 30, Ou said consumers might choose to hold their purse strings for now, and opt to buy a newer machine next year.

Microsoft announced on Oct. 26 that it is offering users who buy a PC running the latest operating systems -- including Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) -- to be eligible for a free upgrade to Vista until March 15.

But users will still need to pay a minimal shipping and handling fee to various computer brands in order to receive the Vista upgrade CD next year.

Consumers who buy HP's laptops running on MCE or XP Pro will have to pay a handling fee of NT$450 (US$14) to receive a Vista CD, Ou said.

Those who purchase PCs from Acer Inc or notebook computers from Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) can enjoy the free upgrade by paying a handling charge of NT$490 and NT$199, respectively.

For those considering a purchase, the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) advised caution before making a decision.

"Promotions come in handy at the exposition and consumers are advised to shop smart by comparing their budget and needs and the product prices before splurging," it said last Friday.

They should make sure which operating systems the PCs they buy are running on, and how much they have to pay to upgrade to Vista, it said.

"I could always upgrade to Vista later and the charges are only a couple of hundred dollars," Kurt Hsu (許恕誠), a salesman in his 30s, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

He brought home two Acer special-edition laptops tailor-made for fans of New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民).

But to Cindy Chen (陳子喬), buying the latest laptop is not what she has in mind now.

The 35-year-old tour guide still finds her Apple Computer Inc's PowerBook laptop, which she bought three years ago for over NT$120,000, is working just fine.

"I love to edit videos and images on my PowerBook, and I enjoy the high stability of the Macintosh operating system. I am not switching to Windows OS now," she said.