Lenovo offers free upgrade to Windows 7
27 Jun 2009
Lenovo says it would offer users a free upgrade to Windows 7. The company said that all systems it sold between 26 June and 31 January with Home Premium, Business and Ultimate versions of Windows vista would be eligible for upgrade and that the offer would be limited to home and small business system purchases.
With the offer, Lenovo becomes the second major PC vendor to roll out a free upgrade programme following HP's announcement on Thursday that it would be offering an upgrade free to users who purchase new systems between now and Windows 7 release date 22 October.
Meanwhile Microsoft has started offering discounted prices for customers who would upgrade to the new version of Windows. In a bid to encourage customers to upgrade to the new platform it said it would offer discounted pricing to those who pre-ordered copies of Windows 7.
Additionally, the company is also offering a deferred cost programme to encourage PC vendors to offer the Windows 7 upgrades free of cost.
Microsoft and PC vendors are both hoping that the free upgrade campain would serve to keep users purchasing new systems thru the summer rather than waiting for release of Windows 7 to purchase a new PC.
Windows 7 is the next major operating system (OS) release from Microsoft after Vista abd will be officially available on 22 October. The beta version of the software, which was released in April will expire next week. The Release Candidate, which was released in May will continue to be offered for free download till 15 August.
Windows 7 will be available in six versions – OEM, Hone Basic, Home Premium, Professional Enterprise and Ultimate. However, Microsoft will be directing marketing efforts on Home Premium and Professional editions, all versions will therefore not be available in shops.
According to Microsoft the features of all editions of Windows 7 would be stored on machines regardless of which edition the user purchases and using the Windows Anytime Upgrade tool users can unlock more features within the OS.