Digital Home Thoughts: Microsoft to offer Family Pack for Windows 7 Home Premium?

"Thanks to a tip from Kristan Kenney, I took a close look at the agreements embedded in the License folder of the latest leaked builds of Windows 7. This is no longer a beta license agreement and is presumably very close to the final agreement that customers will accept. The agreements for retail copies of Windows 7 Home Premium contain this eye-opening clause..."

This news is a few days old, but I thought it was worth sharing for those who hadn't heard about it yet: it looks like Microsoft is gearing up to offer a three-pack license of Windows 7 for home users. If this news is accurate, and pricing is reasonable ($199 or less) this is a significant moment for Microsoft. I've been harping on this issue of family pack licensing for years, and I've never seen a glimmer that Microsoft actually understood why this was important. The millions of "newish" computers out there still running Windows XP instead of Vista is a testament to not only the bad public perception, but also the sheer cost of upgrading multiple computers in a household. Especially now that Vista-era machines can easily run Windows 7, the issue of whether or not people will upgrade becomes a criticial one. Microsoft needs to make this work.