Tuesday, November 1, 2011

PC’s Are Losing Their Edge

PC and Mac machines have been at odds for as long as they have been on the market. PC’s continue to command the majority, even with the surge of Mac’s and other systems running on non-windows operating systems. But that soon may change. The price of PC’s is slated to increase; and no one is sure as to how much. The reason for the price hike is in the rumored new verification standard that will be coming out with the Windows 8 operating system.

Windows verification is based on a Certification of Authenticity (COA); that brightly colored Windows sticker that comes with the computer on purchase is the COA for that computer. New systems will now have the COA physically encoded into the systems BIOS (Basic Input and Output System). The internal chip on the motherboard in your computer will now hold your Windows serial key and will be checked for validation through the Internet. Upgrading your computer because of this change will not be as easy, or cheap as it used to be.

What this means is an significant increase in cost and the debate now is where the cost will be directed toward. Like most practices it will be the consumer who will have to pay the price. These price hikes should bode well for alternative operating systems like Mac and Linux because the cheap PC would be ever harder to find. Why does it feel that everything seems to be going Apple’s way? Nonetheless it is understandable as to why Microsoft would change their activation procedure; the potential in millions of dollars lost to pirated/shared products can be somewhat recouped with this new initiative. So yes, its not about anything but the bottom dollar…. your bottom dollar.

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