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Comment by hinathan | Hacker News Reader

I'm a little baffled by the pricing here — Microsoft's goal in the desktop world seemed to more or less break even on OS and push the application suite for the real cash.

Does anyone have a sense of whether this makes sense at all? Perhaps the 'preferred volume OEM' terms are hugely discounted.

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That $85 price tag is a Windows RT and Office Metro bundle. So, it's not _just_ Windows in question. I think the title should be adjusted to reflect this.

Read this Windows Team blog post to see what I mean: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive...

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

While it's true that they're bundled, it would also appear that Windows RT is only being delivered in bundled form(Unless I'm reading this blog post incorrectly).

So if we accept that Windows RT itself is a bundle, the headline isn't particularly misleading.

Are we witnessing something big here?

I love my iPad because it doesn't have office. It's not a laptop, it's a whole new kind of personal computer. Maybe I'm wrong but it's nothing like a laptop and as long as they're trying to make it a laptop in a different form factor I just can't see it

Really? I chose my iPad because it was the only tablet with good office software.

They are fooling themselves if they think the Office bundle justifies the price. The rationale for the Office bundle should be to give an initial boost to an unproven platform and overcome the scarcity of Windows RT apps.

If Office Metro is half as good as the current Microsoft Office, it will be worth $85 by itself.

I say this as someone who doesn't own any Windows licenses. (Except a Windows 7 starter OEM license for my netbook.)

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