How is it a "DIRECT result of Apple's usual $40 upgrade pricing" if the two OSes don't even run on the same hardware? A user won't be purchasing a Mac because his OS upgrade cost is $60 more (or however much Windows upgrades originally cost).

Microsoft knows that people will have little incentive to migrate from Win7 to Win8, so they are doing all they can to encourage that. This is not a response to Apple's pricing structure.