Windows 7 pricing all over the shop..about as stable as Windows 7.

I really think Microsoft have made a mess of Windows 7 pricing. They got the product right, yet there initial pricing of at around £44.95 for the full version of Windows 7 Home Premium (which I feel is about right) has back fired on them. It quickly came apparent that they could, as a so called monopoly, sell it for more, how much more, well as much as people would bear - someone got greedy.

The price has been all over the place up, down, anything but stable, compare this to the Mac Snow leopard upgrade that has stayed a consistent £25, maybe the unstable price is reflecting Windows 7 in more ways than one. The so called 4 week window of opportunity at launch lasted less than a day at Amazon.co.uk, to order your copy at £44.97. Then in September Tesco, via Ingram Micro repeated the offer, well £49.97 (£44.97 with a £5 voucher) Tesco took the money upfront, it was the most popular item ever on hotukdeals.com. Due to looming postal strikes, some suppliers such as Dixons were given permission to deliver on or after 19th October. Tesco followed suite and my copy was delivered early on 22nd October at 5.50pm, trouble was I was away for a week. No card appears to have been left. Re-deliver was attempted on the 29th at 11.50am. On returning on the 29th that evening, there was a card from City-link stating that a delivery had been attempted that day. On the 30th I checked to find City-link had strangely already sent the item back to Tesco, I couldn't pick it up. No email had been received from Tesco to say the item was been delivered early, and their online webpage doesn't cross-reference the tracking info, so you can't check its progress from there. I emailed Tesco to ask for the item to be resent, due to being sent early, and therefore returned early by Citylink, as to when it would have been expected, given the Worldwide launch and the delivery being 1-2 days after this normally. I had no response via email from Tesco. On phoning Tesco today they point-blank refused to re-send the item, instead offered a refund, with the option of re-purchasing at £95, instead of the £44.97 I'd paid. I phoned Microsoft to discuss the matter as I felt it made Microsoft look bad, in light of poor customer service from Tesco/Ingram Micro. Initially Microsoft were helpful, as I pointed out that people legitimately purchasing software shouldn't have to put up with such practices, but once through to their customer response unit they gave way to the might of Tesco, and refused to get involved. I feel Tesco made a mistake of not notifying Citi-link that the early delivery of Windows 7 should have meant slightly longer than 7 days before the item was returned, to take into account the early shipments. But forcing customers who missed the item by a day ie. the 30th to have a refund and re-purchase at twice the price is just plain dishonest. Tesco you should be ashamed.