Amazon.com Outs Vista Pricing

Amazon.com has posted an extensive list of SKUs and retail pricing. The site sets availability date of January 30, 2007.

Microsoft has said to expect general availability for Vista and Office 2007 for early next year but some financial analysts, including Goldman Sachs' Rick Sherlund, have based their expectations on a March 2007 delivery.

Representative pricing is $399 for the Windows Vista Ultimate edition for new users and $259 for an upgrade from XP to the "ultimate" SKU.

The Windows XP-equivalent Vista Business will list for $299, roughly unchanged from XP. The Home Premium upgrade from Windows XP is $159.

Goldman Sachs was all over the posting, releasing analysis Tuesday saying that the SKU list offers "upsell" opportunities.

The new Vista Home Basic carries the same $199 SRP as the current Windows XP Home Edition. Vista Home Premium is $239 compared to Vista Home Basic at $199. If Microsoft can sell the higher-end version, that could be significant upside, according to Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs estimates that Microsoft will derive $80 in revenue per upgrade copy although that number soars to $127 per upgrade to the Home Premium edition. Earlier this week, Microsoft Canada apparently inadvertently posted the Vista pricing but pulled the site. According to figures saved by blogger Ed Bott, those prices (in Canadian dollars) ranged from $499 for Windows Vista Ultimate for new customers to $429 for an upgrade to Ultimate from Windows XP. The high-end Ultimate SKU would include all the company's mobility features and other perks.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company cannot comment on final pricing yet. It plans to unveil U.S. Vista pricing with the shipment of Release Candidate 1 or RC1, sometime this quarter.

This story was updated Tuesday afternoon with Microsoft comment.