Considering that in January 2007 Vista will be released, Microsoft will surely come up with an upgrade promotion program.

Now that they missed the booming and rich Christmas period with Vista, Microsoft will start presenting some promotional programs to keep the PC sales moving. They don’t want the situation to be like now when computer sales took a dive because everybody is waiting for the new Intel processors and the AMD price cut.

Mike Sievert, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows client marketing said that they are working with hardware partners to implement such a program but no details have been given.

Dell said in a conference that they will have goose sales before Vista’s launch including coupons for upgrades.

“What I can say is that with every previous operating system Microsoft has launched, they have provided essentially an upgrade program, and it has typically applied to PCs purchased in the final few days prior to the launch of the new operating system ” thirty or sixty days prior to launch,” Stevens said. Such programs, he said, have typically provided for upgrades at only the cost of shipping and handling of CDs. “We have no reason to believe that will not be available with Vista,” – Lance Stevens, Hewlett-Packard’s software product marketing manager for business PCs.

As the computer manufacturers are preparing for Windows Vista they have already computers which have a “Designed for Windows XPWindows Vista Capable” logo. Toshiba and Dell are surely one of those manufacturers.

More, it is rumored that Microsoft will offer an end-user upgrade option on systems sold pre-launch that would allow end users to later upgrade to Vista for just the cost of the CD. So you buy a computer now that is capable of running Windows Vista and at the launch of the SO you get the CDs and you can upgrade XP to Vista.