OEMs Pay Microsoft About $50 for Each Copy of Windows

Microsoft (MSFT) has revealed that, for a $1000 PC, it has always charged the OEM about $50, or five percent, for Windows.

At the Jefferies Annual Technology Conference, Charles Songhurst, general manager of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft, answered a rather long onslaught of questions about where Redmond is heading. At one point, Songhurst started talking about how investors were asking Microsoft what its standpoint was on the “skewing PC price point” (i.e. “the netbook effect”). Songhurst explained that it was more interesting to look at “the growth merchandise volume of all PCs sold” despite the “emergence of a lot more segmented SKUs.” In other words, he believes that although the price range for the PC is widening, the market is still growing, and that’s all that matters to Microsoft.

Read the rest of this post at the original site