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Will Microsoft Help You Buy Your Next PC?

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Image via CrunchBase

Buying a new PC is an expensive proposition, but research firm Canalys believes that Microsoft should dig deep and chip in a few dollars to help make your new PC a little bit cheaper.

According to Canalys analysts, if Windows 8 is to be a success, Microsoft will have to subsidize at least some of the extra cost that touchscreen hardware will add to a new Windows 8 PC.

The Windows 8 launch budget guarantees attention during Q4, but users will only benefit fully from the new OS if they buy PCs with touch screens, which will significantly increase the purchase price. Canalys does not expect the launch of Windows 8 to arrest Microsoft’s market share decline until Q3 2013 at the earliest. Canalys recommends that Microsoft helps its OEMs hit mainstream price points for Windows 8 touch-screen products, for example by subsidizing touch panel production costs by $50 to $100 per unit, to kick-start the market.

A $100 subsidy would wipe out the money that Microsoft made from selling a copy of Windows 8 to the OEM for that touchscreen PC.  That would be a whopping subsidy, but given that all the subsidy would be doing was offsetting the cost of adding touchscreen panel to the PC, it wouldn't mean cheaper PCs.

Canalys also believes that the price of Microsoft's Surface tablets are too high.

Perhaps the biggest talking point of the quarter was Microsoft’s decision to launch its own pads – the Surface and Surface Pro. “The information available to date suggests the prices of both will be too high to capture significant market share, and a direct sales approach will prove inadequate.

Surface is, according to Canalys, doomed to the same fate as the Zune media player.

We expect the Surface pads to have a similar impact on the PC industry as the Zune did in portable music players,” commented Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling.

In other words, Surface will languish, and then fizzle into premature death.

Having used Windows 8 on a number of hardware platforms, I do believe that if the operating system has a chance of success, Microsoft needs to be working with hardware partners to get as many touchscreen devices out to market as possible. However, I'm not sure that PCs are the best form factor to show off Windows 8 to its best, and Microsoft might be better off focusing on tablets and the main driver and relying on and Windows 8-ready peripherals such as mice and keyboards to bring touch support to desktops and notebooks.

Would a Microsoft subsidy of around $100 convince you to buy a Windows 8 PC?