It might be that because of the Daylight Savings Time issue, there was a much greater number of people paying for the update. Microsoft may be reflecting this scale of economy in its revised cost for the updates to old stuff...

Re: DST DITTY

$4,000 cost vs $40,000 price
Margin is (Price-Cost)/Price x 100% = 90%
Markup is (Price-Cost)/Cost x 100% = 900%

Is anyone surprised that Microsoft Margins are High?
Thanks,
Bill

Maybe we need a law that says as soon as Microsoft abandons a product to "extended" support they should have to publish the code. Wonder how many products would go on extended support ???? ;-) ;-)

This is a sad commentary on an enormous company that originated by building cheap, low grade operating systems with minimal support -- ushering in the "as is" basis -- i.e. neither responsible or accountable for any promised, implied, or in any way resultant functionality or ill effects -- for virtually all consumer-level and much of the business-level and government-level technology products in recent decades:__
__ And so, in its doddering old age, MS returns to its original CAVEAT EMPTOR ("Buyer beware") basis, abandoning its "extended support" for products that it had not intended to be accountable for from the beginning.

__ MicroSoft's most severe financial weakness has always been that the fundamental value of its innovations have been far above what it intended to, or was actually willing to, support. It toyed with providing such support, perhaps as a response to marketing pressures. But smartly refused to make any such commitment.

__ It is interesting that SECURITY has become the watchword in the past decade -- in an industry in which "as is", i.e. effectively non-existent, is the fundamental level of accountability.

__ How can there be a dependable level of Security without a definable level of responsibility and accountability by the providers of the fundamental products???

__ Perhaps there is a way.
__ After all, we have aircraft that fly even though they are heavier than the gaseous medium in which they fly.
__ There are even definable measures of aircraft safety, e.g. in case of engine failures, etc.

__ Microsoft, true to its foundations, opts out.

__ Can we identify a sustainable market that will attract new potential providers ??