Microsoft, planning to lure you into using Windows Vista and Office 2007 for the rest of your life, today reveals the packaging for the upcoming products, going with a rounded design reminiscent of a 1950s toaster. Let's let the Microsoftians damn us with their faint prose:
Designed to be user-friendly, the new packaging is a small, hard, plastic container that's designed to protect the software inside for life-long use. It provides a convenient and attractive place for you to permanently store both discs and documentation. The new design will provide the strength, dimensional stability and impact resistance required when packaging software today. Our plan is to extend this packaging style to other Microsoft products after the launch of Windows Vista and 2007 Office system.
Take a look at close-ups of a couple of the new boxes, after the jump.
Announcing New Packaging [Windows Vista Blog, via Neowin]
DISCUSSION
Here in New Zealand, to celebrate us getting XP first (with the time difference, NZ is ahead of everywhere) Microsoft gave away 5 free copies of Win XP Pro from every major store selling it across the country.
The promotion was kept pretty low key, so hundreds of people wouldn't turn up, and it worked pretty well. I was #5 in one store, waited about 1 1/2 hours I think, and saved myself a few hundred $.
Here's hoping they do the same with Vista :P