I don't think it's related to Apple at all. I can't believe people are trying to give Apple some credit for it.
Two real things:
1) No one ever buys Windows upgrades, so this is a motivator to shift to Win8. Consumers and businesses just buy a new PC and large businesses get licenses automatically.
2) They now have the opportunity of upselling inside the operating system (which they've been playing with for a long time - since 2007!).
If #1 is true in terms of past behavior, then expecting this price point to change that is doubtful. In my experience, the reason no on upgrades is because they then inherit all the cruft from their old install. I'm not sure that upgrading will ever be popular with the Windows crows.
#2 is also doubtful for the same reason. If users are faced with 900 versions of Windows to choose from while upgrading, they'll choose the cheapest. And if they find out that Feature X requires them to pony up more money through the MS Store, they'll be supremely irritated.
And you haven't really given any evidence to show that it's not related to Apple's pricing.
So if a user is going to do a fresh install, they need to back up their existing data, perform a fresh install, restore their data, find all the old install disks from their existing software, install those. Look for the license keys for this software, fail since they bought the software ages ago, or pirated it from a buddy. Then throw their hands up in the air and get mad at MS.
It's a fact of Windows in the consumer market that upgrades just don't happen. Consumers almost always run their computers into the ground, then get the latest version of Windows when they purchase a new PC. This is something you stated in your post, yet you seem to think that MS will magically change this behaviour with this price point. I see no evidence to support that.
Additionally, the MS Store is almost a direct response to Apple's App Store on OSX.
The experience you described regarding upgrade is grossly outdated. Have you upgraded recently? The transfer wizard (forgot the actual name) does such as awesome job of moving your data to new OS that I have seen even the cookies persist after OS upgrade without me having to do any tweaking.
> 1) No one ever buys Windows upgrades, so this is a motivator to shift to Win8. Consumers and businesses just buy a new PC and large businesses get licenses automatically.
Maybe I'm in a very small minority, but I have bought Windows upgrades. I don't buy prebuilt computers, but still have reason to keep a Windows box around. Plus, my Mom gets my retired boxes, so I need a couple additional installs at her house. One of those is still an XP box, so I will definitely be taking advantage of this upgrade deal for that.
Whether or not a business just buys new machines or upgrades their OS depends on a variety of factors. Coporations who have bought Microsoft Software Assurance can upgrade to the latest MS Software on any machine without incurring any new licensing costs. http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/new-ve...
Two real things:
1) No one ever buys Windows upgrades, so this is a motivator to shift to Win8. Consumers and businesses just buy a new PC and large businesses get licenses automatically.
2) They now have the opportunity of upselling inside the operating system (which they've been playing with for a long time - since 2007!).
That is it. No pressure from Apple.