Qashqarian

Microsoft today launched a promotion that discounts Windows 7 upgrades as much as 58% when customers also buy a new Windows 7 PC.

The deal, which was available Thursday from the likes of Amazon.com and Staples, applies when consumers purchase a new computer equipped with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate.

Staples, for instance, will sell a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99, a 58% savings compared to the $119.99 list price, when buyers also purchase a new Windows 7 PC. Amazon, on the other hand, dropped the price of Home Premium Upgrade to $59.95, a savings of $60, or 50%. Under the promotion, Amazon also cut the price of Professional Upgrade to $115.99, an $85 savings (42% off) and Ultimate Upgrade to $139.99, an $80 savings (36% off) when customers ordered a new Windows 7 notebook or desktop at the same time.

Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group, which specializes in tracking retail sales, called the promotion "brilliant" in a blog post this morning. "It gives incentive to some of that huge XP installed base to do the right thing and upgrade into a new PC, while offering them a way to cost-effectively upgrade that companion notebook they have bought in the last two and one-half years. which is running Vista," Baker said.

"Windows 7 is even greater the more PCs that you have that run it," Baker said in a follow-up interview. "People aren't likely to go out today and buy multiple new PCs, but this is a great way to drive the value of Windows 7."

Baker called out Home Group, a new feature in Windows 7 that simplifies the task of setting up file-, printer-, photo- and music-sharing between Windows 7-equipped PCs on a home network, as one reason to upgrade as many home computers as possible to the new operating system.

According to Microsoft, one discounted copy of Windows 7 Upgrade can be bought per new PC, with the discount applicable to the same version as that which powers the PC. In other words, buyers of a new PC running Windows 7 Home Premium can purchase an upgrade copy of Home Premium at the discounted price, while consumers who buy a PC with Windows 7 Professional can get an upgrade copy of that edition at the reduced price.

Amazon, however, appears to be offering buyers of any Home Premium-, Professional- or Ultimate-equipped PC the discount for any of the three editions' upgrades. Buyers can order a notebook running Home Premium, for example, but buy an upgrade to Professional.

Some buyers are ineligible for the deal, however. New machines running the entry-level version of Windows 7, dubbed Starter, don't qualify, essentially preventing most purchasers of netbooks -- which are dominated by Windows 7 Starter -- from taking advantage of the promotion.

The discounted upgrade deal expires Jan. 2, 2010, and applies to consumers in the U.S. and U.K, as well as those in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland and Slovakia. . Microsoft and its retail partners also started selling the $149.99 Windows 7 Family Pack today. The package lets buyers upgrade as many as three PCs from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium.

College students are eligible for a separate offer that prices Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade at $29.99.

Not to be left out of the party, Google announced today it has signed its own real-time search deal with Twitter.

Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google's search products, announced at the Web 2.0 Summit late this afternoon that Google will be integrating tweets into its search results.

"We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months," Mayer, wrote in a blog post earlier today. "That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."

"Where there are tweets about the topic and the news articles haven't been written yet, we'd really like to showcase the tweets," she said.

Mayer declined to discuss the financial terms of Google's agreement with Twitter.

Mayer also said at the conference that in a few weeks, Google will launch a service called Social Search in Google Labs. Social Search is designed to enable users to search for tweets and blogs written by their friends and the people whom their friends follow.

The news comes directly on the heels of rival Microsoft's announcement earlier today that it had reached its own real-time search deal with both Twitter and social networking company Facebook. Google has not made any announcement about setting a deal with Facebook.

In nonexclusive deals with both Twitter and Facebook, Microsoft said the company will integrate the social networks' real-time status update feeds into its Bing search service.

A few weeks ago, reports surfaced that both Google and Microsoft have been wooing Twitter to sign a deal with the microblogging site.

While Google and Microsoft may have found a way to boost their real-time search efforts in the midst of their raging search war, the deals announced today mean that the popular social networks, which still have no business plans, have found a way to bring in some hefty paychecks