Microsoft today announced it will start offering a free, 4 GB Xbox 360 S
-- a roughly $200 value -- to qualifying students who purchase a
Windows 7 PC for $699 or more over the summer.
The offer, which runs from May 22 through September 3, can be redeemed
at online retailers including Dell.com, and HP.com, as well as
brick-and-mortar Best Buy locations and both online and retail Microsoft
Store locations, according to
a Microsoft Windows Team blog post.
Online purchasers need a .edu e-mail address to confirm their student
status, while retail customers can show a student ID. The deal only
applies to the U.S. for now, but will be coming to France and Canada
soon, according to Microsoft.
While Windows operating systems still run on 85 to 90 percent of all
computers, according to various reports, that market share has come down
by a few percentage points in recent years thanks to increased
popularity of Apple's Macintosh computers.
The Xbox 360, meanwhile, has seen system sales heat up over the past
year, leading overall new monthly hardware sales in the U.S. for ten of
the last twelve months.
Late last year, Microsoft tried to entice customers to buy a smartphone on the Windows Phone 7 by
offering a free Xbox 360 game along with the purchase.
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