http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/ [...] price_cut/
http://www.wtop.com/index.php?nid=108&sid=1354527
http://news.zdnet.com/?chkpt=zdhpnews01
 
"Microsoft is knocking $80 off the price of the US edition of Windows Vista Ultimate from $399 to $319, and the Home Premium edition falls $30 from $159 to $129."
 
XP Home Retail is $191 street price (@ newegg) compared to Vista Premium's $129 MSRP which should result in a  street price of $109....using newegg's standard 85% of MSRP.....it's even $30 cheaper than XP pro OEM  That $ 30 / $82 should be enough to swing many people who were otherwise gonna stick with XP
 
XP pro's $269 retail is equivalent to the $271 or so we should see at newegg again for Vista Ultimate applying the standard 85% of MSRP figure.  That's a pretty good deal since Ultimate essentially contains 4 OS's in the same box.  Ultimate combines all the features of Home Premium and Business and you get both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
 
Everyone who bought already should start hounding MS to do what Apple did after the iPhone price cuts......give everyone $80 or $30 coupons to use in the MS Store..... Halo 3 anyone ?  
 
Haven't seen anything on any changes to OEM suppliers.....that new $109 Home Premium retail price is the same as the newegg OEM price for Home premium ATM so I imagine system builders must have soemthing coming their way or they gonna start screaming.

I actually picked up my copy of Vista Basic OEM for $73 back in November when I built my machine. I got it off viosoftware.com, it was totally legit and they have fast shipping.

It's only $89 at newegg fro basic....viosoftware still has it for $79 but as a "branded  version" to which they don';t give an explanation.....the unbranded DSP is $95 there.
 
Vista is having problems with having 4 versions and whether Basic and Business continue in box form is something I thing is questionable.  By far most shelf sales are o Premium and Ultimate and I think the proce drops ,ay be reflective of their possible intention to drop the boxed versions of these.  I imagine that Vista Business may live on as a corporate license option.