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The title says it all. Microsoft is set to offer either free or discounted Vista upgrades to those who purchase new computers during the holiday season, press reports indicate. To qualify for the coupons, a PC would need to be purchased after October 28 of this year (2006), and the upgrade would be good through March 15, 2007.

Microsoft would not confirm the program publicly, other than saying “we’re working with partners on this”. Reports indicate that the free or discounted upgrade would be based on the version of operating system installed.

For example, those who have Widows XP Professional, XP Tablet PC Edition, and XP x64 Edition would be entitled to the free upgrade. Those using Windows XP Home would be permitted to upgrade to Vista Basic for $49 and Premium for $79. No upgrade price was specified for Media Center Edition.

I was about to buy a new high-end laptop to replace my aging Compaq laptop. Glad that I didn’t commit to it so far. I would rather wait till the end of October to have a chance to experience the real Windows Vista.

Google just announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. To clarify the confusion that since Google is already having its own video site so what will happen to YouTube, they were quick enough to make it clear that YouTube will operate as an independent unit of Google once the deal closes and will retain the YouTube brand name. They added that no YouTube workers will lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition and that Google will maintain its own online video business. Rumor says that Yahoo, Microsoft and News Corp. (now the parent company of MySpace) also had probably expressed interest in buying YouTube. But at the end its Google that’ve won the competition.