One of the big bits of noise from CES was word about Microsoft's home server. If a report by Mary Jo Foley is on the money, Microsoft may be prepared to follow that up with a special edition of Vista Ultimate that includes two Vista Home Premium licenses at a significantly reduced price.
The details are still terribly sketchy, but it sounds incredibly intriguing, and it makes logistical sense. If you have Mom, Dad and Junior (or Jill), with the kid being the tech maven of the bunch, you could give him the Ultimate license and use the Home Premium licenses for the other two members of the family.
There's other ways you can save money on Windows licenses, but they come with certain strings attached. For instance, you could buy copies of Vista Home Premium or even Ultimate in an OEM upgrade edition -- but a) you'd need an existing and qualifying copy of Windows to upgrade from (even if it's just the install CD), and b) you wouldn't be able to move that particular install of Windows to another computer, since it's OEM. It would also be possible to buy an MSDN subscription, but $700 is a lot of money to drop at any one time. This sort of packaging deal, if it's for real, would make for a very nice middle ground.
How is MSDN different from the MS Partners program? ( http://partners.microsoft.com ) It's hard to tell the high volume programs apart, and the promotion sites are remarkably difficult to comprehend.
[I'm going to look into this and see if I can get a detailed answer, and then publish it here. --ed]