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Cut-Rate Windows 'XP Starter Edition' in Thailand
zlel writes "Microsoft has decided on an official name - 'Windows XP Starter Edition' - for the stripped-down, cut-rate version of Windows that it first began offering in Thailand last summer."
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They already have that - if you acquire them under an academic license it costs a fraction of the retail price... selling them on is tricky (the licence wouldn't actually be valid unless you were an educational establishment) but the spam never mentions that little wrinkle.
Clippy is in Office, not Windows. And is OPTIONAL. You don't need to have it enabled if you don't want it.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Not everyone is so lucky. Microsoft Middle East (based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, overseeing operations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Malta, Egypt and Pakistan) has hardly any content on its web sites (including the Middle East edition of MSDN) in anything but English. Nevermind that Arabic is the official language of the majority of those nations.
Don't be silly. The buying power of $38 in Thailand is much different from $38 in the US.
I'm in Bangkok at the moment actually, for the week. Perhaps some example prices:
1) dinner, with a beer: 80 Baht ($2)
2) 3 star hotel: 1000 Baht ($25)
3) Taxi to the airport: 400 Baht ($10)
4) Commuter train: 10 Baht (25 cents)
5) Recent LEGITIMATE video games: 400+ Baht ($10)
6) Recent LEGITIMATE DVDs: 200+ Baht ($5)
7) etc.
And that's all in Bangkok, not the countryside.
Anyways - if the actually expect people to buy a legitimate copy, they need to at least make an attempt pricing it properly. It's much more convincing to buy the $5 pirate copy of Windows (which you can get in the mall, in the street, you pick) when the legit version is hundreds of dollars! If the price comes down to a sane level, people will consider buying it.
I've got no idea how much advocacy they are doing, but there is a Thai linux group. Their web site includes a library for Thai language support. There is a page (in Thai) about the activities of the Thai Linux Working Group.
In case anyone doesn't know, the parent is spoofing a song by Murray Head entitled One Night in Bangkok.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
Of those who obtain pirated copies of Microsoft software, I'm willing to bet that at least half would not buy it at full price. Therefore, it is not in Microsoft's best interest to treat the Asian software pirate as a criminal to be prosecuted. It is in their best interest to compete with the street vendors.
Therefore, the best thing we can do to thwart Microsoft is to get the pirate vendors shut down.
> The whole reason behind the rebooting problem is the registry, and if MS gets rid of it I'll gladly stop making fun of it. Until then you and the rest of the MS-defender crowd will just have to keep stretching your credibility trying to defend it.
.1 files are renamed to their intended targets, and then the OS finishes its startup.
Almost; the reason is in-use files; Windows can't update them in place the way Linux can, a Windows installer needs exclusive access to files it wants to overwrite. So, an installer makes a series of xxx.dll.1 or xxx.exe.1 or whatever.1 files for each in-use file, then writes a batch file that runs the next time the OS boots. Those
Cheesy, but it works.
You don't even have to restart Linux to upgrade LIBC! ***LIBC***! Even the package manager that is actually upgrading libc is using libc! And it works just fine.
Fool - ***LIBC*** is a static library.
The package manager which is upgrading libc, has
a copy of the libc object files it needs inside
it's binary. It's not using the installed
***LIBC***.
You can take out the things you don't use in windows with a simple tool.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Exchange does much,much more than just email.
Shared Calendars, tasks, public folders? All in the same client?
If you compare your sendmail/postfix/whatever server "equally" to Exchange you don't know what you are talking about.
Here's another nifty windows shrinking tool. It's free, too.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
As the article points out, this product has been on the market in Thailand for a year now. There is no noticeable change.
MS just don't understand how people think here in Thailand. 1500 Baht is enough for 10-15 (bootleg) CDROMs or DVDs from Pantip, Fortune Town, Zeer or a handful of other places. Often the bootlegs (particularly WinXP, Office etc.) are replicated (not burnt) discs with full colour labels and look just like the real thing.
For the average home user, or small business, there's no justification to spend 1,500 Baht on a CD. It's like spending 1,500 Baht on lunch (which you can do here if you want) when the regular price for lunch is less than 50 Baht. It's seen as extravagance; pure and simple!
Large businesses won't buy it either because they generally prefer a fully-featured OS with ENGLISH! Infact, most Thai people in general don't have any problems using Windows in English, and many prefer it. It's all icons, and most end-users don't read error messages anyway, whatever the language!
A lot of video games companies have tested the Thai market with cheap Thai versions of their software. They're in English, but the user manual is in Thai. It seems that they can get away with about 200-300 Baht ($5-$7.50) extra for the real thing (depending on the size and beauty of the box!) any more than that and it's a case of "copee dee gwah" (the copied one is better!)
A 1000% price increase is still too much here.... sorry!
Do you have a source for this information?
I found this article that says: "Windows XP Starter Edition will be available in Thailand by September and Malaysia late this year, a Microsoft spokesman told Bloomberg news agency yesterday." In Malaysia, the national language Bahasa uses the Roman alphabet. Many of the Chinese and Indian minorities speak better English than Bahasa. So English is essential in Malaysia; even if they've tried to cripple it the Malaysian XP should be useable by an English speaker.
Umm, sendmail and postfix are MTA's. Exchange is groupware. This being the case I would expect it to do a little more...
Full on Windows is not competitive in it's native language, so the notion of "stripped down sounded odd to me too, but what I found was even more surprising. Just a little reading is very enlightening. No one but Microsoft and end users will know what's going into the package but Windoze is even less competitive in Thai.
What could they remove for this obvious region based dumping project? Calc? Notepad? The clock on the button bar? Oh wait, I see that they have a "stripped down" version of Office Standard, itself already stripped down.
I have to wonder what they could remove from such a basic set of software. Office Standard comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, email client and a presentation program and DRM that you have no control over. I suppose they could remove the presentation software and leave the user with ascii or Microsoft's crappy html code generation for information sharing. Spell checker, do they have a Thai spell checker? Do they have Thai anything at all? The user will still be looking for a paint program, pdf writer, a browser and email client worth using and third party software to do anything real that's business related. Who knows when M$'s not talking?
Microsoft Thai page does not say as far as I can tell without their special software. They have the same bogus "facts" presentation, but you have to have "active scripting" to have the right characters appear. Mostly, the site is in English, the rest is broken, some advert that is. M$ gets its ass kicked by Gnome's beautiful Thai page which rendered perfectly with Mepis / Debian unstable. This page is fun too!
Given the above differences in software quality and the ease of "piracy", I doubt that M$'s little dumpting scheme is going to work. Their "People's Software" initiative might suck in a few clueless government types but people who know software are going to continue to chose Linux. They could give their stuff away and it would not be taken up.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
raw, "pure" RTF doesn't have any of those. what you're thinking of is ".rtf files that other RTF readers won't understand, because MS has decided to "proprietise" the format while leaving the extension the same, just like they did for .doc in the transition past Word95".
Which retard modded this insightful?
a brief disclaimer, I am an american who has now been living in thailand for the last three years.
;)
Microsoft is just following what the game industry has been doing for the past few years here.
The huge amount of pirated software and DVD's, and CD's at Pantip Plaza and other places around Thailand has actually caused the prices of the legitimate versions to drop dramatically. Piracy it seems does make a difference.
I can get a legitimate copy of any top shelf PC game in thailand now for about 400 baht ($10 US). The only difference is it comes with a Thai manual and a huge sticker saying NOT FOR SALE OUTSIDE OF THAILAND.
Buying a pirate copy of that same game costs: 150 baht per cd. (so if it's a 2 CD game, then the price is 300 baht for the pirate version. if it's a 4cd game it's MORE expensive to buy the pirate version!)
Apparently the manufacturers think they can still make a profit selling games for $10 USD. They are actually trying to compete with pirates, rather than arrest them, and it seems to be working. People are buying more games, and less pirated ones.
That's not to say if thailand wasn't blessed with an incredibly corrupt and ineffectual law enforcement, things wouldn't be different.
The guy who wrote the "Clippy engine" originally had what he thought was pretty good AI that would make it only pop up if the user was really thrashing around. Marketing made him change the algorithm to show Clippy a lot sooner, presumably so demo users would be sure to see this "feature" in the store. There was a blurb about it in Wired, I think.
My new
I'm typing from Linux TLE, a Thai version of Linux. We have a government organization called NECTEC, whose one of their responsibilities is to promote the use of Linux. So the government was kind of support it. Then there were quite a few developers working inside and outside NECTEC on adding and improving Thai libraries.
There were lots of activities and promotions back then when Linux TLE was released, about 2 years ago. I don't really know what happened since because I'm in the US all the time. But seems like MS has won the war and people stop talking and hearing about Linux TLE anymore.
I've been using this TLE for almost a year. I can't get any updates from the TLE official site anymore. Seems like everything has stopped. So I'd think that the campaign and all the promotions were not that sucessful.
Linux server is quite popular in Thailand. But Linux desktop is a different story. It can't grow if there is no sustained supports from the government. If MS keeps lowering their price, there would be no real incentive to go for Linux desktop. Thai language support in Windows is far better.
I can live with TLE because I use Thai only occasionally. Security, stability and performance are more important to me. To be honest, I was on dual boot for quite a while before I completely switched to TLE last year. The day I decided to switch was when my w2k got infected by a virus. Can't remember what was it, there are plenty of them.
Well, you know I haven't RTFA, but since I have written extensively about it in my journal and was living there when it was introduced in response to a million pre-installed Linux machines, I'll comment anyway.
The menus are all in Thai, and cannot be modified, meaning that many installed programs wouldn't appear on the menus or possibly even run. It was only available on the"Eua Athorn" computers, a low cost Celeron socket 370 government program. In fact, though the legal copies could be installed when the computers were picked up, few people did it, and instead had their friend put a pirated copy from Panthip Plaza or similar place on for them.
It was a failure of an idea, and will continue to be. It was designed to start THais on legal software, and move them up to the full versions later. Few bought the idea, beccause it involved changing their old habit for a greater expense, and the brief shadow of government enforcement quickly faded away.
I had great hopes for the million Linux machine program, but alas.
Put identity in the browser.
People generally start smoking because they're young and see "everyone else doing it"
Yeah, thats what the anti-smoking ads say. But in the real world, ask any smoker the reason they started and they'll tell you they were either curious what it was like, or because of side benefits - like in the US Navy (perhaps armed forces in general), and some workplaces, if you smoke, you get quick breaks that you wouldn't otherwise get. Anyone who tells you otherwise either has forgotten how they started, or doesn't think curiosity counts as a reason, and/or just uses the peer pressure BS as an excuse.
Personally, I've liked the smell of smoke since day one. One night I snuck out back by myself with one of my dad's smokes, and tried it. It was delicious.
Nowadays, being the complete asshat that I am, I try convincing people to start smoking all the time. Nobody has ever caved in, except for those who have tried tobacco before, and liked it, but those don't really count.
Now as for inhaling smoke being an unnatural act, think back to ancient times. In order to ensure the best protection, you need fire in your cave/hut/teepee/whatever to scare/smoke off the beasts. Those who could tolerate the smoke used fire, and slept well, breathing in the fumes as necessary. Those who couldn't were more likely to get eaten by bears, or at least have their food taken away. Fire been around as long as the hills, and smoke exposure along with it.
The pleasure of smoking is from the drug nicotine, not from smoking per se.
One could say smoking stirs ancient instincts within us, from those long lost cavedweller days, giving us feelings of comfort. I know if I wake up on one of those nights feeling alone for whatever reason, a nice fat stogie really helps.
In other words, I disagree. You could say the pleasure of drinking coffee comes from the caffeine, but thats not the whole story. You have the aroma, the taste, general oral stimulation, AND the main chemicals, as well as ancillary chemicals that make up the whole experience.
For example, those of you who smoke or have smoked, and have tried chaw/dip/etc chewing tobacco, what was your reaction after finishing? Of course..."OK, now I could sure use a cigarette." Ask anyone on the patch and they'll tell you the same thing.
The going rate for a CD of any kind was 150 baht (~$4) when I lived there two years ago. DVDs were 200 baht both then and when I visited back in January, so I'm guessing the CD price hasn't increased. There are so many vendors selling the same items and so many Thais buying that you don't have to worry about the price discrimination or poor bargaining skills. If it's in Thailand, it'll be at Panthip and you'll get the best price.
MBK is a more convenient location, being right on the skytrain line, and prices are similar there, but selection is limited. Plus, you have to venture into the non-airconditioned portion of the mall and wade through a few thousand people selling cell phones.
You'll see mostly music CDs and DVDs at tourist markets throughout the country, but you'll get tourist prices in most cases unless you can speak the local lingo. Even then getting a deal will be a problem because the vendors know they can sell to the next tourist without bargaining.
Anyway, if you're looking for something out of the ordinary or buying in bulk, it's worth going to Panthip...unless the girl who broke your heart has opened a shop there.
chok dee
Admittedly, a short term survival benefit, but the negative effects on long term health is well documented among people who still live under those conditions (smoky indoor cooking/heating fires), and are probably worse than tobacco smoking. The question of whether the act is natural or not is pointless... if the "natural" average human lifespan were found to be 35, would you be against living longer than that? The real question is do the benefits outweigh the risks. That answer is not going to be the same for everyone.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.