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More Details on Cut-Rate Windows OS For Asia
glawrie writes "The BBC is carrying a story that Microsoft is to launch a (very) cut down version of Windows XP to combat Linux in Asian countries. According to the story, 'Windows XP Starter Edition' will be limited to low-res graphics, limited networking, and will be hobbled to prevent more than three applications running concurrently. It remains to be seen why anyone in target countries would choose this over Linux, or the widely available pirate copies of 'full' Windows XP." We mentioned this in June.
3 Concurrent programs? I don't even think you can successfully update your system on Windows without running more than 3 programs.
On a side note, laughing my ass off about why anyone would choose this sideshow over better, more robust, and free products. They'll probably lower the price down to $50, which is $50 too much.
Read the only personal Runyon page out there.
If I lived in a country targeted for this release, I would still use a pirated copy of Windows. Why pay money for something nearly useless when I can get something nearly useful for free? This will not stop piracy.
'Windows XP Starter Edition' will be limited to low-res graphics, limited networking, and will be hobbled to prevent more than three applications running concurrently.
That will give new users a taste of how bad XP is, before making the choice between Linux (full res, full net, great multitasking) and XP (low res, limited net, 3 apps).
Why would you pay for a crippled, low functionality product, regarless of how "cheap" it is? There are full function, feature packed Open Source operating systems available for free. I don't see how lowering the capabilities of their software, regardless of price, will make it MORE attrative. Perhaps the shoe is on the other foot now. Microsoft will know how Netscape felt trying to compete with a "free" competitor in an emerging market.
Remember the old registry hack from the NT 4 days? How much do you want to be that all you need is a kernel32.dll from a real XP install, and a suck=no entry in the HLKM\Screw\You\Microsoft key?
This is dumb on MS' part on so many levels - people will try it, see that it sucks, and go with $Localized-Government-Sponsored-Linux instead.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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Except that you're paying for it...
This fits for a company that has gotten people to pay for beta CDs. Not to mention that most of the releases of Windows have felt like Betas anyway. So this is just business as usual, nothing seems to have changed. Makes you wonder if the whole security focus is just marketing fluff too doesn't it?...and will be hobbled to prevent more than three applications running concurrently.
:-/
Sounds like any other version of a Microsoft OS.
While parent is probably trolling, there is some truth to his statement. Windows just doesn't do so well when you load it down with programs (active or not). "Cache Thrash" is simply a way of life for Windows users; even those with gobs of memory. I've known people who have completely disabled the Windows cache because of these problems. Microsoft needs to rip out their VM and threading system, and redesign it for modern computers with 128+ megs of RAM.
The Unixes do it much better, but the programs do take slightly longer to run. I remember the first time I used a Solaris box. A puny Ultra 5, and it was absolutely kicking NT's ass on parallelism! I could have 7 or 8 "busy" programs, and my desktop would never become unresponsive! Mac OS X has made use of the same concept, expect that the window is double-buffered. The end result is that you never see an ugly unpainted window. Now if only Apple would fix the 101 ways to lock up finder.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Hmm. Suddenly I'm not so worried about the Microsoft marketing machine.
Fool! That's exactly what that machine likes to hear. Let's not forget that Windows 3.1 was a steaming, extremely popular, piece of shit.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Microsoft isn't the first to offer a discount for certain countries. $40 or $50 over there is probably worth more than $300 here in the US. Microsoft could give it away for $10 and still make a small profit. The goal is not to make money in that respect, but to keep countries locked in to their products. If they start using linux now, they'll never get them back.
You're not going to compete with Linux by crippling your operating system, Bill.
This is the PCjr. of operating systems, destined to be a laughed-at memory.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
If they do manage to sell these successfully, I'll be even more scared of their Marketing division.
One wonders what they are trying to achieve with this. Surely this is not going to stop rampant piracy. If I have the choice of a cheap full version from the blackmarket with next to no probability of being caught, and a (probably more expensive) hobbled version, which one am I going to get?
In a way, it reminds me of the police raids that they sometimes have in places like Hong Kong, where they seize lots of CDs, and put them in front of a bulldozer. Then the press arrives, takes some photos for the papers, and that's it. These sort of things look like they are something against piracy, but in the end it never makes a differene.
Any one been to Hong Kong recently? Golden Shopping Arcade (Sham Shui Po) still there? They have been selling pirated software there since 1987. I would be surprised if they have been closed down permanently.
They'll still make no money. Now there will just be two things to pirate, the full os and Windows OSux.
Hmmm, I think that Microsoft is taking a big risk in promoting a cut rate Windows XP in developing countries. First of all, the people in those countries are not any stupider than people anywhere else in the world. They will know that they are getting the dumbed down, brain damaged version of Windows XP. Even if this costs less than a pirated version (which remains to be seen), I think most will opt for the non crippled pirated version. People already knock Windows for its shortcomings as it is, does Microsoft need to add to this? Not only that, even offering this crippled Windows could be taken as an insult.
A slimmed down version of Windows without some of the extra packages would be a lot better to offer than a crippled version. I think that in the end, Microsoft is going to have to accept the fact that in today's global marketplace, Windows is overpriced. In the face of Linux and free open source software solutions, I really don't know what they can do other than lower the price of admission and add more value and true innovation. There have to be really good killer app sort of reasons that make Windows the thing you want to have. Productivity applications like Office are no longer sufficient reason to stay with Windows. Games might be, but the PC games market is losing out to the console market. So what's left?
Finally, even a crippled Windows won't be immune to piracy! As we learned from the web browser wars, it's really hard to sell something that's being given away for free! Linux is free and certainly has everything a small business might need in the way of productivity apps. So how can Windows compete with that in places where it is not the dominant player and limited resources and nationalism come into play?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Further, I wouldn't exactly call Linux the most user friendly of environments, its geared toward people who want a lot of functionality and have the time to mess with every little detail.
This, in my humble opinion, is one the big limitation of Linux even with the current SuSE and Mandrake distributions. Configuring Linux to work for each user is definitely not a job for computer newbies.
But there is also another big limitation: Linux currently does not support the full functionality of many hardware peripherals out there, not to mention true automated configuration of any new installed hardware. Think about it: does Linux support the full functionality of the Sound Blaster Audigy card? Can you plug in a digital still camera through the USB ports and Linux will recognize the data on the memory card in the camera and "mount" the memory card with a new disk drive designation?
Hopefully, the people who maintain the Linux Standards Base will work with computer hardware companies and consumer electronics companies to settle these issues so Linux will become a truly viable alternative to Windows soon.
While it is not cooler than OSS stuff, it is certainly cooler than pirate software. Software piracy is not cool; that's why you should use free software.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The pirates always do whatever they can to make more money. That includes going into theaters with camcorders to record a film that includes audience reactions at "no extra charge." So it's "no extra charge" for the bad version of Windows you're running that you bought from me when you thought you were getting the real deal.
According to Microsoft: the new software [will] also help deter consumers from buying pirated versions of its XP system, widely available in many Asian countries.
Thus, Microsoft, who wants to sell to corporations in the far east, wants to confuse the issue by making sure that the pirates have lots of inferior product so that the corporations no longer can trust the pirates or the pirated copies.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
VMWare? Wouldn't that sort the whole limited application thing? Though I guess if you're going to run an OS in a VM to get around the limitations of the host OS, you may as well cut out the middle man...
This seems like it's going to be Microsoft's PCjr...give them something that *seems* like a good bargain at first, but you run up against the limitations pretty much immediately. Then you realize you've been had and swear you'll never buy a product from this company again.
Not that this ever happened to me *cough*.
It's also very demeaning to the countries involved, piracy issues or not. You can imagine the box as saying: "If you see this box in a store, it's because we have 'issues' with your country as a whole." Frankly, I hope people are offended and swear off MS entirely.
Viva Linux!
Just think of the fun when some spy/scum/Gator/Clariaware attaches itself. (A number would count under IE, some seperately.) Some of them would probably be trapped in tight loops trying to spawn seperate programs and failing.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think the law that most people are going to be following in this particular instance is the law of natural selection. I've not gone computer shopping in China, Cambodia or Vietnam, but I have a strong suspicion that the piracy is happening at the comp-u-shop. I submit to you all that this isn't about consumers at all. This is about Microsoft being able to tell 3rd world governments (and the US Gov't) that "we're doing our part" by making a cheap version available, now do your part by cracking down on the piracy. Expect this version of Windows to be followed by some serious bribery/lobbying for stronger IP enforcement in the 3rd world.
How can this be a good idea? This program is crippleware? How do they expect it to compete with linux or pirated windows? 3 programs only? after a virus program that leaves two. This boggles the mind. It crippels the network services which is one of the keypoints of Linux.
I keep thinking it's like watching a Histroy Channel show on the last days of Hitler, when his military strategy just went off the deep end.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
I think that all Mozilla developpers should thank Microsoft: thanks to the all-in-one concept in Mozilla with one application you can have a web browser, an email client, IRC client.
Otherwise, users would go mad stopping and starting applications..
I wonder if this is true or if Windows think that Mozilla web browser and email client count for two application?
I bet it runs faster than Windows XP Pro, with all the extra crap pulled out.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
...look at a simple price/volume curve. With one price/volume combination, there's either a) a lot of the market you don't reach (too costly) or b) a lot of the mark-up you don't reach (customers willing to pay more).
The trouble is to prevent resale and competing with yourself (via parallell imports etc.) Basicly, if you could sell for $2 in Asia, $15 in the US, $18 in the EU, how do you prevent the asians from reselling it? MPAA did it with the region coding. Microsoft tries crippleware.
It is the same old story all over again. They don't expect pirates to buy this. They expect those that "need" a legally licenced version to go with this, because their users are already trained so well on Windows.
In Asia, this is more about moving businesses from "Yes, I know we NEED a legal licence, but no matter how you bend it we can't come up with that kind of cash." to "We'll take it, just so we have a legal licence."
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Let's examine this a little bit. Microsoft releases a partial version of a (no flames, please) halfway decent OS. Sooner or later consumers of this cut down product are going to want the full thing. They're going to want the full featured product. They have three choices;
1. Upgrade. We've already acknowledged that these areas are poor, which means they have a limited cash flow. If they weren't willing to pay for the full blown product before, do you think they're going to be more likely to pay AGAIN? I don't think so which leads us to
2. Piracy. This is the real reason this product is even available. Cracked CD Keys, reg hacks that allow Win Update regardless. I think this move is going to INCREASE piracy. More users. More users wanting more.
3. Move to Linux. If you are going to shell out some money anyway - why not buy a retail linux distro. You get better support and a full blown product. Not enough $$ to cough up fiddy bucks for a retail copy? Download that mother for free!
I think MS had a few objectives that this product was supposed to accomplish. I think it won't make as big of an impact as they expect.
what if the superduper popup blocker is threaded?
"So-called" has two different meanings. One is derogatory, as in "George W. Bush is the so-called President of the United States." The other is frequently used in journalism to identify terms with which the reader is expected to be unfamiliar; you see this in pop science journalism a lot, as in "DNA is made of of four so-called nucleic acids." (I suspect the non-derogatory meaning may be the original one, but I don't know.) It is unfortunate, I agree. It would probably be better to add an explanatory clause: "Linux, which is of a type of software called open source, ..."
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Do adware and spyware count?
I could possibly understand the limitted networking, maybe even the concurrent application limit, but lower resolution? Microsoft needs to remember that porn is _the_ killer app of the internet, and nobody will stand for lo-res porn.
Its like buying a geo metro for $20000 when you can have a mercedes benz for free.