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MS Plans Low-Cost Windows for Brazil

Atryn writes "According to this C|NET article, Microsoft is planning to release its XP Starter Edition in Brazil. Could the pressure of Brazil's overtures toward Linux be forcing Microsoft Brasil to compete?"

2 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. People don't like crippleware. by boingyzain · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The restrictions in Starter Edition (low maximum resolution, limited number of applications that can be run at once) are completely arbitrary. Microsoft hasn't put these restrictions in place because it makes the software cheaper, it has put them in place because it wants to force a cheaper version to be less functional.

    The problem is that, regardless of whether users would actually need the functionality that Starter Edition doesn't have, people won't like it. People are simply averse to buying products that have been deliberately crippled. It doesn't matter whether the restrictions affect them, they feel insulted by being offered something that has been willfully hobbled.

  2. The starter edition is OFFENSIVE! by Yuioup · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'm sorry but releasing a crippled "starter edition" to certain countries in the world is not called competition, it's called an insult, plain and simple.

    It's like saying: "oooh these poor countries don't have fast PC's so let's give them a small simple operating system that doesn't do much so they can catch up with us"

    Well I got news for you. Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand are cetainly not the primitive people you think they are. And CERTAINLY NOT India and Russia. India and Russia are at the FOREFRONT of development and I'm pretty damn sure that you can get state of the art PC's over there with a perfectly packaged pirated copy of Windows Xp SP2.

    India is the Silicon Valley of the far east for christ's sake!

    Anyways Microsoft is really acting like the arrogant superpower like this. Stop CONDASCENDING!!!!

    Y