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Microsoft Confirms 6 Versions of Vista
Darthmalt writes "The BBC has a story confirming that there will be 6 versions of Vista. They are
Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate, Vista Starter. Also included are some of the differences between each version."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
:)
Um, that's not what a vista is
I've still got to be sold on Vista. It seems to offer less new stuff than XP, and at least most people got a benefit from going from 9x to XP, in that it was a far better OS underneath.
"We don't want customers to be forced into buying something that isn't going to meet all their needs," said Barry Goffe, Microsoft's director of Windows client product management.
Translation: We understand from psychology that people can only make effective, informed decisions when the number of choices is low, typically around six. We understand that one of the principles of building is a successful company is to segment your market according to their willingness to pay. Hence, I propose we offer six versions of Vista, each priced differently, each with a clear difference in feature set so that we can effectively capture our consumer surplus without our customers being constrained by the tyranny of choice.
Simon.
"We don't want customers to be forced into buying something that isn't going to meet all their needs," said Barry Goffe, Microsoft's director of Windows client product management.
Most customers get what is bundled with their computer. Most do not know if they have Windows 98, ME, or XP. Customers will be forced to buy what is the most economical for the OEM's to include with their machines.
Computers were supposed to be "multi-purpose" machines. Now that hardware is leveling, the differences are all in the software. The purpose of these levels is marketing and price control. Do not believe for a minute that this is about providing "choice" to the consumer.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I've always argued that windows is far better than linux, because it's not
going to fragment in the way linux does. It's a huge problem. You write an
app for linux and you can never tell what their system is going to be like.
They could be on redhat, or ubuntu, or any of the popular distros.
With windows, it's nice and clear. Either they are in 2000. Or XP (Home or
Business). Or Vista. That is Vista home. Or home premium. Or business.
Or richer business edition.
Think I'm going to buy a mac.
Phil
I'll take the Windows Vista "Half Way Decent Security Out of the Box" Edition please....
We're sorry, that version won't be available until March of 2010^H^HJune of 2012^H^HDecember of 2015.
"If you don't know where you want to go, we'll make sure you get taken."
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Apple hasn't released a retail version of Tiger, and Apple has frequently bundled versions targeted for the system they're bundled with... it usually turns out they're bootable on more than just that model, but it's not like a retail version.
If you count customized bundles as separate versions, there's thousands of versions of XP.
So really there's only two versions, Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server.
Has Apple stated that Leopard will be released in two versions or in a single "Universal" package?
I wrote: "Apple hasn't released a retail version of Tiger".
I meant to write: "Apple hasn't released a retail version of Tiger for Intel".
I even previewed it and I still missed that.
re: "What does Vista do that 2000 doesn't?"
Notable Windows Vista features:
- WinFS (oops, nope, scratch that!)
- the bash-like shell Monad (oops, nope, scratch that!)
Let's try again!
Notable Windows Vista features:
- DRM to deny your Fair Use rights as provisioned by Copyright Law and The Constitution of The united States of America
- shiny new Aero skin (Oops, don't have an Nvidia 6x00 and Pentium 4 2.8 or higher? Still stuck with an ATI Radeon? Scratch this one!)
- Red Screen Of Death for the Really, Really Bad Errors
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Actually this could backfire. Having multiple choices that are difficult to choose among drives people to alternatives. People are systematically irrational in this way. If somebody prefers A over B, then they should continue to prefer A over B even if choice C suddenly becomes available, right? Wrong. Often they will go to *B* is it's too hard to choose between A and C, and all three choices are close in value. A famous study illustrating this had people choose their compensation for participating in a quick study. They could choose between this fancy pen (told it was worth around, say, $5) and like $3 cash. People almost invariably took the pen. However, when other people were given their choice between two different but comparable pens, each worth around $5, and $3 cash, they just took the cash. They didn't have a good reason to pick one pen over the other (says one theory), or the cost of debating the choice was higher than their preference over the third alternative (says another theory), so they go for the neutral, third alternative. There have been many, many similar experimental examples.
So, if people are stressed or stymied by having to choose among even two copies of Windows, much less six, and they have been at all flirting with an alternative option (i.e., another OS, or just don't bother upgrading at all), this could easily put them over the edge.
(This comes for the reason-based choice work of Eldar Shafir and others)