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Windows 7 To Come In Multiple Versions
Crazy Taco writes "Tom's Hardware reports on newly discovered screenshots that reveal Microsoft is planning to release their newest version of Windows in multiple confusing versions ... again. The information comes from the latest version of the Windows 7 beta, build 7025 (the public beta is build 7000), and shows a screen during installation that asks the user which version of the OS he or she would like to install. Who's up for guessing what the difference is between Windows 7 'Starter' and Windows 7 'Home Basic?'"
If I remember right, starter is a stripped down version they just sell in developing countries at a big discount in at attempt to combat some piracy by giving users a low priced option. Home would just be home again like in XP. Business would be enterprise. It is the ones after that where it gets pointless and confusing. They would do better to stick with home and pro. Then an ultimate after that if they just MUST toss in extras.
?
I've got big issues with artifically crippled software, where all versions come on the same install media.
It's like buying a car with 12 cylinders and having a switch hidden under the hood somewhere that controls the number of cylinders used. You buy the budget model, still have to cart around the weight of all 12 cylinders, but only get to use 4 of them.
- There is no point, it's like a sphere -
Priced low enough that you couldn't be arsed to ask for a refund
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The confusion is quite ridiculous. I mean really, when the fscking salespeople need to look up tables to determine which windows versions include which features, you can tell someone somewhere in marketing has screwed the pooch badly.
Maybe MS is preying on the fact that most consumers will be too stupid to know they're buying more than they need, or too elitist to buy just what they will use instead of getting "Ultimate". Either way, they make more money.
I have nothing against them making money, but hawking feature incomplete operating systems at rock bottom price just to artificially create the appearance of choice drives me nuts.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
To confuse things further: many of those versions also come in both 32 bit and 64 bit flavors.
Why Win7 is not purely 64 bit is beyond me - any recent machine can run the 64 bit version, any older machine should be running XP anyway.
The XP Starter edition was a crippled version of XP intended to reduce piracy in countries where people couldn't afford full-priced versions.
It was limited to 800 x 600 resolution, classic mode only - no theming, only three applications running, and a network restricted to an internet connection, not home networking.
The press at the time called it "cut-rate," "cheap," "crippled," and "futile. Users in emerging nations ignored it and continued pirating XP.
Expect the Windows 7 Starter Edition to have similar restrictions.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
...but the single, common user experience is a big selling point for fruity products among people I know. Microsoft obviously can't attain a similar degree of this without controlling PC hardware, but having a single version of Windows 7 would help immensely. Joe the User won't understand why his PC is different from his wife's under the same operating system. Most people can't be bothered with learning about the different versions of the same thing. Windows should be Windows should be Windows.
Then why don't they call it "Windows Netbooks"? If "Windows Starter" is supposed to be the netbook edition, then they've managed to give it a name that actively misleads you as to what it's intended for.
Windows 7 is a marketing attempt to remove the negativity associated with the Vista marketing campaign and name. Instead of rolling out vista with a new service pack, they are rolling out "windows 7". In reality, windows 7 is a bunch of delayed features and vista bug fixes. They HAVE to keep the same versioning system as windows vista becuase of licensing tools already in place and the way the development teams are setup. The vista team is working on the Windows 7 stuff too, as opposed to having a seperate dedicated team (which will come later). So from a business standpoint, the internal resources have no need to be rearranged for a simple marketing change.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
That never made sense to me. Why would anyone put up with a hopelessly-crippled-to-the-point-of-being-nearly-useless version of Windows when they could buy a bootleg of a Pro/Ultimate edition on a street corner for almost nothing or even torrent it for free?
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
It's gotten so bad, it's not even any fun to mock them anymore - machine-gunning fish in a barrel is a challenge by comparison.
(Sung to Surfing USA)
Everybody is turfing',
Cross the USA,
Everybody is turfing',
Turfing' USA.
What a non-story. Windows 7 should be the next service pack for Vista, but then they wouldn't get to charge for it.
Sad news. I hate their tiered approach. They purposely cripple the cheap versions so that some key function you need requires you to pay a hundred bucks or more for a single feature.
I'm actually pleased enough with Ubuntu and Gnome that I think I have installed my last Windows image at home, except for my work box, and that license is paid for.
MS has simply become too expensive for too little in return, and the options out there in Open Source, and even on the Mac side with it's more up front cost for hardware offer more bang for the buck with less stress and lost time spent fixing the OS.
Thanks but no thanks...
Basic is baseline (like XP home)
Home Premium includes media center (like XP media center edition)
Business is basically XP Professional
Ultimate is XP professional + media center
So maybe they just need a name change.
Home
Home + Media Center
Business
Business + Media Center
Maybe make it easier:
Home*
Business*
* "And if you call in the next five minutes, we'll throw in Media Center for only $29.95!"
First of all, all of those flavors were available for Vista as well. Starter was only marketed for emerging markets.
Second of all, all of those builds have been available since the early days of Windows 7. This isn't something they recently added in to 7025, it's been there the entire time as a carry-over from Vista.
Just because these versions are randomly available in a pre-release version of an OS doesn't mean they'll still be there by the time it's actually released.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
I always wondered why they didn't just call it Windows 7 or whatever code name and then distribute it with application packs, which would include application packs such as:
Because:
... and then they built the supercollider.
The confusion is quite ridiculous. I mean really, when the fscking salespeople need to look up tables to determine which windows versions include which features, you can tell someone somewhere in marketing has screwed the pooch badly.
After being in the Linux arena for several years, I ran into a client that needed a Windows solution. CDW was their preferred vendor. I called them for a quote....and spent the better part of my work day on the phone with the account rep, and some odd sort of Microsoft licensing rep trying to figure out the correct licensing for a handfull of workstations, and two servers.
Strange combinations of eOpen licenses for workstations, and server CALs, but then special CALs for having more than 1 server on an SBS network, and then a license for SQL, and then Office under some other 'open' license, plus a few standalone apps from the office suite for computers that only needed Word or PowerPoint, etc...
What a huge fucking nightmare. With all the time spent dealing with the licensing, a company could probably save money if Microsoft had a 'dumptruck licensing plan' where you simply drove them a dump truck full of money every 6 months and you could use whatever software in whatever situation.
My linux licenses are so much easier.
Server: $0
Workstation: $0
Database (MySQL or Postgresql): $0
Jabber collaboration server: $0
Development workstation (with any combination of vi, vim, emacs, openkomodo, kate, eclipse, etc...): $5
(Actually, my linux sales rep says 'Just kidding stupid, it's $0')
There's no place like
You know, I'd mod you funny ... but there's the nagging thought in the back of my mind that you're serious.
Typical Microsoft. Anyone remember Windows 3.0 real mode, protected mode, and virtual mode? At least there was some excuse for that. But it had the beneficial effect (for Microsoft) of soaking up most of organizations' development efforts just trying to target, optimize, and SQA products for three different kinds of Windows, leaving precious little bandwidth for work on, oh, UNIX or OS/2 or Mac OS.
I once worked for a Fortune 500 company where people literally used the word "port" to describe what needed to be done to keep a piece of software working under Windows, as in "We're porting the code from Windows 3.1 to Windows for Workgroups."
IBM did the same thing when they were dominant. Multiple versions of everything and small changes mostly for changes' sake. Big organizations couldn't afford to ignore IBM, and were kept very busy tracking all that stuff.
People build careers on the personal knowledge of the various changes IBM kept making, and people build careers now on their personal knowledge of the changes and variations in Microsoft products.
Lousy engineering. Great way to exploit a monopolistic position in the marketplace.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
the answer is presumably because they consider piracy to be wrong, but don't want shell out money for the full version.
Presumably, but if that's the case it's not terribly smart.
In most developing markets you'll find the consumers to be less savvy about high tech IP issues like copyright violation than other developed markets. Far less.
Hell, less than five years ago here you had a significant percentage of the online population in the states copying music left and right with no clue that it was even illegal, much less wonder about the morality of it. You still see that defense come up from time to time, too.
And MS expects some preteen in Singapore to know better? Good luck with that.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Which only has one version and a single standardized desktop environment. Clearly multiple versions of the same OS are bad.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
My linux licenses are so much easier.
Server: $0
Workstation: $0
Database (MySQL or Postgresql): $0
Jabber collaboration server: $0
Development workstation (with any combination of vi, vim, emacs, openkomodo, kate, eclipse, etc...): $5
(Actually, my linux sales rep says 'Just kidding stupid, it's $0')
A fully functional server: Priceless.
$ make available
There still is a high percentage of people in the States copying music left and right - who don't give a c**p about copyright. Nor should they. "Piracy" isn't immoral...copyright is.
There is nothing inherently wrong with copyright. It's actually a great idea. Protect the creator of a good with an exclusive right so they can make their money off of it.
What's immoral is what has been done to that original great idea.
Now it's large record companies that hold the copyrights on the works its represented artists have created. They get a percentage which is determined by a cartel. And copyright has been extended by such insane lengths as to create a revenue stream for those companies that will typically last longer than the artist will live.
And they pay the artist pennies on the dollar. IMHO, that's why people pirate music. They know that 99% of that $15 they just plunked down on a CD will wind up in some corporate jackoff's wallet. The artist you actually like will probably get a thin nickel from your cash. So why bother?
What we need is copyright reform. If the artist got a fair percentage of the sale, and these useless bags of skin that sit between me and them were somehow cut out of the picture, I'd start buying music again.
Disclaimer: I don't buy music, but I don't copy it either. I simply do with what I already own until such time as the marketplace will allow me to buy directly from the artists I like without giving a penny to organizations like the RIAA. Soon as they die, I become a customer again.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I have never had to work with Microsoft licensing but I have had to do it with Rational and IBM products. I think the licensing system is there to generate support revenue. If the actual product doesn't generate enough calls then make the licensing more complicated.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And that's why the current crop of Atom based netbooks FAIL as netbooks, they use a 1W processor with a 45W chipset!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Presumably it's because it's been proven in multiple courts of law that Microsoft has no problem with illegal acts that extend its market share. Sauce for the goose, my friend.
The various flavours of desktop Windows are PURELY a marketing concept and have no basis in customer needs.
Uh, market segmentation is pretty basic economics and common practice. See, for example, any car manufacturer charging $500 for a GPS unit or stereo when equivalent (if not better) models be bought off the shelf for 1/4 the price (but won't be quite as "integrated").
Heck, even Red Hat does it. They have at least 3 different licensing tiers. Any company that can do this, will do it, because they'd be stupid not to.
The idea that consumers would specially pick out Microsoft for criticism, when basically everyone does it, is laughable.
The difference is that a Workstation Linux is preconfigured for a workstation but is otherwise the same as the server edition and both can be turned into the other one ... it is just a convenience and many simply ask which do you want to install and actually install the same system but with configuration changes and a different list of installed components (there is nothing stopping you turning a workstation into a server of vice-versa)
The RedHat systems are actually different levels of support as well as different pre-configured systems - what you are actually paying for is the support not the system (i.e. you actually get a real benefit by paying more)
Windows flavours are purely marketing and are there so some flavours can be sold more cheaply than others, they cost the same to design, build market and sell but the more complete systems can be sold for more
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Yes, but the majority of the price you pay for a car is not for the raw materials of the car and the work needed to put it together, but for the work needed to design the car, it's engine, and the parts that make it up.
Yes, the raw material / work per unit cost for Windows is a lot cheaper than for a car, but it's still the same: Adding extra features costs more money, because someone needs to write them, test them, document them, etc.
I'm not a big fan of the Vista split up the way they did it - i especially hate that Vista Business does not include Bitlocker, which is a bad thing for small businesses without SA. Also, the split up between Home Basic and Home Premium is stupid. Ultimate is okay - it adds the business features to a home version, so i can live with that.
I am not saying this doesn't happen in other business, but it is a bad practice nonetheless. It is akin to Intel disabling the FPU in 486 CPUs and selling them as a 486SX. If you want a car analogy, it would be like a Corvette that has it speed capped to 50 mph. The actual cost of producing the car is the same.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
I am not saying this doesn't happen in other business, but it is a bad practice nonetheless.
Why ?
Person X wants feature A and is prepared to pay price P.
Person Y wants feature A and B and is prepared to pay price 1.5P.
Person Z wants feature A, B and C and is prepared to pay price 2P.
Company Q can take a single product, and with minor changes, deliver A, B and C. The company maximises their revenue and minimises their costs. The customer gets the features they want, at the price point they were prepared to pay and a perception they aren't paying for features they don't need (which cost more). Everybody is happy (or as happy as they're going to get).
It's a textbook example of capitalism and the free market, which is why it's so common.
Why? Because the product being sold already has features A, B and C. In fact, as someone pointed out, there is a cost of disabling the feature, so the version with only feature A should be more expensive. So in fact you are telling your costumers - or the ones who can think anyway - they're idiots.
Secondly, it is not as easy as saying person X wants feature A and is prepared to pay price P. Things are much more complicated than that: people have usually a general set of expectations of what they want in a product - specially one as complicated as an OS -and the value they should pay for it. There is a marketing effort to convince people their expectations will be met by a product only with feature A, or perhaps the most complete with features B and C, and it is worth of paying whatever price they ask for it.
To cap it all, free market and MS don't go very well in the same post. MS have a lot of control over what they put down their costumers throat, since they have a monopoly. The real problem with free market is that it is a fictional, theoretical construct. The real market is usually nowhere like that, and people should know the difference.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?