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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?'"
Windows Starter edition comes without the Pipes screensaver?
I mean, my copy of the beta from TechNet says right on the login screen 'Windows 7 Ultimate'.
That would imply a product selection similar to Vista...
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 -
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:
server app pack
home/media app pack
basics/offic app pack
The way they do it, joe public can't really be sure what version they have. Hell, there are a lot of end users that don't know if they are currently running XP or Vista (but you can tell by complaints about performance LOL).
I think that Ubuntu, Fedora and others could use with that sort of packaging also. By simply distributing the basic distro and setting up repositories for each application pack. That would make it easy to get a media server based on abc linux set up and maintained.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Priced low enough that you couldn't be arsed to ask for a refund
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Except your car comes with all the features, it's just that they disable the ones you didn't pay for, and call the cops on you if you get them working by yourself.
(The Vista/7 DVD has the same content for all versions, your product key controls which version is installed. Thus if you choose to skip key entry at install time, it has to ask you which version you want to install.)
Who's up for guessing what the difference is between Windows 7 'Starter' and Windows 7 'Home Basic?
"Starter" won't do much more than, well, start, and "Home Basic" will let you get your email.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
In court, Gates also argued that multiple versions of Windows would essentially stifle competition by confusing consumers and putting developers "into a situation like the computer industry was before the PC came along." He said consumers would face a jarring experience due to multiple Windows versions customized by PC makers and uncertainty about the interface or whether applications would run on them.
So what changed, Bill?
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.
If you really want to know the different, pop into add/remove windows components on Windows 7 beta. You'll see a motley connection of odds and ends relating to business and home use. Most of them aren't installed and are somewhat irrelevant to you.
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
They didn't actually add any new editions except for Ultimate. I am sure the home users will really be lamenting their lack of NFS client/server capabilities.
Most of the guification will remain and all the desktop essentials are now under the Live Essentials umbrella, so the versioning should be irrelevant to everyone except people on slashdot who make it into a massive philosophical crisis.
Oh my god! They've made spins of their operating system with a feature relevant to the market and usage scenario!
Oh my god! Media center costs extra!
Oh my god! enterprise-level networking features aren't included on my mom's compaq!
This is a COMMERCIAL operating system. This is similar to the complaint that Ubuntu and Kubuntu are separate distributions because they have different software sets except they cost a different amount of money because commercial systems COST MONEY.
Let's break this down further:
Basic is for low-end bargain PC's
Home Premium is for middle-high end PC's
Business is for Business PC's
Ultimate is for enthusiasts (like beta testers and people with pony tails and translucent panels on the side of their tower-- it exists because some people will pay for it)
By offering different levels of product at a different price point, they've made their product more accessible to people who would rather pay less and just have an operating system. If you use mostly F/OSS on your windows system, you should get Basic. It's not that complicated!
It is interesting how this post came directly after the one about US UAV flight control. cough.. cough... windows7 mobile: seek and destroy cough...
All I care about is that my new machine is Windows 7 Compatible!
</snark>
Fnord.
Salesman: Now, I can sell you this command line only version of Buntu, but of course you want more than that don't you? You are a Man who knows his Linux. Am I right?
...
.. but 'Pen-Ultimate?'?...
... bandwidth, you have to share the release till you have handed out 4 full copies?
The Mark: Um, yeah.
Salesman: Good, I can also sell you this full version of Ubuntu, all the Gnome goodness one could ask for.
The Mark: What about Amarok? Does it come with
Salesman: OOOoooh, you want Kubuntu then? Not a problem, we can sell you that too.
The Mark: But, I like the partition editor in Gn....
Salesman: Buntu Pen-Ultimate...gotcha, just a little more cash for a Gnome/KDE love fest.
The Mark: That sounds great
Salesman: Oh, you want the goodies, like an SSH server, and extra packages?
The Mark: Yeah, I um..
Salesman: Not an issue my good man, we even have financing!
The Mark: Does that include things like databases and Apache?
Salesman: Oh, no. That is just a bit more, sorry. Tell you what though, you have pluck, I like that. I'll cut you a deal.
The Mark: Really!?
Salesman: Sure, Lets see....2000 add 98 carry the 7 and ME oh my! Lets go talk to our finance department, do you prefer a 5 or 7 year loan? Things are rather tight these days I hope you have colateral like a house?
===
Epilogue
===
Friend: So the price was
The Mark: Yeah, go figure.
Friend: For 7 years?
The Mark: Releases, but they come out twice a year, so 3 and a half.
Friend: Harsh, I am just going to spend my $300 plus software costs on 7.
The Mark: You do that man.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
...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.
Where "OK" obviously means "down $500, and stuck with a bloated 3-legged dog".
You do know that Windows already has a POSIX subsystem, right?
Nobody really used it.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Can someone explain to me why MS doesn't win by releasing one "loaded" version at some low price ($49 or something)?
The low price would work against people who might be inclined to pirate it to get some more "loaded" version, one version without artificial limitations would make it easier to support both at the end-user organizational level as well as at Microsoft level, as well as promoting a unified, less bullshit-enhanced image for Windows 7 as compared to Vista, which was an incomprehensible Medusa of marketing and phony choices.
I work for a SMB VAR and the XP home/pro split actually loses business for Microsoft when customers with a half dozen or so XP home PCs decide whether they want something like SBS and we tell them it will have limitations with XP home clients. They don't want to buy new XP licenses for the same hardware already running XP Home on low-cost boxes bought retail, but they have to if they want domain mebership and some of the gee-whiz features that come with it. They often opt out of the SBS option because they have Home and can't join machines to the domain. Seldom does anybody spring for more than 1-2 XP Pro licenses to clean up the XP Home installs.
Thus, MS loses SBS sales and almost never gets XP Pro upgrades from XP Home, either. Stupid. If there was only one version, I can think of at least 5 customers off the top of my head that would have spent money on servers & OS licenses.
I can live with the "Server" and "Desktop" OS differences, which are probably just as artificial as Home/Pro desktop if you think about it. Those seem legitimate or at least based around rational reasons and purposes. But it would be nice to rid ourselves of the Pro, Deluxe, Media Center, etc. subdivisions within each category.
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...
Well, they are trying to trick people by getting you to buy an OS
Thats all you had to say.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
(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...
I somehow got roped into the Microsoft Partner Research Panel. It's essentially a mailing list with highly detailed surveys about their products. I figured this ended up in some statistics that are eventually bleached and skewed in their Executive Reports, but heck, it's worth it for the possibility that I might a little bit of my opinion voiced.
Yesterday they sent one out that asked very pointed questions about XP, Vista, 7, 98/ME/2009, Linux, and Mac OS. Things like "On a scale of 1 to 9, rate how likely you are to develop solutions on one of these platforms".
They included questions about likely we would be to upgrade systems to Vista if 7 were released soon (Yup, I answered "Extremely Unlikely"). There were also focused questions on the versions available and if it was more/less confusing. I specifically wrote a comment on how the multiple versions serve as an obstacle.
I wonder when this starts to eat into real profit. I mean, if they have to un-bundle IE for European distribution, they just multiplied their versions by at least 2. Checking MSDN, there are a huge number of flavors for XP when you also add in the 32/64 bit, Embedded, Media, Tablet, Volume License, and other types beyond Home and Pro. At least 50. Yup, 50! And that's XP!
I, for one, won't be buying it.
If you want to cut out the middle man but still support your favorite artists, you can always download it from TPB and then donate $15 directly to Microsoft. Or go to one of their concerts and buy a t-shirt.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I don't know what all the flap is about. No matter what distinctions Microsoft will impose it'll boil down to just two versions... Server, and Bot-net!
The textbook says, if a company is in a monopoly position, the best way to maximize revenues is for them to differentiate their output so as to take away as much consumer surplus possible under the demand curve.
So, of course, they differentiate their product.
What they've failed to understand is this factoid completely relies on the consumer's ability to differentiate between the products! If 100,000 Joe Schmoes don't know the difference between Home Basic and Home Premium, then guess what, revenue from the two will just be the average prices between the two as Joe Schmoes around the world toss coins to decide which to buy. Some will buy the "better" (more expensive) one because they can't tell but want to "be safe", while others will get the cheaper one because they can't tell and want to save some money. MS will have been better off just selling an all-encompassing "Home" version at a price set at the averages of the Starter and two Home versions and not incur the overhead costs of differentiating the two versions in the first place.
Bottom line:
The people who can differentiate between Start, Home Basic and Home Premium won't bother with either, and the people who can't won't care which one they get.
I mean, three different versions for non-geeks?? Of all products to differentiate, they choose the one aimed at the customer demographic who are least equipped to make an informed decision between all options.
Geez, God help you Microsoft.
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!
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!
As long as they have Windows 7 AIDS Edition, I'm set.
Addressing the clearly biased and stupid summary, there's no need to guess; a Google search for "Windows Vista Editions" has a link to Windows Vista: Compare editions as the first result.
This outlines what the major differences are between the four main editions. I can only assume the poster isn't familiar with search engines. Yes, there are others, but they aren't for everyday consumers, so you don't need to know about them except for certain specific circumstances. If you meet those, look up the additional details on Technet.
That being said, I do agree that the number of editions is excessive, and should be reduced, not because I find it confusing, but because it's just unnecessary. I'd suggest reducing down from six to four, with only two of those as "mainstream" versions.
Windows 7 Home Premium (equiv. to XP Home, remove the Premium suffix) and Windows 7 Ultimate (equiv. to XP Professional). They can have their Business/Enterprise edition for corporate customers, and finally, a Starter edition for emerging markets. As such, the everyday consumer only chooses between two, business has their own one tailored for business networks, and the asian/middle-east markets have their thoroughly crippled edition that no one will buy.
For the record, XP is even worse than Vista, here's a list of XP editions:
Windows XP Embedded (not the same as below)
Windows XP for Embedded Systems
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP for Legacy PCs
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Windows XP Professional Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005
Windows XP Starter Edition
It's possible I've missed some, and of course, this doesn't include region specific releases, such as the European mandated "N" editions.
This trend of having an enormous number of different editions didn't start with Vista, it started with XP, and isn't anything new as some would like to think.
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
Microsoft is finally getting hip to the Pokemon/Magic card phenomenon- only about 12 years late. Features will be sold in randomized booster packs with commons like "Borked Registry", and rares like "Uptime: all day".
> 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.
Ouch! Why would anyone bother with it?...You really have to wonder what idiots at Microsoft think this stuff up? Presumably some idiot proposed crippling it to absurdity as "a way to combat piracy" and the co-idiots in the room nodded enthusiastically: "Hey! That'll work."
That's because it was never actually intended to reduce piracy or to be actually used in said developing countries. It was simply meant to placate politicians' voter-bases while giving the politicians a convenient reason to put more pressure on poor developing nations to adhere to US and international IP laws and cough up more cash. (Thereby also helping to keep them "poor" and "developing".)
By offering this crippled nearly-useless piece of crap they could then say to the politicians;
"Hey look! See!? We even went to the trouble to create a low-cost OS *just* for them, and they still pirate our "IP"! Sanction 'em and maybe threaten to stop humanitarian food shipments too, as they're clearly lawless IP pirates with no respect for the rule of law because they refuse to stop their "theft" and switch to paying for the privilege of using this crippled, all-but-useless (P)OS! They're practically terrorists!"
So then they can co-opt the might of the US government to help them enforce their marketing strategies and price structures around the world.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
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.
Even if you shell out some bucks, their os is still worthless. Case in point:
Go out an grab a copy windows server 2k3, enterprise edition. Sounds like it is just like the ship, right? Tons of phasers, holodecks, and fun toys. It will have everything you need.
Set it up as an application server, and see how many connections they allow. You have to buy a friggen extra license if you want to say set it up to allow more than a couple of people to log on. AND...you have to install a special service somewhere on the network to manage it.
Just think of that: it actually takes writing extra code once you set up the service protocols to limit the number of connections, and make sure that you aren't exceeding the number of connections you have paid for. They paid programmers to limit the number of connections that the OS would allow, to make more money off licenses. If I set up a Linux server, I could open connections (for free) until my RAM exploded.
Even when you try to play the game their way, and buy the biggest, most expensive OS on the shelf, they will still try to fuck you over with an incomplete product.
Go read my old posts. I am generally easy going in regards to MS overall, and I will not advise anyone to buy their operating systems. They are utter garbage.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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.
Don't ever try to discuss Labview licenses with National Instruments... Even their sales reps can't figure out what kind of licenses we need in many cases. This debacle recurs every year in different ways (we're a significant customer for them, since we sell a lot of stuff with embedded Labview).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If I want to pay a bunch of money extra I'll just buy apple products, be done with the confusion and insanity and get a product that works (mostly). If I want the hot cheapness I choose between Linux distros. I won't be buying anything with Windows preinstalled if I can avoid it (even if I think they are doing interesting stuff in their Win7 interface). Adding to that, I can't even be bothered to PIRATE microsoft products anymore. How bad is that?
You guys forget the "?" in the article title, like in the source you're citing.
The thing is, is that these SKU's may all be placeholders.
MS has not yet confirmed what the Windows 7 SKU's will be.
Almost all, if not all, comments here ignore this.
I sometimes don't like modern Slashdot, at all. :-(
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
This does actually exist, although not quite in the terms you describe, as the enterprise licensing agreement.
The investment bank I recently worked for paid MS a fixed amount per "seat" per year, which gave them carte blanche to deploy as much end-user and server software (Office, Server OS, MS-SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, Virtual Server, HyperVisor and so forth) as they wanted.
Developers are handled in a similar fashion - you pay x per developer, and that gives you MSDN access, all the dev tools, documentation, and support.
In passing, this is why VMWare ended up making their server editions no-cost - any company on the enterprise deal gets as much virtualisation as they want for effectively free... the VMWare reps would turn up and ask what it would take for us to use their product in our server consolidation projects, and the answer was always "be the same price..."
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Arguing that the difference between server and client operating systems is the same as the difference between Microsoft's various marketing attempts to make higher margins in different segments of the client operating system is a strawman argument.
The various flavours of desktop Windows are PURELY a marketing concept and have no basis in customer needs. You charge more for a so-called Ultimate version which has some extra doo-dahs, a little more for Business so you can do a Citigroup on businesses and a basic price for low margin OEM marketing speak Home Premium, and finally, you attempt to make a buck off OEM makers in areas where everyone pirates Windows in any case with Home Starter, Home basic etc.
This marketing differentiation is one of the reasons why Microsoft is perceived, even if incorrectly, as becoming increasingly irrelevant in todays market. Paying more than a $100 extra for some doodah that you can replace with some freeware doesn't make you any friends.
Customers don't care. No one gives a shit why MS does this. All it does is enforce people's opinion that Windows is confusing, and above all "" doesn't just work.
There is no OS X Workstation and OS X Server. There is OS X Desktop (which is the same version on consumer Macs) and OS X Server. The server edition comes in two flavors: 10 seat and unlimited.
Now if you got a Mac Pro, it might install different libraries and tune things differently than if you got an iMac or a MacBook Pro but it's the same version as the consumer grade. The utilities you can install might be different too.
Remember Apple's OS model is different. For the most part, you buy the machine and it comes with the OS. You can buy OS X as an upgrade but most of the time you're moving between full versions (10.4--> 10.5) not (Basic --> Home --> Premium). You can move from (Desktop --> Server) but most people do not do that unless they have a MacPro.
As for differences between OS X Desktop and OS X Server, the delineation is the same as Linux or Unix. The workstation could function as a server but is missing builtin server features. OS X Server has more services and features for running a server like user admin, iCal Server, etc. Theoretically you could get OS X Desktop to do everything OS X Server does with 3rd party apps by installing things yourself like Samba, Wiki, etc. However, it wouldn't be all built-in, would take longer, and you might be missing key components you don't know about. To get OS X Server, it's $499 (10 client) or $999 (unlimited). That's fairly straight-forward pricing.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.