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Windows 7 Sets Direction of Low-Power CPU Market
Vigile writes "News is circulating about Microsoft setting hardware limits for the Windows 7 Starter Edition rather than sticking to a 3-application limit. With just a few simple specifications, Microsoft has set the tech world spinning — not only is Microsoft deciding that a netbook is now defined as having a 10.2-in. or smaller screen, but by setting a 15-watt limit to CPU thermal dissipation they may have inadvertently set the direction of CPU technology for years to come. If Microsoft sticks to that licensing spec, then AMD, Intel, VIA, and maybe even NVIDIA (who might be building an x86 CPU) will no doubt put a new focus on power efficiency in order to cash in on the lucrative netbook market."
I don't see a whole lot of netbooks selling with the starter edition in the developed markets.
... OEMs will not offer Windows 7 options. If netbooks are mostly for email, web, etc., who needs a particular OS? All seem to do those basics well enough (often with the same software ported around to fill the market).
I don't quite get the big deal here since they are just setting the bar as high as needed to make sure Windows kinda runs on the hardware. Microsoft must be the one to set the bar because if it was anyone else, that bar would probably be too low to have any fun or use running Windows.
15 watts for the CPU is huge compared to what some of the ARM chips are doing while also doing HD video.
If anything, these specs for Windows netbooks is just another way to segment the winbook market to make sure a much higher price can be obtained for notebooks. After all, Microsoft can not have the netbook market grow up and start eating into its profits and people getting the idea that the OS is way too much of the cost of the device.
So, it's really all about marketing and little else. yawn.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
from light blue all the way to dark blue....
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
the article didn't explain how they were going to improve the BSOD
That's not all they wouldn't explain:
Would Microsoft charge PC makers less per copy for Home Premium than it charges to run the exact same Home Premium SKU on a full-fledged notebook or desktop system? Would Microsoft attempt to establish itself as the judge of what is a "netbook"? Microsoft officials had nothing more to say about my questions.
The problem has become that there is simply nothing left to improve in a typical OS for the vast majority of users. If you have a browser, an spreadsheet, and a wordprocessor, you cover 95% of your users' needs. So what can you do for sales? This seems to be the plan: (1) Increase general shininess and bling. (2) Reduce essential functionality relative to earlier distributions. (3) Price the OS on tiers based on restoring the essential functionality. You are seeing the self destruction of an antiquated business model, namely that OS sales should be profitable.
Here is a hint to all of the companies in the OS market: give your best distribution awayand use it as a client for services that google can't profitably provide for free.
That's the future.
Just callin' it like I see it.
If netbooks are mostly for email, web, etc., who needs a particular OS?
You may need a particular operating system if "mostly" does not equal "entirely", or if the tasks that you intend to run on a low-cost subnotebook are highly "etc." You may need a particular operating system if your "web" site uses a particular plug-in that has no complete Free implementation, such as Silverlight or Flash.
> Here is a hint to all of the companies in the OS market: give your best distribution
> away and use it as a client for services that google can't profitably provide for free.
And use it to lock the customers in.
> That's the future.
Grim, isn't it?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It would be a better world if the CPU manufacturers required Microsoft to meet certain standards.
Seriously /., you can't even buy starter edition in the US or most technologically-capable countries. It's for underdeveloped countries. It's been this way for years now, it was like this for Vista also.
Was, past tense. Between Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft swapped the roles of Starter Edition and Home Basic. In Windows Vista, Starter Edition was for the third world and Home Basic was for entry-level hardware in the industrialized world. But in Windows 7, Home Basic is for the third world and Starter Edition is for low-cost subnotebook PCs.
Flash has been on Linux for ages now.
On ARM, or only on x86?
Silverlight has Moonlight which is sorta comparable
Moonlight supports Silverlight 1, which by now is only good for showing "Please upgrade to Silverlight 2" messages, just as the Flash Player 7 on Wii Internet Channel is only good for showing "Please upgrade to Flash Player 9" messages. And a lot of sites use Silverlight with non-free video formats whose freely available decoders aren't ported to ARM even if they are ported to Linux.
most of the netbook still have options that use some flavor of linux as OS, so who cares if it runs Windows 7 or not? Personally I don't want my netbook running Windows 7 or even XP because it's not designed for it (consuming too much resource).
I'm a bit puzzled by the notion that this might mean CPU developers would put a new focus on power efficiency. The focus from CPU manufacturers in the netbook space already is on power efficiency. That is the whole point of Intel'a Atom processor line, for example.
In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. -T.S. Eliot
Why can't I just go and install Starter Edition on my Pentium D?
Oh i'm sure you will be able to install it if you get your hands on a non-vendor specific copy or a vendor specific copy of the right brand.
MS doesn't really give a fuck if some masochist geek installs starter on a higher powered machine though. This is about what the big OEMs that use bios locked copies of windows and follow the rules because they are big enough that breaking the rules would be an unacceptable risk.
Just like now you can't buy an XP home netbook from the manufacturer with more than 1GB of ram but there is nothing technical (and I don't think anything legal either though IANAL) stopping you ripping out the 1GB stick and dropping in a 2GB or on some models even a 4GB one.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
They don't have to. This is the OEM pricing contract for each specific computer model. The manufacturer provides the model specs and has to sign off that it is truthful. If Microsoft later finds the model did not meet specs (by someone that works for Microsoft buying one and testing it, some day) then Microsoft comes back to the manufacturer and demands payment for the pricing difference multiplied by the number of models sold.
You might not be able to buy a standalone full install copy of Starter Edition. It will probably be OEM only, for pre-installation on a PC meeting the specifications.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That means my new 2.2 GHz netbook with 128 GB SSD and 10.25 inch screen that dissipates 16 watts is going to run that Linux stuff.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site so they must be US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) or 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
That's utter bs. If you bother to check wikipedia, you'll find out that diameter of the boosters are 12.17 ft. That's not us standard gauge by any means. Plus, if you think about it, NASA doesn't have any issues shipping the main fuel tank assembly to florida.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Product differentiation. If you want the premium netbook with the big screen and the low power chip, your choices are full-fat Vista that limps like a three legged dog, or Linux that flies. Good Jorb, Mr. Ballmer!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Actually, there's plenty to improve in a typical OS: making the OS more componentized, programmable, adding new layers of APIs for different functional domains, and otherwise supporting the developers that write code for that OS, so that they can be more productive and write more functional code in a fraction of time. For example, things like COM, WMI, DirectX, .NET, or the new WDF toolkit for driver development in Windows Vista. I don't see how you can separate any of this from the rest of the OS. The job of the OS is to bridge the gap between the developer and the hardware, and this is all part of it. And all these things have continued to evolve and will probably keep evolving for a very, very long time.
Linux runs on just about anything, these days, and if it doesn't, NetBSD does.
Get an ipod that can run IPodLinux, plug in one of these, and a pair of these, and you'll be ready to dodge bullets. ;-)
With the above, they can sell as many of their crippled, gimped notebooks as they want; you can use that stuff and the hacked ipod to create your own system. If you don't mind the weight, there's still this old trick, too.
Microsoft can do whatever they want. All we need to do is route around them.
Stop being afraid of them; they have no power. We can do whatever we like, and there is nothing they can do about it...for the simple reason that there are so many more of us. Microsoft are only one company.
From what admittedly little I've read, so-called netbooks have razor-thin profit margins and the only reason they're selling is because the full-size laptop market is getting closer to being saturated. For people who want an underpowered, smallish laptop for web browsing and email, what's wrong with a 12" PowerBook G4 from eBay? Full-size keyboard, 1024x768 screen, 1 to 1.5 GHz. $250-$300.
MS has no right to decide which part of their operating system I am "permitted" to use
Why not? As you say, it's their operating system, not yours. If you only pay $15 for a cut-down version of the OS, why do you think you're entitled to more than you paid for?
As per TFA, this is nothing new - they had specs for XP and Vista, too. It would be nice to see some genuine competition for MS in this emerging market - i.e. Apple.
Spekkio Master of War
Seriously /., you can't even buy starter edition in the US or most technologically-capable countries. It's for underdeveloped countries. It's been this way for years now, it was like this for Vista also.
And, from TFA:
Windows 7 Starter Edition, unlike XP Starter Edition, will be for sale to users in both developing and developed nations.
That's why /. is called News for Nerds, Stuff that matters. When something that was one way is now another, many people call that news.
In the time you've taken to call /. dumb, you could have RTFA and learned also:
Specifically, according to TechARP's information, Microsoft's maximum specs for machines it will consider to be netbooks/"small notebooks" will change in the following ways:
Screen size: With XP and Vista, maximum allowable screen size was 12.1 inches; with Windows 7, it will be 10.2 inches
Storage: Maximum limits for XP and Vista: 160 GB HDD or 32 GB SDD; with Windows 7, it will be 250 GB HDD or 64 GB SDD
Graphics: With XP and Vista, netbooks/small notebooks was "less than or equal to DX9; with Windows 7, there will be no limitation
CPUs: With XP and Vista, netbooks/small notebooks had to have "single core processors that do not exceed 1 GHz frequency, or Intel Atom (N270, N280, 230, Z500, Z510, Z515, Z520, Z530, Z540, Z550); Intel Celeron 220; AMD (MV-40, 1050P, TF-20, Geode LX, Athlon 2650e, Sempron 210U); VIA (C7-M ULV, Nano U1700, U2250, U2300, U2400 or U2500). With Windows 7, the maximum will be "single core processors that do not exceed 2 GHz frequency, and have a CPU thermal design power that is less than or equal to 15 W, not including the graphics and chipset."
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
How, under any interpretation of "Informative" is the above post just that? It's a rant about how he doesn't like business practices, and then uses that to justify his decision to break the law.
Let me rephrase:
I don't like how the GPL *forces* me to share any code I build out of other code I took. I'm just going to strip off all the GPL headers and ship my code/product without giving anything back! Damn the OSS movement and their greedy practices!
At Microsoft, Tremblay joined the Strategic Software/Silicon Architectures team, nicknamed "SiArch".
Today's news that Microsoft will set a wattage limit on netbooks running the starter edition of Windows 7 clearly shows why Microsoft has an SiArch team and why Microsoft hires "processor" guys and gals. Only a team packed with "processor" experts can do the kinds of studies that are needed to determine what is a reasonable wattage to impose on netbooks.
Why must Microsoft spend several million dollars on a SiArch team to pick a simple wattage? Microsoft is facing severe competition from Linux at the low end.
If Microsoft picked a wattage that is too low, then the netbook manufacturers could not build such a system and would rebel -- right back into the arms of Linux. Microsoft absolutely needed to pick a realistic number.
Until April of 2008, Linux owned the majority of the netbook market. Then, Microsoft submitted its Windows XP to that market and quickly seized 90% of it. Microsoft wants to keep that market share. So, if Microsoft wants to impose hardware restrictions on netbooks, Microsoft will ensure that those hardware restrictions are reasonable.
... a new focus on power efficiency in order to cash in on the lucrative netbook market.
I don't think that word means what the writer thinks it means. In what way is the netbook a "lucrative market"? The profit margins must be almost non-existent. It's a race to the bottom, and I think many companies will regret chasing this market.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Meh, I'd be careful about pirate-ware if I were you. Some of that stuff comes with nasty trojans and rootkits that are nigh impossible to uninstall. I'd rather shell out 100-200$ for a clean OS than risk that stuff running around on my system. Then again, I'd rather run linux than shell out 100-200$ for cripple-ware : ).
.
If Microsoft is successful (through marketing "incentives") in strong-arming hardware OEMs to lower the hardware capabilities of future netbooks, that is nothing less than an enormous win for Microsoft.
I am nothing but amazed that the hardware OEMs do nothing but roll over and say to Microsoft, "please, Sir, may I have another."
Microsoft must die. It's that simple.
And cloud computing could make that happen because it should make the client OS irrelevant. We don't have to do anything "to" Microsoft. Just build world-class productivity apps that use open standards and run in the cloud. This forces Microsoft to compete on a more level playing field as it can no longer leverage its OS hegemony because Firefox on Linux works exactly like Firefox on Windows XP/Vista/7.
Google Docs is one potential Microsoft killer. Unfortunately, Google Docs is _still_ in beta (after how many years? -- if we count Writely, and I think we should) and you'd better believe it's "beta" because its still feature poor (which is more an "alpha" characteristic) and buggy (I just lost a document I was working on last night). OK, Windows users will be used to that behvior, but that's not the point. Google, perhaps the most of all the major cloud computing vendors (e.g., Amazon, Yahoo!), has the best chance to finally put Microsoft in its place by making the OS irrelevant.
And, that's how you kill Microsoft.
So, what's the problem, Google? Why aren't you throwing everything you have at making Google Docs a world-class, cloud-based productivity application suite? Or, at least, making it a priority project (which, at present, it obviously is not)? As it currently stands, the Google Docs mini-suite is a good start, but its apps are not yet good enough to get hardcore users of Microsoft productivity apps to switch. Until that happens, Microsoft is going to continue to attempt to control the "cloud threat" using its Windows OS. When netbooks can access powerful applications in the non-Microsoft cloud, it won't matter (for a large portion of the netbook owners/buyers) what OS is running on their cloud client. And, that is Microsoft's worst nightmare.
In closing, I would be remiss to not point out that the cloud already is helping make Microsoft's OS-enforced "app limit" irrelevant. Firefox only counts as one OS application. But, Google Docs is actually three applications (writer, spreadsheet, presentation tool). So the "three app" limit is relatively easy to get around when you're working in the cloud.
When cloud-based apps get good enough and the other cost-reducing advantages (especially to business owners) of cloud computing are considered, there will be no rational reason why Microsoft doesn't become "just another cloud computing vendor."
One "Aw, Shit!" is worth 100 "Ata boys!"
The problem has become that there is simply nothing left to improve in a typical OS for the vast majority of users.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Please god, stop the madness. Starter edition is an edition that they plan to sell for next to nothing to developing (read: third world) nations in order to provide the same kernel and ability as the rest of the business world (ideally to increase their participation in the market and get them out of the "developing nation" category by fostering growth of the IT sector and all the dependencies it places upon an economy.)
Starter Edition is not Netbook Edition. There is no Netbook Edition. I repeat: There Is No Netbook Edition of 7.
Here are the editions of Windows 7, from least capability to highest, and each successive entry is a superset of the previous one's capabilities:
Windows 7 Starter: OEM distribution to "developing markets" only. We're talking third world here. China? No. India? No. A lot of African nations apply. Sold for dirt cheap.
Windows 7 Home Basic: Retail distribution to "emerging markets." Like China, India, Taiwan to a lesser extent, basically not fully developed nations that are economically growing.
Windows 7 Home Premium: This is what your netbook will have if you buy it yourself.
Windows 7 Business: This is what your netbook will have if you bought it from the "Small Business" section of the online retailer.
Windows 7 Ultimate: This is medium sized businesses and developers will likely use. Basically a one-off type license of the following edition.
Windows 7 Enterprise: This is for volume license agreements only, and is identical to Ultimate.
If you're reading Slashdot, chances are, you won't be able to buy Starter edition anywhere. In fact, I'd like to see you get a price on it. From anyone.
Actually, there's plenty to improve in a typical OS: making the OS more componentized, programmable, adding new layers of APIs for different functional domains, and otherwise supporting the developers that write code for that OS, so that they can be more productive and write more functional code in a fraction of time. For example, things like COM, WMI, DirectX, .NET, or the new WDF toolkit for driver development in Windows Vista. I don't see how you can separate any of this from the rest of the OS.
You don't see how it can be separate? Like GTK, OpenGL... shall I go on? I hope you mean that you CAN see how it could be separated, but Microsoft WON'T separate it. They make too much money when people can't take the DirectX modules from Windows and hack them into OSX/Linux. Technically, or legally.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
OS is not for the users, it is for the developers. When was the last time your mom was pinning memory, loading a texture, or creating a security token? Applications are for the users. The job of the OS is to lure the application developers with lots of great APIs and cool new features to play with. Once the developers are there, the users will follow.
So, would you rather prefer to have 1000 homebrew versions of the .NET framework and DirectX, for that matter? Boy, that would be one big mess and hell of a bloat. Or better even, would you rather not have any of that, and instead let each developer reinvent the respective functionality in every application they write? What would possibly be the point of that? Actually, fewer versions of each and every library means that the best developers can spend more of a focused quality time finding bugs in it and improving it rather than spread themselves thin between the 1000 different alternatives..
This is proof that corporations that arise from your beloved "market" can be every bit as evil and draconian as the government.
And don't even give me that B.S. that monopolies wouldn't arise if there was less government intervention in markets, Stadard oil arising when there was NO government intervention in markets ring a bell? In short Ayn Rand fans time to find another paradigm that maps the real world.
A smart person questions BOTH concentrated public and private power which is why I hope OSS wins in the long run as it's inherently decentralized and avoids BOTH public and private monopolies on production that lead to debacles like this on private side and debacles like the "v-chip" on the public side.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Yes that IS a nice theory.
Sadly it's failing badly in practice as evidenced by the continuing inability of MS to actually produce secure, bug free code.
I can easily control the quality of MY code, I have no control (or usually knowledge) whatsoever of the bugs in the MS supplied libs/dlls.
IMHO, the .net framework is not worth the time it took to learn it, directX is better but (of course) still has the MS method bias.
I personally think that they are much more about MS controlling your ability to easily support other platforms than being as good as they should (or could) be.
Except that few people in the developing world will really be interested in being limited like that. Its only a matter of time before they all run Enterprise. And yes, I live in Africa.
The reason I can't give you a price for "Starter" is there is absolutely no market for it here. Dirt cheap is meaningless compared to free. On top of that a lot will stick with malware target number 1 (XP) because it runs fairly well on low spec machines (think P2-P3).
Then there are the few that have gone or are going the linux route. Nope, no market at all here.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The CPU specs look to me like a problem for Intel. Because the Atom's core has pretty low performance, the limit of one core under 2GHz means that it'd be easy to pass in performance. It might still win in power, but 15W is high enough for faster solutions than the Atom.
Great. So now MS gets to control what OEM's will sell in a market that they aren't even well suited to thrive in. It sucks cause I bet it will work. OEM's are going to want the cheap windows licenses for netbooks, so they will of course make netbooks that fit MS's definition of what a netbook is. Otherwise, no windows starter edition. That means that even if there could be amazing-new-cpu x that happens to have great-new-capability y is absolutely perfect for a new-generation netbook-like product, but it would have to run at 17watts and 1.3ghz, it will never receive any notice from netbook makers. OEM's will want NOTHING to do with it just because they can't offer windows on it, since regular non-starter edition windows 7 will run terrible on it. That means that another potential advance in technology won't occur. Why can't MS instead let OEM's choose which of their OS's they want to install on which hardware, and not have to worry about future developments in tech as much. Just dumb if you ask me. Even from a windows user point of view, this isn't an ideal situation, but for other OS's it's more grim still. The fact that these specs are out means a couple things. Mainly that MS has probably known it was going to design for these specs in the first place, and tuned OS features and performance SPECIFICALLY for this hardware definition, since they could bet this would become an industry standard once they did release the spec. For other OS's, this means that any os-feature-or-program x that they planned to include in the future once netbooks got a bit more powerful/better or would require slightly higher or even just different specs to run well won't be used on this platform. It essentially gives other OSes a late start, since now they have to rethink what they should develop/how they should develop it for this market in the first place to fit a particular definition of what the platform even is, since they know it will now get no better than that spec anytime soon. Yeah, some OEM could adopt a netbook that isn't windows7 starter compliant, but honestly, even with an amazing amount of effort integrating really impressive features by some other OS community, how successful could you bet on that netbook will being? Probably not very. OEM's know that, and they wouldn't gamble unless a large portion of their customer base told them they wanted something like it. The whole situation sickens me.
There's no doubt in anyone's mind that there's a lot of software written for the Windows API that businesses starting in developing nations would like to use. Or at least, it would be an extraordinary claim to say that there is no market.
History says you're wrong. History says, Microsoft put out an XP starter edition, they put out a Vista starter edition, and for whatever reason, they're continuing with a 7 starter edition.
And yes, it is a matter of time before they all run enterprise or switch to Linux. It is my sincere hope that Linux replaces all of my desktop computing needs, and does so so thoroughly that it replaces all of the desktop needs of any business I will ever have to deal with. That would be fantastic. Regrettably, Windows continues to "just work" and installing Ubuntu or other distros still involves significant trial and error and a bit of frustration, as I am an avid gamer as well.
No and no.
FTFA
Windows 7 Starter Edition, unlike XP Starter Edition, will be for sale to users in both developing and developed nations.
Hmm, did you ever see an actual train? It generally is not as wide as the train tracks it rides on. Not many people would fit in otherwise. For example, trains carry standard size shipping containers, which are 8 feet wide. Exterior width of a typical boxcar is 10 feet 8 inches. Since there has to be some space at both sides, 12 feet is not an unreasonable width for a single-lane train tunnel.
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