Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Kills 3-App Limit For Windows 7 Starter Edition
Chabil Ha' writes "Heard the rumors that the much-maligned Windows 7 Starter Edition would be able to run more than three concurrent applications? Today, the Windows team made it official: 'Based on the feedback we've received from partners and customers asking us to enable a richer small notebook PC experience with Windows 7 Starter, we've decided to enable Windows 7 Starter customers the ability to run as many applications simultaneously as they would like, instead of being constricted to the 3 application limit that the previous Starter editions included. We believe these changes will make Windows 7 Starter an even more attractive option for customers who want a small notebook PC for very basic tasks, like browsing the web, checking email and personal productivity.' Small consolation, of course, if you want to watch a DVD natively, but I'm sure this won't stop the Slashdot crowd from enabling it."
Who says it failed? Offering a cheaper version of Windows probably staves off defections to Free operating systems, even if no one actually buys it.
Microsoft is an excellent marketing organization. Most people probably believe that a cheaper OS costs less because less effort was put into producing it. It doesn't matter that, in fact, *more* effort must put into producing crippled versions of Windows. The average consumer equates cheap Windows with being less functional, and so by extension free software must be completely unusable.
It's all a very well-designed marketing scheme, and not a failure at all.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Yes - we're watching :)
Jibe!
Maybe.
But the rest of the likely limitations are fairly ridiculous too.
The most interesting result will be if manufacturers take the opportunity to release higher specced netbooks with Linux than Microsoft will allow for Windows. I find it hard to believe Microsoft would shoot themselves in the foot like that, given netbooks are the currently the fastest growing computer segment. I'm fairly sure the RAM limitation at least will be dropped before these things hit the market.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Linux wins another round. First, Linux in developing countries forced MS to break their "one price around the world" policy, creating the Starter Edition, then Linux on netbooks made MS extend XP and lower the price (further damaging Vista's sales), and now Linux on netbooks has forced MS to abandon its attempted segmentation of the market. Even without a large install base, Linux continues to be a force in the market.
Put identity in the browser.
That's bullshit anyway.
Most netbooks exceed the capabilities of full business laptops from just four years ago:
Toshiba Tecra A2 P-M 1.5GHz
Australian RRP (inc GST) - $2,365.00
Intel Pentium M Processor 1.5GHz, 400MHz FSB.
40GB hard disk
Compared to:
Toshiba NB100
Australian RRP (inc GST) - $$599
Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.6GHz, 400MHz FSB.
120GB hard disk
The RRP is the deciding factor here. Microsoft just doesn't like the idea of cheap computers where they will struggle to compete with their expensive OS.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
They're in a bind no matter what way you look at it. They've saturated their market three times over. There's no room left for growth in the places where people have money to pay for a desktop OS, and all the people in the other places have tried a pirated Vista already. In the supercompute market their share is 1% despite coming out with their own supercomputer OS(*), and in the server room they're not holding their own either. Their traditional hardware and software partners are starting to come out with their own branded Linux distributions. Because of the Sendo thing they're getting nowhere on the phone.
If Vista 7 tanks, they're in a world of hurt. Like a wise man once said... Outlook not so good.
(*)Some people say that Windows' place on this list is mostly a result of marketing, where the supercomputer sites were given some subsidy to build their supercomputer, with the caveat that they had to report to the Top500 with "Can Run" Windows HPC, and with the Windows HPC benchmark. But for serious work of course they run Linux.
Help stamp out iliturcy.