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Windows 7 To Sell In UK For Half the US Price
An anonymous reader writes "In the UK, a full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is going to cost less than half the price Americans will have to pay, and in fact less than Americans have to pay just for the upgrade-only edition. Full details and prices were published in an article on CNet, in which it was concluded that, at least for the time being, Microsoft is honoring the prices it set for the now-discontinued European version of Win7, which did not contain Internet Explorer 8 and was only available as a full-install edition."
You think you can fool Microsoft so easily? Perhaps you can disguise your mouse and your IP address--but as soon as you switch your spelling dictionary to American English, they'll nail you.
Microsoft is like seawater. Everywhere, but poisonous.
Actually, what I want is REAL choice = REAL freedom.
In our current episode, Microsoft is playing games with the European regulators in hopes of appeasing them. In our last episode, Microsoft wanted to dictate Vista or DEATH! Wait, Microsoft didn't mean it. Now you can choose Windows 7 with only 35% of the awful and unneeded features of Vista! And at a special price, too. Such a deal!
Microsoft has become way to big to fail, which means too big to exist. Sooner or later they are going to fail. Whoops. Who am I kidding? Microsoft is constantly failing. What I mean is sooner or later they are going to fail so big and so hard that the economic consequences will be astronomical. This is TOO big.
Actually, I think the part that most annoys me is that Microsoft has actually become such a powerful a brake on progress. No software innovation is safe if Microsoft wants to kill it. My personal least favorite is what Microsoft did to Palm. Is it somehow supposed to be better because the entire thing was insincere? Now they've apparently decided to abandon that turkey?
From the 'positive' perspective, why would Microsoft want to innovate when they're already getting the lion's share? New versions? That's a decision for marketing! What year will be convenient for the next marketing campaign? That's the WRONG basis for improvements.
Suggestion: Cut Microsoft into 5 companies. Call them Microsoft A to E with a time limit before they need to pick new names. Give each of them a copy of the source code and 1/5 of the people and facilities and assets. Require them to compete. Windows can remain the standard OS, but they have to compete on the basis of the standard, and all changes and improvements to the standard must be discussed in public and agreed to, or the changes will be proprietary to that branch of the company.
Result? Real choice = freedom.
Side effect? As the code bases evolve over time, the single points of failure will be eliminated. Instead of 80% of the world's computers being at risk from one programming mistake, the risk will be greatly reduced.
Don't think of it as a penalty for success. It's an inducement to reproduce your company when you are successful enough. A new form of corporate evolution that increases our freedom while also creating more pressure for creative innovations and progress. (If you succeed again up to about 40% of the market, then your company should reproduce again, just to note the obvious.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Just call Jesus Land and then there's no confusion.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Don't forget that for decades it has been the other way around - the European versions has been more expensive than the US version.
Yes, but things aren't really unfair unless Americans are getting the raw end of the deal.