Microsoft Kills 3-App Limit For Windows 7 Starter Edition 352
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."
Re:Other suggestions that make about as much sense (Score:1, Interesting)
How about: Make Windows 7 Starter install 2 gigabytes of Hard Disk space :D
I just made the mistake of reinstalling Vista Home Basic on one of my systems the other day... 15 gigs of disk space to install 8-10 after installation... and nothing more than wordpad/notepad and a few crappy games to show for it.... uhmm I could get most of that with windows 2000 thankyouverymuch... what else do you have to offer me?
WIndows 7 even more basic ed. (Score:3, Interesting)
After how badly Vista Basic failed I find it odd that MS would try again, and even more odd that they would make an even more basic version of it. (yes I know starter has been around sense xp, but they are trying to sell it worldwide now)
I predict that it will follow the same path as Vista Basic
A few companies will try selling it with cheep entry level systems for 400. No one will buy them, and those that do will complain about how much Win7 sucks. In the end the companies will be forced to put home premium in order to sell them.
If starter was free to download and basic was less then $30 (retail) I could see some value in them for home builders and people who want to upgrade and want a low cost and legit version of 7
Re:WIndows 7 even more basic ed. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes - we're watching :)
Re:Outbreak Of Sanity (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:"even more attractive"... what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Installing isn't using. You also forgot step 8:
Wonder how you are going to get to the docs about configuring your non-working wifi connection going. That was Ubuntu. Or rewrite my X.Config or whatever it's called now so I can use my widescreen monitor. That was Ubuntu, too. Seriously, I was writing Modelines in 1998, what the fuck?
Re:WIndows 7 even more basic ed. (Score:2, Interesting)
Those "donations" are called "profit". And they go to whomever can sell and support Linux as a functionally equivalent alternative to Windows.
This is how free markets work. I know this may be a new concept since it doesn't exist in most mature industries. You sell at the market price, or slightly less. If your new product is a successful alternative, then over time, your profits will rise, the market price will drop, and you can invest in lowing your production costs. Inefficient competitors will not be able to keep up, and will go bankrupt and exit the market.
Of course, this mostly assumes lack of government interference, cronyism, or monopolies. It also assumes there is such a thing as a "market price" to begin with.
Re:"even more attractive"... what? (Score:1, Interesting)
I didn't mention that because it didn't happen to me.
My desktop's monitor is 1680x1050. Worked fine out of the box. My netbook's display is 1024x600, a nonstandard resolution if I've ever seen one. Also works fine.
My netbook's wireless also worked just fine -- in fact, it worked without me even thinking about it, since I got a status message during install: "We found some wifi, do you want to connect?"
Some people do have trouble with wifi and Ubuntu, but that's hardly Ubuntu's fault; typically it's because the manufacturer can't be arsed to write linux drivers, and the community has to reverse-engineer stuff and use ndiswrapper. Windows doesn't have to mess with any of this.
For how little support Broadcom gives Linux, it's remarkable that wifi *does* work out of the box so frequently.
Re:THIS JUST IN (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
Um, no.
I don't think the Microsoft's management or even marketing people listen to Slashdot
Somewhere up the thread you're replying to, one of their main guys disagreed with you. Please try and follow along.
I am quite sure that many technical people who work for Microsoft do and this would trickle down/up (depends on your perspective) to the people who make policy.
I find your notion of trickle-up engineering interesting, but I don't see what it has to do with Microsoft. Was there an Intel thread you intended to reply to somewhere around here?
There is one OS that all people in Microsoft are acutely aware off and that is Linux
I'm pretty sure they're more worried about OS-X on the desktop at the moment. Linux is probably a distant second. And by "worried" I mean "less oblivious" because part of their culture is faith in their invincibility - it's their greatest weakness.
In other arenas they're more aware of Linux. Since Linux owns the server room, they're fighting for every install there. Their latest pitch is "Every VMWare install needs a Windows Server Datacenter License (*)" - ignoring, of course, the people who don't run Windows at all. In supercomputing they've long since become irrelevant. On that field Linux has the same share the Windows has on the desktop, and Windows is close to being lumped in with "other". Perhaps June 23, 2009 is the year their slice of the pie disappears entirely.
Even more alarming is the number of people who buy excessive licenses (4-6 per desktop!) for products they're not even using (Vista?) just to be sure they don't get fired for failing an audit. Somebody from Microsoft is going around right now to explain to those folks that being oversubscribed by a factor of six for their desktops, they need to be oversubscribed by a factor of six on their server client licenses as well or it looks like they're stealing seats.
(*)Software Assurance is required of course.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Outbreak Of Sanity (Score:3, Interesting)
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% [top500.org] despite coming out with their own supercomputer OS [microsoft.com](*), 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 [theregister.co.uk] 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 [top500.org]" Windows HPC, and with the Windows HPC benchmark. But for serious work of course they run Linux.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Their ad companies run a complete Mac production line?
Really, ad companies are people MS should listen to when spending hundreds of millions of dollars. They know as much more about advertising than MS as MS knows much more about software than they do. So this shit is the ad company suffering a stupid rich client.
Re:I think they're finally listening to slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Primary rational for the starter edition is the price of the underlying hardware. It is a really hard push to sell basic software that exceeds the price of the hardware, it really does not make any sense at all. So starter office suite, starter OS, starter media suite, starter graphics etc etc. or full featured free open source software. So it ain't third world piracy it is first world common sense and it really makes no sense at all that basic software should exceed the cost of the hardware by a factor of three or more.
Especially when the netbook real forte is as a second PC, doubling up on the cost of those licences is a real struggle and really costly.