There is a whole lot of speculation about what restrictions Microsoft will place on Windows 7 Starter Edition. Regardless of what those will be, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about why restrictions are important and how other software makers use this practice regularly.
LE Syndrome
No, that’s not French for Syndrome, it’s LE for Limited Edition. Let’s forget about Microsoft for a minute and talk about digital cameras and recording devices. For those of you who bought digital cameras in recent years, I am sure many of you have experienced Photoshop Elements. This limited version of Photoshop was meant to give people with these inexpensive digital cameras some photograph manipulation tools, while also getting them interested in Photoshop itself, the flagship product. They hope you will upgrade later if you need more features.
If you are into music, you will also find that if you buy the more consumer Didigesign hardware, it ships with ProTools LE, a limited version of ProTools HD that limits track count, hardware and has some missing features. Again the goal is to give lower end user some of the tools while hopefully making them loyal to the big product should they ever go more professional with it. Pretty common procedure in the software world.
What is a Net Book
I have purchased a net book before. I bought both my wife and I an Eee PC, which we both then exchanged for MSI Winds. Having owned one, I can tell you that I think the market for net books is a pretty limited set of users. With very low resolution screens, limited processing power and a usefulness limiting form factor, net books appeal to a few specific user personas.
I am willing to bet that 90% of net book owners also own a desktop or laptop PC. I don’t have any hard data to back that up, but I am doubting seriously that anyone purchases these computers as a main computer. That means a net book is not a “First Class” computer. This particular designation makes it possible for Microsoft to allow a lower priced version of their software because this usage does not make it a threat to cannibalize it’s full product.
That being said, in my own personal opinion, the real potential jerks here are the hardware manufacturers who will attempt to raise the bar on net books to what are really laptops in order to get out of paying some license fees on the operating system to pad profits. Regardless of what you think of Microsoft, they have a right to charge what they want for their software. If Apple can tell you it’s illegal to install their software on hardware they didn’t sell you, it’s fair for Microsoft to tell you what version is legally licensed for extra small portable computers.
So get off your soap box
Articles on Engadget and Gizmodo are constantly speculating what Windows 7 Starter Edition’s license will look like. I am just asking for a reasonable expectation from the public. OS X costs $130, Windows Vista Home Premium costs $94 today on Amazon.com. A quick trip to Best Buy shows that today, Net Books are as cheap as $179 with Windows XP. When computers get this cheap, are software manufacturers obligated to reduce the prices of their software to scale with the cost of the computers? Should they offer Office cheaper since the computer is incapable of working on big spreadsheets?
The ridiculous comments and articles make me think that the public at large thinks that Microsoft should just drop their prices like crazy just because Acer, HP, Eee and MSI want to sell super cheap net books. Keep in mind that those companies don’t pay anything remotely close to $100 for Windows XP on the net books. I would be shocked if it was more than $20-25. So why should Microsoft just give away Windows 7, at full strength, for those prices? It doesn’t make sense to me. We, as consumers have been tricked and fooled. If you ask me, in the process of making PCs more widely available, and weeding the herd of PC manufacturers, we as consumers have allowed most PC manufacturers to sell us complete crap in a box. Manufacturers have quality reduced the quality of PC components until the only place left to reduce costs is the software they include. This is one place I really respect Apple, build an awesome product, and charge what you think it’s worth. I would buy a PC built like a Mac for twice the price of today’s PCs.
The net books are junk computers in most cases. They have terribly fragile cases, nearly unusable track pads, super low resolution screens and lame excuses for batteries. Basically they have chosen profit over quality and figured that they are so cheap nobody will complain. If I had my way, I would demand the makers increase the quality of the machines before I went nuts at Microsoft for trying to maintain it’s profits by offering a limited version of it’s software.
The real cost of Windows
The average span between Windows releases is about 5 years, at a full retail cost of around $200, that’s about $40 per year. During this time Microsoft provides constant security updates, some new features, support for the latest hardware and patches. Think about that, Microsoft will support Windows XP until 2014! That’s 13 years longer than Dell will support your computer. If you don’t upgrade, that means your OS cost is $15 per year at full retail. When you look at what it probably cost your PC manufacturer to license it for you, it’s That means this cost per year is closer to $10 per year. If you think that $10 per year is expensive, and that Microsoft doesn’t deserve it, use Linux and quit bitching.
![[Image]](http://www.windows7update.com/images/windows7_tutorials.jpg)
Windows 7 courses and tutorials are available here.
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