Certainly Microsoft has understood nothing

Before we go further, we like to make the point of saying that what is described below and our criticism is also unanimous in the PC world . Thus, this is not a denigration campaign of Windows orchestrated by us or more generally by the Mac world, but a real and founded criticism.
One of the things that diverted the potential buyers of Vista was the number of versions: 6, costing a variety of prices that corresponded to more or less advanced functions. Steve Jobs made fun of this practice by praising the fact that all the versions of Leopard had the same price…
One would have thought that after the real failure of Vista that things could have changed, but nothing will change, and Windows 7 will also come in 6 different versions (going from the most powerful towards the least powerful):
- Ultimate: It will have all the functions activated
- Company: it will be only available for sale in volume
- Professional: In spite of its name it will miss the functions, Branch Cache, Direct Access and BitLocker
- Premium Home: It will be most complete with a family tariff, it will support Areo
- Home Basic. It will not support Aero
- Starter: It will be sold only via OEM and will be a stripped down version, it will not be possible to launch more than 3 applications at the same time.
It is this last version that makes us grind our teeth, since many entry line computer manufacturers will propose it knowing that it is more than limited; and they seek to make a sale based only on its name.
Some already see a resurgence of the affair "Vista Capable" that is likely to have cost Microsoft a fortune.
In short, in spite of its loss of market share, Microsoft continues to manage the release of its next OS in a position of quasi monopoly, seeking to extract the maximum from the entry line products as well as from the customers having the means of spending more.
In a certain way this is excellent news for Apple and the future Snow Leopard. Even if Mac cannot fight at the tariff level with the entry line PC, it offers, even on its cheapest machines, a completely functional system without restrictions.