The Good
Microsoft learned a lot of lessons from Vista — among them, that too many SKUs with too few justifications created customer confusion.
Microsoft is putting the bulk of its marketing dollars and muscle behind just two of the Windows 7 SKUs: Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. “We think over 80 percent of customers will be on those two SKUs,” Bill Veghte, Senior Vice President of the Windows business said. “That’s where we are putting our marketing focus.”
Another positive: The era of Ultimate promises (and failures) is over. Microsoft is making sure that each, successive version of Windows 7 is a true superset of the SKU just below it. If you pay more money, you get more features the day you buy the product — not some unspecified time in the future.
Finally, for XP users who’ve skipped Vista and are wondering whether they’ll be able to get upgrade pricing when moving straight to Windows 7, the answer is “Yes, we can!” The official statement, from a Microsoft spokesperson: “Customers can purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7; however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7.” (Microsoft still isn’t ready to talk pricing, but at least you know now you won’t have to buy a full license.)
The Bad
While Microsoft is going to emphasize just two SKUs, it still is going to offer five or six (depending on how you count) different Windows 7 versions. (And more, if you count the stripped-down K, N and KN versions the company is required to sell overseas because of antitrust rulings). Here is the full Windows 7 SKU line-up:
* Windows 7 Starter Edition
* Windows 7 Home Basic
* Windows 7 Home Premium
* Windows 7 Professional
* Windows 7 Enterprise
* Windows 7 Ultimate
Veghte claimed that Microsoft can’t have a one- (or two-) size fits all SKU plan because it has more than a billion customers worldwide running Windows. There are too many diverse needs to shoe-horn them all into two SKUs.
The Ugly
The rumors were wrong; the reality is there is no netbook SKU for Windows 7. Because Windows 7 has been tweaked to have a smaller memory footprint, etc., the full version of 7 can run on many, if not all, netbooks. Microsoft is offering netbook makers a choice: Put Windows 7 Starter Edition or Home Prmium on netbooks.
Unsurprisingly, Veghte was unwilling to discuss how much Microsoft is planning to charge its PC-maker partners per copy for Windows. Here’s the Pandora’s box I foresee: Is Microsoft going to charge PC makers less per copy for Home Premium than it charges to run the exact same Home Premium SKU on a full-fledged notebook or desktop system? Who will be the judge of what is a “netbook”? Will OEMs decide to preload Starter Edition instead to save money? If they do, users may be unpleasantly surprised when they realize they can run only three apps simultaneously on Starter…. Contd At; http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1890
EXPERIENCE IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS TO A MAN BUT IT IS WHAT A MAN DOES WITH WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM