Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Windows 7: Let's Confuse The Marketplace

It seems that Microsoft won't listen to anyone at all. The gaggle of versions othat Vista had, as well as its truly underdeveloped state, helped to confuse and concern the marketplace into not wanting to run Vista. Oh, and its massive increase in baseline hardware helped achieve those results, too.

Now, it seems that Microsoft has chosen to ignore the massive community input that they received about making the variations of Windows 7 limited to one home version, one business version and one Software Assurance-only version (that DOESN'T remove functionality). What would make sense was having Windows 7 Home, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise. And, OK, having Windows 7 Basic for emerging markets with below-spec hardware would also be useful. But no, Microsoft seems to have released 6 different Windows 7 versions. Insanity reigns supreme under the leadership (sic) of Steve Ballmer, not technological leadership which they used to have.

Have a read of the Engadget blog for more information of the many and confusing (for consumers) versions of Windows 7 that will be made available. Again, as in the past with Vista, we'll stick with Home Premium for all home users and Professional (nee Vista Business) for all business users. Business-based media devices will run Windows 7 Ultimate. We'll ignore the rest of these options so that we can keep the confusion away from our clients who, after all, just want an OS that works - they don't care what it is called, how many versions it has or anything other than the fact that it supports their applications - after all, an OS is a layer between your hardware and your applications.

And, while I'm at it, it seems that Microsoft has chosen to shun the Windows 7 Professional user's need for security. They stupidly left BitLocker out of Vista Business and have again stupidly left it out of Windows 7 Professional. For a company claiming to be "secure by design, secure by default" they have designed the operating system that most professional people will use to not have drive encryption security - meaning we'll *still* have to sell Windows 7 Ultimate, with all the Media Center fluff in it for any business laptops. Sure, Media Center is decent, but why do we have to buy that just to get BitLocker encryption when it *SHOULD* be included in Windows 7 Professional?

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

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