[MLUG] Funny article.

[Jennifer Dozar <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

This article sure made me laugh!
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=983

For all you lazy people out there!
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Microsoft selling hobbled software to poor countries 
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 By Alastair Otter   |   More by Alastair Otter
 2 May, 2006  
 Surprisingly, no-one seems to have told Microsoft that it is not good
 marketing strategy to treat your customers as if they are stupid. Which
 is exactly what the company is doing with the release in Africa of the
 stripped-down operating system it calls Windows XP Starter Edition. 

 Microsoft South Africa launched Windows XP Starter Edition (XPSE) into
 the African market last week with very little fanfare and market hype. 

 Which is not surprising considering how the product was received by
 other media on its intial launch in 2004. Known for its straight
 talking, The Register labelled XPSE "crippleware". Analysts Gartner
 said the product had "good intent, poor execution".

 Microsoft bills XPSE as a "feature-rich" operating system aimed at
 first-time users that are intimidated by PCs. It includes a helpful
 getting-started tutorial. Not a bad idea. 

 Except that the price users pay for the benefit of using XPSE is pretty
 high. Windows XPSE doesn't allow users to open more than three programs
 at once. XPSE also doesn't allow users to network their PCs or create
 more than one user account on the machine. 

 Think about this. A user running an email client and a wordprocessor
 and browser has used up their limit. So you don't want to be listening
 to music while you work or chatting online. 

 Microsoft says the decision to limit applications and strip out
 networking is based on "extensive" research on the needs of new PC
 users. I'm sure it was, but frankly if you're asking a user who has
 never seen a computer whether they want to network it you're unlikely
 to get a reliable answer. 

 As a dominant software maker that has done its fair share to promote PC
 networking you'd be ignoring the obvious if you didn't believe that
 networking would eventually become a requirement for all users. Unless
 of course you know this but also know that users will be forced to
 upgrade to more expensive products to get these features. 

 According to Microsoft, networking and being able to run more than
 three programs at once are only required by "advanced" users. 

 XPSE is not a new product. It is a re-hashed version of XP with little
 more than gloss covering the cracks. Even Microsoft's notorious
 marketing muscle can do little to hide the superficial intent. 

 African-themed wallpapers, although a welcome relief from the TeleTubby
 XP default, are not innovative. Nor are bigger icons, which apparently
 make it easier for third world users to understand the computer (it's
 kind of like talking louder to make foreigners understand English).

 Coming just a week after the much-hyped release of a Zulu language pack
 for Windows, we could realistically have expected to have seen XPSE in
 Zulu. Couldn't we? Actually the company says it is still "definitely"
 planned for inclusion, which is another way of saying 'no we haven't
 actually got around to that yet'. 

 Then there is the issue of costs. It is possible to produce a cheaper
 motor car by stripping out luxury features. The same is not true of an
 operating system. Presumably removing networking from XP actually takes
 time and costs money. At least more than leaving it in. 

 Unless of course you believe that your networking code has some
 pre-defined real cash value, and thus by stripping it out you can cut
 costs. I wonder how much being able to open multiple programs costs on
 the Microsoft costing sheet? 

 Obviously, Microsoft is protecting its existing XP install base by not
 flooding the market with a low-cost alternative to full-featured XP.
 But what they are also doing is setting up a whole lot of new users for
 frustration as soon as they realise they need to spend more to get all
 the features other Windows users have. 

 The obvious question is what effect the growing popularity of Linux has
 had on Microsoft deciding to release XPSE at this juncture. Apparently
 not much, if you're to believe Microsoft's EMEA head Neil Holloway. But
 XPSE has previously been released in countries such as Brazil and
 Thailand where Linux had begun to emerge as a strong contender. And
 with a number of African governments starting to make favourable open
 source statements, clearly Africa is seen as an important market. 

 As a reaction to low-cost open source Linux, XPSE is also seriously
 flawed. Users, particularly governments, are not switching to Linux
 because it's just cheaper. They are switching because it is cheaper and
 offers all the functionality they want. They're not switching to Linux
 becasue it has nice wallpapers and is cheaper if you don't include
 networking. 

 Microsoft is free to do as it wants and clearly by its own metrics XPSE
 is a good deal. But don't pass this off as an innovative leap forward
 for low-cost computing and a great corporate responsibility action when
 it is little more than a spin-doctored, hobbled version of Windows.
 We're not that stupid.  

-- 
--
Jennifer Dozar
http://seul.org/~jennifer/osschools/
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