Windows Vista Editions revealed

Windows IT Pro has apparently learned that Microsoft is about to announce the specific editions of Windows Vista.

First there's Windows Vista Starter Edition which is essentially a crippled version that only allows for a few apps to be run and is designed for "emerging" markets.  We'll code-name this version as "let's see how bad we can look compared to Linux which is free and isn't crippled"

Then there's Windows Vista Home Basic Edition.  This version is equivalent to Windows XP Home of today.

There's also Windows Vista Home Premium Edition: This is like Windows XP Pro of today but with more consumer oriented features.

There's also Windows Vista Pro Edition. This is similar to the Home Premium Edition but without the consumer goodies.

And there's also Windows Vista Small Business Edition which includes "pre-paid" access to Microsoft Office Live and other Microsoft-specific services.  We'll code-name this version as "DOJ Reactivation Edition"

Moving on there's Windows Vista Enterprise Edition which is like Small Business Edition but also has a host of intensive security features.  We'll call this the "Eliminate vertical ISV edition and monopoly enhancement version"

And then finally, best of all we have Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.  This version could be summed up as "Some Microsoft interns scoured the net, saw a bunch of programs that look popular and now MS is going to try bundling them with the OS because it'll make them feel cool".  We'll code-name this version as "Linux ISV migration Edition".  Apparently someone at Microsoft is envious of MacOS and it's 3% marketshare and thinks that the best way to lower Windows's long-term market share is to emulate Apple's ISV strategy.

This version apparently has all the features of Premium and Pro plus features such as a "Game Performance Tweaker", Pdocast creation utility, an iTunes store like feature, Movie downloads, Onlight Spotlight, Custom Themes.

Now at first glance, some people might say "Hey wow great! Microsoft is bundling more stuff with the OS! That's terrific!"  And more stuff is very good for consumers -- in the short term.  But in the long term, it kills innovation.  It's these very same third parties who come up with cool stuff that Microsoft eventually bundles in.  And here's the kicker -- once bundled in, it never gets updated. Innovation ends.

In the late 90s, "Push technology" was getting interesting. There was a technology called PointCast that was up and coming.  So Microsoft throws in an half-assed PointCast clone in Windows 98, kills PointCast.  Now, "Active Desktop" is essentially gone.  For years, Stacker and other disk compression programs were moving leaps and bounds forward. Then Microsoft bundled that with the OS. Killed them off and hasn't touched it since.  The compression we have today in NTFS is ancient, inefficient, and often not used. Why improve it?  For awhile, grammar checking was improving in leaps and bounds.  Then Microsoft bundled a half-assed version in with Office killing off the third party Grammar checking developers.  Grammar checking hasn't been updated in any meaningful way since. (and based on the emails I receive, it's sorely needed! <g>).  ZIP was integrated with the OS with Windows XP (and before but not to the same extent).  Has it been updated? Nope.   Microsoft bundled MS Movie Maker with the OS.  They updated it some just after release but it's not progressed much since.  Meanwhile, the third-party video editing market has been lost to consumers (even we use MS Movie Maker for our stuff because it's "good enough").

But by bundling these things, they take away the incentive for third-parties to kee updating the technology.  Third parties can compete with what's bundled to a certain extent but there's a threshold where the ISVs either have to go work on something else or go to a different platform (such as Linux which sees more and more ISVs moving to it because of competition from Microsoft). 

Some naive users think Microsoft's bundled stuff is "better" than third party versions.  You see this in forums all the time.  The only difference between the two is bundled is..well bundled, it ships on the CD rather than requiring a download. 

So while a Podcast creation utility is nice in the short term, it takes away the incentive, in this emerging area, for third parties to make more sophisticaed podcasting software. But why bother if the bulk of users would be satisfied with the "free" version.  That's just one examle, the whole "Online" club services are another example.  Imagine if Microsoft included a direct, part of the OS mechanism for people to get more themes, skins, icons, wallpapers for Windows? It took you to some MS site where you could download them.  Why bother going to a WinCustomize? The same is true of many other types of websites, services, etc. 

Microsoft needs to remember is that one of the reasons why it has 95% of the market and the Mac has 3% of the market is that Microsoft, for a long while, didn't leverage their OS monopoly blatantly to compete with its ISV partners.  Mac ISVs have to contend with Apple bundling everything with the Mac. When Apple decided to compete with Konfabulator by bundling Dashboard with the OS, the result was Konfabulator for the PC.  What Microsoft's bundling mania is ultimately doing, and you can already see this, is drive ISVs to Linux.  Microsoft, in effect, is creating their own OS competitors. 

And in the meantime, consumers suffer unknowingly because they're stuck using the half-abandoned bundled stuff that Microsoft threw into the OS on a lark years earlier that managed to kill off third party innovation. 

I hope Microsoft really thinks carefully about these myriad versions of Windows Vista.  Because this time around, we're not talking about Microsoft squashing some shareware author, they're going after increasing chunks of Symantec, CA, Adobe, and many other large companies (strangely, Microsoft never sees fit to bundle an office productivity suite... it's almost as if they know what the effect of bundling after all -- when it's their stuff they'd be competing with). 

Companies that specialize on their core competencies are usually going to do better than Microsoft.  Microsoft should quit looking at what to bundle and focus on making a stable, reliable OS that improves on the kinds of technologies that only the OS vendor can put in.