The end user is NOT the customer. The OS is NOT a part of the computer. The computer companies are the customers. The computer is meant to be an enabler of the OS. You want to sell as many copies as possible, especially if it’s multiple copies per one machine. This is most obvious with Home Basic.

Home Basic has two purposes: To let MS fans claim that they have a better price point than OSX, and to pre-install on bargain basement systems. The hope here is that, given how crippled Basic is, the end user will go and buy an upgrade to Premium. Hopefully, after Premium feels limited, they will go and get Ultimate.

Having multiple versions give your customers (The OEM machine makers) another tick mark to sell on (Comes with Home Premium!) with the higher end systems, and let you sell the same software again and again, while they wait for another 5 years for an OS release. Were they to simply have one user-level version, most XP sales would have dried up by 2002, as a user getting a processor upgrade or more RAM does MS no good.

Sucks, doesn’t it?

I guess I can rule out the ‘Family Pack’ version, right?

To that end, there is a method to the madness. It’s still madness, but:

Starter: For developing countries, with cheap parts. Most likely, 256MB of RAM is not a harsh limit there, as the computers aren’t exactly top-of-the-line. This is to compete against bootlegs of WIndows 98.

Home basic: Think of any brand at Best Buy that sells for $100 and have the latest in cardboard computer cases. Bet you they don’t pre-install Ultimate Edition.

Home Premium: Alright, this is for the Dells. Joe sixpack won’t bother with a network. The only reason that the system has an ethernet port is to hook up to AOL’s DSL or Comcast’s modem, where he can be on the intarweb. Perhaps it’s best that they don’t have AD support; It’d only be used by the trojans and spyware.

Business: Here’s the real reason for the lack of AD in ‘Premium’: Business is beyond ‘premium’ in prices. So here’s where Dell steps in for the software for executives, the VP’s laptop, etc. But there’s one more cow to milk!

Enterprise: Of course, a business needs servers. I suppose if you want to keep to the comparison, Enterprise is OS X Server, while all the others are OS X. Because this has Virtual PC to combat VMWare, etc. It’s not sold to us because it goes into Dell’s rack servers. That’s all.

Ultimate: This is for all the people who are actually asking, ‘What Vista should I have?’ instead of simply getting it with their new machine. Ones that actually upgrade their systems instead of buying a new computer when the HD fails. Ones that, when getting a new system, put it together themselves. They know the license is transferrable. Some of them even grab their OS from pirate sites, or worse yet, install a free OS! Microsoft hates these people, because these are the ones who will re-buy the OS the least. So of course they’re going to go the highway robbery route! If they won’t buy 3 copies over the OS’s lifetime, charge three times the cost!

Now does it make (twisted) sense?

The complexity of creating, supporting, and marketing n versions of Vista have a, (i’ll bet) significant effect on the price of Vista and it’s not a downward effect at all.

With the starter version, MS has limited your computer usage? Reads, VistaChristian is next where you can’t access porn or listen to death metal.

They released Vista starter already less they forget, it was called XP. Old versions usher in new and making a software that limits itself before the box is even purchased is ludacris.

The computer industry has been based around this concept since it’s inception. What is the difference between my $49.00 router and a $79.00 one by the same manufacturer with “speed burst”? The data comes in port A and goes into my computer? Why not just make the data travel as fast as you possibly can in both routers and not go out of your way to sabatage my router to not connect sometimes. It would save me a headache and maybe I would think about buying a product from you in the future.

Apple is mostly a hardware company. When Apple want to squeeze cash from professionals or businesses, they can ship the same OS X version on a more expensive machine. The can simply choose to make more profit (as in, higher margins) from Mac(book) Pro’s if they want, and that’s a good business strategy. Especially when your licensing forbids installing OS X on another custom built (high-end) machine.

Microsoft doesn’t have this luxury. So they have to differentiate for their markets, and it’s not a very bad strategy per sé. My mother uses Windows in a totally different way than an investment banker or a developer. If they wouldn’t differentiate, Windows would probably more expensive for most consumers (and cheaper for small businesses).

Just for the record, it’s not like I like defending Vista. If you want to pick on Vista, I suggest doing it on the crappy software experience (see this for example http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/84-web-developers-microsoft-has-no-idea-whats-going-on).

“Oh, but before I go, let me add that the Linux and Mac desktops, are every bit as good now, if not better, than Vista will be tomorrow.”