Microsoft Windows XP Starter Edition for India
April 16th, 2005Zdnet reports India is the fifth country besides Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia for the launch of the scaled down version of Microsoft Windows XP Starter Edition. The cost factor has been a limiting factor for Windows XP in developing nations. Windows XP Starter Edition is offered only with new PCs in local languages and is not sold separately in stores.
The Windows XP full version supports nine vernacular languages. However, the stripped-down budget Windows XP Starter operating system for India will only be available in Hindi, which is India’s national language.
Besides costing less, the Starter Edition also features cosmetic enhancements, including localized wallpapers, and screensavers of famous local landmarks such as India’s Taj Mahal.
Limitations: Home networking and the ability to create multiple user accounts on a single PC has been removed, while display resolution is capped at a maximum of 800×600. More importantly, users can only run three programs or have three windows opened at once.
These are some very basic features which they have disabled which may prompt users to upgrade to the full edition, despite all cost factors. Limitation of 3 windows is extreme. Firefox will gain more popularity by its tabbed browsing interface rather than Internet explorer which opens multiple windows to browse multiple sites together, which will now be disabled. Now isn’t Microsoft promoting the popularity of firefox, opera and similar tabbed browsers.
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I read somewhere that the retail version of this Started Edition will be priced at INR 399 per month (~ $10) under some sort of hire-purchase. It could have been a super method to boost XP sales. But this is supposedly a marketing strategy for the severly crippled Starter Edition which sucks big time. Why couldnt MS sell a decent version like XP Home through this model?
Personally, I think people should use GNU/Linux. I don’t know what Microsoft is playing at when Linux distros e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, offer full functionality for _free_. “Free” referring primarily to Freedom (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) but often, the distros are free of charge too.
By full functionality, I mean, there’s no restriction on running binaries, there is support for USB disks, ethernet cards (therefore networking), and a large body of software: file managers, web browsers, office suite, picture editors, MIDI sequencer, and so on.
It is also an ideal way for students to learn about computing — the code of GNU/Linux is available for people to look at (”open-source”), a far cry from secretive Microsoft’s Windows.