Microsoft to offer XP Special Edition to huge impoverished group

Another slab in the wall

By Charlie Demerjian: viernes 08 octubre 2004, 10:28
[EXT]
EARLIER WE TOLD YOU about Microsoft's launch of Media Center 2005 at
retail, but there is another surprise MS announcement coming a little
later on. It seems MS is toying with adding another non-first world
country to the list of Windows XP Starter Edition blessed fiefdoms.

Joining India, Russia, Indonesia and Malaysia is that pirate scourge
of downtrodden poor masses, the US. Yes, a little bird told me the
other day that Microsoft is strongly considering launching XP SE in
the United States for the education market. Target dates are set for
the middle of 2005.

This is obviously a direct stab at one of the strongest bastions of
Linux uptakers, and on the surface, it sounds like a cunning plan.
Sadly, it will make lead balloons seem buoyant when and if it
launches. XP SE is so badly crippled that no one with a choice would
use it, the limit of concurrent programs alone is pretty much death
for anything more complex than a kiosk. Go through a school and look
how a student works, two programs at once, 'tis to laugh.

The other problem is that XP SE does not do what the vast majority of
educational institutions want from an OS, the ability to poke, prod,
tweak and change. With source available, an educator can say 'look
Timmy, if we change this, TCP/IP throughput goes into the toilet'. To
be able to show Timmy the same thing with the MS Shared Source
License, it takes a DNA sample, 14,327 pages of legalese, a biohazard
suit, and a promise to NEVER talk about what you did.

If MS doesn't come to it's collective senses and pull the plug on the
disaster in the making, at least it will be fun to watch. They are
more expensive and less flexible, isn't that a change. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article970