7 flavors of Windows Vista

[Helevitia]

There will be two general categories of Windows Vista editions, which map closely to the two that exist today for XP ("Home," which comprises Starter, Home, and Media Center Editions, Pro, which includes Professional, Professional x64, and Tablet PC Editions). In Windows Vista, the two categories are Home and Business. In the Home category, Microsoft will create four product editions: Windows Vista Starter Edition, Windows Vista Home Basic Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, and Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (previously known as "Uber" Edition). In the Business category, there will are three editions: Windows Vista Small Business Edition, Windows Vista Professional Edition, and Windows Vista Enterprise Edition. In all, there are 7 product editions planned for Windows Vista

There is more detail for each version in the article.

Hmmm...Windows Vista Ultimate Edition sounds interesting until they start mentioning subscriptions and free download crap. What do you all think?

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/47665/47665.html?Ad=1

[DGhost]

personally, I think it's good that they split off the Business and the Home editions of it. that is one of the things they didn't do too well in XP. HOWEVER...

I think that the amount of SKU's that exist for each one is ridiculous. there shouldn't be an Ultimate Edition at all. it's completely pointless to do that - they should just integrate that functionality into the "Home Premium" edition. also, there should only be ONE business edition of Vista. I could live with that. but having "Vista Pro", "Vista SBE" and "Vista Enterprise" is completely ridiculous.

[schmosef]

Yeah, I don't know what they're thinking. I hope they consolidate the line soon.

[UtwigMU]

I think the Ultimate edition will be the one easy to pirate a la FCKGW XP version

[Fluff]

Will be interesting to see what sort of product activation they incorporate into Windows Vista.

I doubt that there will be a corporate style key.

[Gurm]

Will be interesting to see what sort of product activation they incorporate into Windows Vista.

I doubt that there will be a corporate style key.

There will always be a corporate key. When a fortune 500 company has to roll out TEN THOUSAND seats behind a one-way-only firewall, activation is simply NOT an option.

[Nowhere]

What if activation server was inside the behind-firewall network? They could come up with such compromise...

[DGhost]

What if activation server was inside the behind-firewall network? They could come up with such compromise...

nah, way too much chance of it being abused...

[Fluff]

Hmm, the other way to do it is Microsoft to release customised/locked distros that will only work on that particular company's pc's. Through TPM(not sure about this). Which would offer the same security as product activation.

For example when you buy a pc off say dell / hp / ibm. They have a customised bios (or equivalent) / different for each company / or just for certain pc specs.
This is tied to a custom distro of windows.

[Nowhere]

I wonder how much he's hallucinating. I wonder if it's possible...

[DGhost]

whats going to happen is that the only versions offering a corporate edition will be Professional and Enterprise...

all the home versions, the SBE edition, and the Ultimate edition will likely all require activation. why? because they were not intended to be rolled out as the corporate desktop. of course, Professional and Enterprise won't feature all the high speed go faster features of the rest of them...

[Nowhere]

Nah, I think it's possible that Professional and Enterprise will be full featured, but without all the crap and bloat (something ala XP vs. 2k3...).

[UtwigMU]

Here you can get volume licencing with corporate keys if you buy 5 licencses or more.

[Jessterw]

This is becoming ridiculous, seven versions of an operating system? While I can understand the need to offer versions tailored to certain markets, this is just further dilution of a market that needs simplification. Hopefully, at the very least, these will be renamed to titles more indicative to the intended audiences. Else we could all end up using Windows Ultimate View... sorry, Vista Ultimate

[Taz]

Sounds like a major headache, it's already bad enough having to deal with people who've bought a new laptop which came pre-installed with XP Home and then want to connect it to their office network. You can imagine the confussion over what they've bought and what they think they've bought when there's more version