Sometimes Microsoft’s marketing schemes really surprise me and the newest one with Windows 7 and Netbooks takes the cake.  The idea is to sell Windows 7 Starter edition to Netbook manufactures instead of a subsidized Windows XP.  This might sound good on paper as Starter edition tends to be cheap and run on limited hardware.

The major downfall of Starter Edition is actually it’s ability to only run 3 applications at a time.  This of course will understandably make users frustrated with Windows 7 and then by Microsoft logic purchase an upgraded copy of Windows 7.

Now the real question that Microsoft should be asking itself is “Do we really want to make our customers frustrated?”.  How many other companies the size of Microsoft are actively seeking to frustrate their users into purchasing a full product line?  If you become frustrated with a product are you really going to then purchase a more expensive copy of it?

Personally after paying $400 for a Netbook I would not then spend another $259 to buy an operating system.  Of course maybe this is another way that HyperSpace could market themselves, “When you get frustrated with Windows 7 just switch over to us!”.

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