- Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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Innovation is a lot like love, everyone knows when it happens, but nobody really knows what it is - Dean 'Mr Segway' Kamen
Microsoft lures the poor with cut-price XP
VOLISH PLANS ARE AFOOT to make sure that, even the poorest people on the planet will also have to bow in supplication to the Mighty Bill and his Microsoft Megacorp.
Obviously alarmed by the fact that someone came up with an altruistic way to get computers into the hands of the world's downtrodden and needy, and that those computers would not be running any Microsoft products at all, the Redmond Massive has thrown a spanner into the works by offering a chopped up version of Windows XP at 26 bucks a pop.
No doubt on the basis that making one or two dollars of profit from billions of poorly educated, subsistence-level peasants is better than some Open Source upstart giving them stuff for free. The very thought of it. Freeloading Linux hippies.
The cheaper versions of the ancient, though much loved, operating system, will only run on the new breed of ULCPCs, and caveats come in the form of an upper screen size limit of 10.2 inches, a core speed cap of 1gigglehurts, no more than 1GB of RAM and hard drives no bigger than 80GB, according to IDG. µ
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Just wondering how they'd determine the screen size - or will it be resolution limited instead?

I've got an old machine that currently runs win2k from about 5-6 years ago which has specs at around those listed in the article.... the only difference being that it will run the desktop and applications in 1024x768.

I wonder if it will be hardware locked (i.e. chipset recognition or somesuch) or just the limit on speed and capacity? Would i be able to get it to run on my old machine?
BIlly Bob, SHY STEVie, and company MAKING the poor PAY somthing for an erstwhile operating system that MicroSHaft and company were ( last year ) going to WALK AWAY FROM. EOL. STOP SUPPORTING!!! PLEEEEASE tell me I am not the only one for whom this irony is not lost on.
HEY!!! A BETTER idea!!!! I have some garbage I am binning, sell it to ya REAL CHEAP!!! PROMISE!!!!
I love XP but I'm fed up with Microsoft. My next OS is going to be Ubuntu or some other version of Linux.
Why on earth would anyone pay for that cut down piece of junk; when they can simply get an Open Source OS with none of those limitations for ‘free’?
whereas that free linux will run on anything.......... including that umpc [and do it faster too:P]
I couldn't give 2 twats whether I run XP or Linux - what I care about is the applications I run, and all the crap I need to run runs under MS Oses.

I'd be more than happy to run a cutdown version of XP for $26 on my old equipment, primarily because 1/2 of the apps I run are THAT old (the new apps that do the same thing are so bloated, or don't do what I need anymore...gotta love LANs)

I'm actually thinking about buying the ASUS EEE PC just to run my old DOS stuff, primarily because there are NO aps that will do, workwise, what the old apps did. And at $26 for OS, BONUS. (FYI...anyone try DOS6.0 on the ASUS?)
Tried DOSBox?
Microsoft is trying to share their narrow view of the universe with the poor on a 10.2 screen, the poor have, well, poor sight. Windoze looks better on 10.2 than Linux does... Voles look better on small screens than Penguins do, it is proven fact.

Darth Ballmer is also making sure the poor run their computers at bicycle speeds instead of the faster motorized vehicle speed the rest of us run our computers on. The poor can't handle anything faster than a bicycle.

The poor can't possibly store more than 80gigs of info, cause they are poor. 

"XP can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams govna', place your X here ________ and hand over the beans!"

I believe microsoft's true intention (aside from some extra profits) is to make sure that these technologically developing nations grow up with Windows the same as we did, so that if and when their resident nations are no longer so poor, Windows is what they will be buying because Windows is what they're used to, much like most of us here in the states. If they grow up on Linux, guess what OS will be their first choice once they are developed. This means not only fewer future OS purchasers in those countries, but also (and this is a big money maker for microsoft) fewer MS Office users. I think it's all about getting an early toehold in these countries.