Wal-Mart: Microsoft should kill Vista Home Basic

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Not to mention that most Apple revenue comes from hardware, not software. They could easily compensate the low cost of having everything in one version.

Yup, that is one of two reasons that Apple offers just one version (not counting Server). It's probably the biggest reason, since Apple doesn't see the OS "cost" as a factor in the price of an Apple machine. Apple is a hardware company. For them, software is a value-add to make their hardware unique. Same for iTunes, which exists to sell iPods. I am certain that Apple made a lot more than $130 when I bought my Macbook, whereas Windows can only generate revenue up to the price of the software, purchased from the OEMs. And the OEMs actually pay less per copy, not more.

OS upgrades are just extra gravy for them. In fact, the best thing that $130 Leopard upgrade does for them is probably getting people into the store.

The other is that their goal is to grow their market. Microsoft can't really grow the Windows market very much beyond the billion or so existing users. So if you can't get more users, and the stockholders want you to grow your income, the best way to do that is to offer "premium" editions that users or companies are willing to pay more for.

There's also the fact that Apple doesn't target corporate customers the way Microsoft does, so they have no need for an Enterprise or even Business version.

[Pc_Madness]

But I want Media Center and Remote Desktop in the same version. Your suggestion does not allow that.

Why don't you go and punch MS in the ovaries then? Or just use VNC. How MS can charge for something like remote desktop is beyond me....

[Ap0x]

Meh.. I like Vista home basic....i think its perfect for new users like family and my noob gf....wol :rolleyes:

Im with you Brandon. :cool:

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Why don't you go and punch MS in the ovaries then? Or just use VNC. How MS can charge for something like remote desktop is beyond me....

Tell that to the people who wrote (and continue to write) the Remote Desktop server and protocol. That's a huge feature, and nothing like it exists on other platforms. VNC isn't comparable to RDP, I don't even know why you'd suggest that.

Besides, that was just an example. Replace those with any features exclusive to either Home Premium or to Business. If I'm a non-enterprise customer and I want the features of both, I can do that because of Ultimate. Why would you want to take that away?

[0sit0]

It does suck! The people at work bought me a new PC with Vista Basic.. but the funny thing is that it has a really good video card 256 MB, 4 GB RAM, Dual Core... they just went with the cheapest OS without knowing what the difference was so now Im stuck with Vista Basic ... yuck!

[+Fahim S. MVC]

It does suck! The people at work bought me a new PC with Vista Basic.. but the funny thing is that it has a really good video card 256 MB, 4 GB RAM, Dual Core... they just went with the cheapest OS without knowing what the difference was so now Im stuck with Vista Basic ... yuck!

So let me get this right... you are complaining about something you got for free?

If it bothers you that much, stump up the cash and upgrade.

[MulletRobZ]

Well the only problem is that Vista home basic comes on cheap computers that run like ass. Put Vista basic on a machine that has 1 or 2 gigs of ram and it runs really good. The fact its missing Aero really isn't such a bad thing, because it gets annoying after 1 week anyway. Same goes for Media center, as most people probably never use it. I think instead of killing vista basic, computer makers should not be allowed to ship a computer with less than 1 gig of ram.

What?!?! I only have 512 MB of RAM on my iBook and it runs fine for all the stuff I need to do (including some games and heavy graphic design use), and chances are, even 256 MB would have been decent! Same applies to when I was using an XP computer before that!

So chances are, if you dial down your Vista settings to not having that fancy-ass Aero and not play all of those latest games that are memory and graphic intensive, you probably would have been fine with 256 or 512 MB!

[-Medic-]

To make a choice why vista home

Need vista for work

Playing games without ruin my resources

Converting video or audio, Make and burn dvd

Don't need Aero thing cos have WindowBlinds :p

Don't care about Media center don't even use it once ;)

So I choose Vista Home box and I'm happy to have it ... :D

[Eric Veteran]

Wal-Mart should kill themselves. They are an authority on nothing except suck. ;)