Windows 7 SKUs announced: your worst nightmare has come to pass

Remember that screenshot we saw of all those different Windows 7 versions (pictured above)? Well guess what? It's worse than you could have possibly imagined. The following will be the actual new SKUs for the OS:

• Windows 7 Starter (limited to three apps concurrently)
  
• Windows 7 Home Basic (for emerging markets)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (adds Aero, Touch, Media Center)
  
• Windows 7 Professional (Remote Desktop host, Mobility Center, Presentation mode)
  
• Windows 7 Enterprise (volume license only, boot from virtual drive, BitLocker)
  
• Windows 7 Ultimate (limited availability, includes everything)
  

This information has been confirmed by Microsoft... who never listens to us. At least most consumers will only see Home Premium and Professional options at retail, which is more akin to the XP options of yore, and means WMC will be "baseline" for most PCs.

Update: Just to be clear, we've checked specifically with Microsoft on all six versions, and the placement of Home Basic in emerging markets. There's now a full breakdown after the break.
Windows 7 Starter

• Available worldwide to OEMs on new PCs
• Missing Aero UI tweaks
• Limited to 3 simultaneous applications

Windows 7 Home Basic (Vista equivalent: $200)

• Only available in emerging markets
• Missing Aero UI tweaks

Windows 7 Home Premium (Vista equivalent: $260)

• Available worldwide, to OEMs and in retail
• Includes Aero UI tweaks
• Features multi-touch capabilities
• Adds "premium" games
• Adds media capabilities (Media Center, DVD playback, DVD creation, etc.)
• Can create home network groups

Windows 7 Professional (Vista equivalent: $300)

• Available worldwide, to OEMs and in retail
• Includes all features of Premium
• Adds enhanced networking capabilities (Remote Desktop host, domain support, offline folders, etc.)
• Adds Mobility Center
• Adds Presentation Mode

Windows 7 Enterprise

• Available only in volume licenses
• Includes all features of Professional
• Adds Branch Cache
• Adds Direct Access
• Adds BitLocker

Windows 7 Ultimate (Vista equivalent: $320)

• Limited OEM and retail availability
• Includes all features of Enterprise

Current Vista breakdown can be found here.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 7th 2009 12:56AM]

mac OS X has some serious issues.

See this for more details..

http://www.xflaws.com/2009/01/mac-os-x-is-not-user-friendly-these_27.html

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 3rd 2009 9:32AM]

My problem is the price. When you have 95% market share and you do the stupid things Micoshaft does to its customers, how do you justify charging us all $260? It's friggin criminal. Especially when there's no guarantee Windows 7 won't be a piece of crap just like Vista.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 8th 2009 2:14AM]

Ha, Windows is in store for another collapse.. Don't understand why they can't just leave two versions. Have a Windows 7 Home and a Windows 7 Professional. End it there, stop trying to squeeze more milk out of the cow when you know it's running dry!

Windows 7 is nice, nicer than Vista but OS X and Linux have been doing all this crap that Win 7 does for years. So that's not really worthy of that "revolutionary operating system" tag... Check out my video in HD on Win 7 here: http://www.atomicsub.net/2009/01/microsoft-windows-7-video-tour/

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 8th 2009 2:15AM]

ubuntu free and more stable than anything ms has put out yet

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 8th 2009 2:23AM]

Thanks to Microsoft looks like I'm going to stay with Linux. At first I thought Linux was would be hard, but it is so much better than anything Microsoft offers and it is free! Goodbye Microsoft and Thank You for Vista, it opened my eyes to a better operating system -- Linux!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 8th 2009 8:12AM]

To quote zioncat: "I'm no where near being a mac fanboy but a tleast they didnt force the consumer to pick from a whole bunch of Operating systems."

That's an interesting spin on the benefits of free choice. I could just as easily say that Apple is the bad guy for "forcing" me to buy their single operating system, because they don't offer any other choice.

Since when has more choices been a bad thing? People have gotten so lazy that now, when presented with choices, they bitch and moan about having to actually think.

Perhaps floating through life with everything handed to you is what some of you need, but for the rest of us (thinking) people, we prefer to make our own decisions.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 8th 2009 5:12PM]

I heard there is only Home pro, Professional, and Ultimate in the markets. I may go with Ultimate because i like to have something with everything in it. And if i don't see ultimate in retails, i'll just but it off microsoft.com or whatever.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 9th 2009 5:24PM]

http://mardson.com/windows.png

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 10th 2009 8:00PM]

Starter or Home Basic (or should mixed one verison) should be free for all systems, so you can have free choice download free linux or buy Home Premium, Business, Ultimate or OSX or else whatsoever you needed, that should be nice for everone. That making a lot sense to me, don't you?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 10th 2009 10:07PM]

http://www.getgnulinux.org/

[mm360 Posted Feb 11th 2009 4:54PM]

Alright, so two of these we won't even be able to see at retail in the US (home basic and enterprise). Great. But thats still four versions of the software, two to many. The enterprise version should be standard business distribution, a home version for home PC's, and the Professional version for small business and certain enterprise-class solutions (Microsoft is currently calling my vision of this "Ultimate").

Six versions just makes the world a angry place. And what exactly is so much more complex and worthy of home premium that it cannot be the standard offering in emerging markets as well?

The cost of the OS, once the R&D is done, is the time to write the disc and the cost of the disc material. Given that, this OS could be much cheaper (thereby making it a more viable upgrade for people). MS, I hate thee.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 21st 2009 8:46PM]

To the whiners and complainers especially the author: Go get something else if you can't handle the options and flexibilities of selecting from a solid range of technology solutions.

Let Steve Jobs do your thinking for you and click on a pretty icon to get the solution he wants you to have.

The fact remains: real hard core, affordable computing is done on Wintel platforms.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 21st 2009 2:07AM]

wow....windows seven looks like vista...
but cant wait to see the full release...
=======================================
http://forfree.ifastnet.com
free software, games, graphics

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 10th 2009 1:37PM]

I gave the beta a try and really enjoyed it, too bad Micro$oft's marketing techniques are so insulting to the average consumer. I'll just stick to my dual partitioned system. Windows Pro SP3 for gaming, Ubuntu for Everything else.