Of the many flavors of Windows 7, due out this summer, the Starter Edition has received perhaps the most flack. It’s limited to running only three applications at a time, something most computer users find absolutely ludicrous. Microsoft isn’t targeting Starter Edition for your everyday desktop PC, though: they’re targeting it at netbooks.
Think about it: what is the primary application for netbooks? You’re not likely to install Microsoft Office 2007 onto your new netbook because performance will be abysmal. You’re not likely to install iTunes onto your netbook because the limited hard drive space won’t hold your entire collection of pirated MP3s. You certainly won’t be doing much hard-core photo manipulation or video editing. You’ll be using your netbook for web browsing, and web-based services. You’ll access your GMail or Windows Live mail from your browser, maybe stream some music from last.fm, use mibbit to get your IRC fix, work on the occasional Google Document, and remove some red eye from a photo using Picnik. As more and more services move online, you can effectively use one application to access them all: your web browser.
I’ve been moving more and more of my daily applications to web-based services. Yes, there are challenges with this — what if my internet connection goes down? What if the server is unavailable? What if net neutrality fails and I have to pay extra to access certain resources? — but on the whole I’ve been very happy with it. I don’t care about fancy window animations or desktop effects, or widgets or sidebars or scrolling tickers on my task bar. I also don’t much care about applications: I care about the productivity afforded to me by those applications. If I can be productive using a single application — my browser — then what do I care if the operating system limits me to only three concurrent apps at a time?
Oh, right. I’m a Linux user. This is where I make the standard Free as in Freedom rant.
Seriously, though, I think Microsoft is on to something here. They’d been practically giving away Windows XP in order to lock up the netbook market. This might look okay up front, but it diverts resources away from other opportunities as developers and support folks are required to keep the old dog barking. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft collects “less than $15 per netbook for Windows XP once marketing rebates are taken into account — far less than the estimated $50 to $60 it receives for PCs running Windows Vista.” Rather than continue to bleed revenue by supporting XP, MS will instead offer Windows 7 to netbook manufacturers.
If all goes according to Microsoft’s plan, using Windows 7 on your netbook will be a no-brainer.
Netbooks come with 1Gb and most are upgradable to 2Gb of RAM. Office 2007 will run fine. Many Netbooks come with 120Gb+ hard disk, iTunes will also run fine.
That said, I’d upgrade from Starter to Home Premium. Windows 7 works best with Aero enabled (I’ve read reports it works on many netbooks) and 3 applications is way too low.
“You’re not likely to install Microsoft Office 2007 onto your new netbook because performance will be abysmal.” – Please try a netbook before making such ridiculous statements. Office 2007 runs great on my Dell Mini 9. So does Hulu video, Netflix watch it now video and iTunes.
how did you download itunes? i tryed; but it says no application downloaded.”
I’m running Windows 7 Beta (which the little text at the bottom of my desktop claims is “Windows 7 Ultimate”). It runs fine. It runs smoother than XP. I frequently run more than 3 applications on it. These include the Office Suite (and that includes Access, and also includes having combinations of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint open simultaneously), Postbox for email, Firefox, WMP, Garmin Mobile PC, Adobe Reader and various random other little apps. So yeah, being limited to three apps at once sucks. Especially when “Ultimate” (whatever that really means) runs perfectly fine with a number of different applications open.
I don’t consider myself to be an “average” user, but I also don’t think that you guys capture the average user either with your claims that netbook hard drives are too small (160GB is more than enough for me, and I consider myself a power user; I admit I have a 320GB portable external but that’s mainly driven by the need to have files that I can access from either of my two computers), or that people have gotten to where they are using nothing but the browser. Yeah, lots of us use Gmail, including myself, but I would hazard a guess that anyone whose job is NOT on the internet uses Office, and in order for a netbook to really be useful, you need to occasionally be able to do work on it. I thinks lots of people either don’t trust everything to “the cloud” or just plain old need access to things when they aren’t connected. I’m just saying.
Netbooks are becoming the preferred method of computing for many users. This 3 app cap is just plain stupid. I have a feeling it will be cracked in a matter of days of the release.
I am on a netbook right now. I have Windows XP, Office 2007, Photoshop, Peachtree, Quickbooks and MSSQL DB running in the background at all times and have never had any issue with a slow down. THREE PROGRAMS?! That right there is a special kind of stupid! I really can’t think of any company that has put a limiter on the multitasking capability before since DOS which wasn’t multitasking anyways.
what kind of netbook would u recommend now that is months later, that can run photoshop and office. My shoulder hurts!
I really appreciate any recommendations you can make.
I like your POV, but it makes no sense to me to claim that 3 apps will be ok, when an atom and its dual-core brother has more processing power than an average laptop that was out a couple of years ago, and they could run apps to business users satisfaction.
I thought that netbooks were supposed to be all about doing some quick, easy and easy stuff on the move. i don’t tax my laptop overly, but i do word process, check spreadsheets, log into some kind of vpn connection, do web-based stuff, listen to music and watch media, etc etc.
On any given “lazy” leisure day in front of your computer, how many different apps do you have
open? way more than 3, and this doesn’t include the ones that minimise themselves to the task tray… or does it? what about charging my phone/s? adjusting my mouse settings via a non-windows app?
I can understand and appreciate an arbitrary limit for the sake of selling something cut-price, but 3 apps isn’t a reasonable lmiit for me.
Don’t netbooks have wifi? If I had a netbook, I would definitely connect it to my home network which has a NAS. I don’t have a problem with a base netbook coming with the Starter edition which is probably sufficent for most netbook users. However, it should be clear on the netbook that the version of Windows 7 installed will only run 3 apps at once. Also, the option should also be available to upgrade the OS to a premium edition of Windows 7 for the users that want to stretch the function of a netbook.
My linux netbook has no prob running more than three apps
I can just laugh at this!
Steve Ballmer’s face should be put next to the word stupid!
Just fot the laugh, does antivirus, firewall program and msn count as a program? wobs i’m out of resources :D
Starter Editions for Vista and XP exist today. Each of those products have a 3 program limit. As far as I’m aware, utilities/av and firewall don’t count toward those limts.
I’m speculating that “most” users probably use no more than 2-3 applications at a time. I would argue that most netbook users primarily use it for web/email access.
The form factor and price are the key considerations when buying a netbook. With that said, OEM’s need to have a lower cost offering and Windows 7 Starter Edition fits that role. Either way. I believe that Windows 7 will provide a better platform than XP in terms of security and other important areas.
Saw an article on arid.net (http://arid.net/p26) that talked about windows 7 starter edition and had good suggestions on a better way to implement the starter edition (ie. give it away and make a true netbook edition).
I think Starter Edition deserves this flack, if indeed it is limited to 3 applications. My Lenovo S10 netbook allows my to browse with multiple tabs open, listen to music on WMP, use Excel, Word, all with Windows Forefront Security Client and Spybot S&D running… I don’t understand the limitation.