Recently I discussed (albeit somewhat crudely) the mass flood of E-Reader devices that made their debut at the recent CES exhibition and what the future holds for Joe Average. I’d like to take this opportunity to reveal that yesterday I, yes me, despite the very best restraint I could muster, purchased an Amazon Kindle 2 which I will be collecting during my visit to Miami this coming weekend.

I expect buyer’s remorse to take effect by February 1.

Amid the guff surrounding the release of a new E-Reader device every 14.27 seconds during CES one player that kept it’s cards firmly pressed against it’s chest was Apple.

Until now.

If you’ve paid any attention to industry headlines over the past 87 years or so you would be more than aware that Apple has often been rumoured to be working on a tablet computer. Today miniscule information was released inviting the world to view it’s latest ‘creation’. Many insiders, speculators and ‘guff mongerers’ (as I like to call them) strongly insist that this will be the moment Apple unleashes a much awaited tablet computer. Said insiders, speculators and ‘guff mongerers’ also believe that this will be the killer, game-changing device that the world has been waiting for.

Maybe, but I believe it could be a case of premature gadget ejaculation. Here’s why.

The market for tablet devices is not currently in it’s infancy. It’s not even in it’s fetal stages yet. The tablet device has been around for a number of years now, it failed on a grand scale then, it’ll fail on a grand scale now. The Apple tablet, bare in mind we’re currently talking about vaporware mixed with my own pure speculation here, may well be destined for the same fate. I won’t eat my shoes if I am wrong, but I really cannot see how the immediate future of mainstream computing is tablet based.

For starters, if the guff mongerers are to be believed then the Apple tablet device is going to resemble or function like an iPhone just on a larger scale. The first time you hear that you may very well let a little wee slip uncontrollably from your bladder. Upon later reflection though it all seems to fall a little flat. If next week Mr. Jobs decides to unveil an Apple tablet device that does indeed turn out to be essentially a super-sized iPhone, and currently I cannot see how they can or indeed will release anything other than this no matter how many layers of groovy they mask it in, then the device really will be doomed for certain failure. The Apple iPhone is, like the iPod, one of the most successful niche devices of the last decade. The iPhone being superior due to being not only a music playing device but a smart phone stapled on to form one soft, cuddly and very popular little package. An Apple tablet will likely offer very little more than that.

Now for the really negative stuff. Not so many moons ago Apple released the Macbook Air, a wonderful device that was marketed as being the future of notebook computing. Sleek, super sexy and thinner than Karen Carpenter. All this technological anorexia (sorry Karen) appeared very wonderful at first. Then Steve Jobs told everyone how much it was going to cost.

The Apple tablet, bare in mind we’re currently talking about vaporware mixed with my own pure speculation here, may well be destined for the same fate. I won’t eat my shoes if I am wrong, but I really cannot see how the immediate future of mainstream computing is tablet based.

And there lyeth my point. Who is going to want to buy a device that is essentially a super-sized iPhone that will probably weigh in around the $1000+ mark when it’s smaller,far more portable but equally capable sibling the iPhone already has a massive global user base and is more importantly available for a fraction of the cost? Nobody. Well, except maybe the kind of gadget and/or Apple fanatics that appear in line outside their nearest Apple store 13 minutes after the product is announced to the world and a good 984 decades before the store opens it’s doors with welcome arms to the faithful early adopters.

Heaping further negativity on to this vaporous device, I believe the average customer is not ready to make the switch to full-time, 24/7 tablet computing. Nor do I believe they are ready for full-time, 24/7 portable tablet computing. The devices and prices being waved in the face of the market right now are still sky high. Additionally for what tasks you can accomplish with a tablet device you can accomplish with a netbook, notebook or smart phone for a fraction of the cost. Not only is cost a swaying factor but these devices are already established and ingrained in to mainstream computing culture. I can see tablet devices becoming popular within enterprise over the next 5 or so years, but in the home I don’t think penetration will be as quick.

Many are touting the rumoured Apple tablet device to be something of a ‘Kindle-killer’ too. I cannot see this happening in the foreseeable either. The Kindle, along with the Sony Reader (and even the Barnes & Noble Nook) devices have all had a truly massive head start over Apple. Factoring cost alone, those wanting a device purely for reading will face a choice between a circa $200 dedicated reader with wifi trimmings and a $1000+ ‘iPhone XL’ with integrated reader app. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the better choice.

Apple has disposable clout available to it by the truckload but entering an already swamped market so late in the day could suffocate any chance it has in the bustling reader market. Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble all already have huge publisher deals done and dusted. What Apple has awaits to be seen, let’s hope it’s not the scraps leftover from a furious bidding war. One article declares Apple has secured a deal with the New York Times for subscription based content.

Who cares? There are plenty of other sources for free news.

I appear to have made Apple the focal point of this article but it’s not just Apple who (as yet to be confirmed remember!) are putting their chips on the tablet roulette table. Microsoft and HP amongst the larger names are also banking on tablets and touch to be the next big thing. Perhaps their mindsets will change considerably by next weekend.

Essentially, when it comes to tablet computing I feel the bottom line is thus. I honestly just don’t think we are ready yet to detach ourselves from a physical keyboard. Sure gestures, swipes and pinches feel like second nature on a smart phone or an ATM or a museum exhibition for example. But when it comes to home computing, and I’m not really talking about gaming here, I think we still feel the need to have that sense of attachment to our beloved computer. It gives the user a sense of comfort, a sense of connection and ultimately a sense of control over their computer. Detaching ourselves in this way, is, ultimately, something that I feel we are still (and at the very least) a good 10 to 15 years away from and that is why I feel that certainly in the immediate future, tablet devices will be a failure (again).

Note: Images used in this article without permission.

Scientists and Historians can be certain of two absolute and undeniable facts. Mankind has forever had the mandatory requirement to evacuate their bowels in turn leading them to spend literally thousands of years designing waste receptacles and developing elaborate sanitation systems to handle it. Mankind has also spent the best part of millions of years trying to communicate both verbally and through the written word. Thus thanks to this genius idea we have at least some sources of reference to study or read up on our ancestors. Proof, if any were needed, that the bathroom and the written word have been strangely entwined together since the dawn of time.

Fast forward to today, January 12th 2010. CES in Las Vegas is over and aside from all the hoo-haa over 3D televisions, the devices that I feel made the really big noise at this years’ exhibition were E-Readers.

Rewinding the clock I recall with some fondness reading one of those flimsy free books you get with magazines, you know, the ones with a million old video game cheat codes in them that you can just look up online. Or the one’s which are bundled with the Christmas edition of your favourite print magazine (anyone under the age of 18 look up ‘magazine‘ on Wikipedia for a quick history lesson) along with a chocolate bar, a poster you’d never dream of pinning on your wall and a water balloon marketing a video game no one is going to buy. Oh and a Frisbee (marketing a video game no one is going to buy).

This free book (I forget the magazine it came with I just remember it ran for about 3 or 4 issues before folding around the time the original PlayStation console came to market in the UK) although long since discarded, still resonates with me today. It was a pocket book containing articles by the staff writers and their ideas regarding the future of technology and entertainment. Now bare in mind this book was written circa 1995. I distinctly remember a few passages in the book by one of the writers discussing the future of the printed word. I recall intricate details mentioned such as flexible hand held devices and displays and paid content subscription models. Reasonably accurate projections I think for an article written around 14 years ago.

The concept of the E-Reader dates back even further than that. Travel back to 1988 and recall the hit Tom Hanks movie Big. If you haven’t seen it, do so, it’s a delightful yarn. You’ll notice toward the end of the movie, Hanks and co-star Elizabeth Perkins present a new invention at a toy company meeting. The idea they dream up is for a portable electronic device (which actually looks uncannily like the new Microsoft Courier concept) that displays and allows the user to interact with pre-purchased comic books supplied on 5 1/4″ disks. A well-designed device concept, a paid content subscription model and (the icing on the cake) a full colour display!

It makes you wonder that if Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins can come up with a colourized version of the Amazon Kindle in 1988, why haven’t the good people at the dot com giant (or anyone else for that matter) released one already? Hanks and Perkins were marketing this bad boy for a cheeky one hundred dollars with new content at a couple of bucks a pop. Genius marketing strategy, a sure fire winner, a guaranteed global hit. Sadly Tom Hanks flushed (pun intended) his career away by wanting to be 13 again and thus left the company but that’s beside the point. The bottom line is for 1988 this idea was deemed achievable even if it was ultimately presented in a work of fiction. What I am saying is, the idea was there.

Back to today, and in 2010 the E-Reader (yes along with the aforementioned 3D revolution) is set to be the hottest thing since the Netbook (anyone under the age of 3 look up Netbook on Wikipedia for a history lesson). We’re in 2010 and we’re still fiddling with a nearly 3-year old device with a black and white display designed by an online book retailer. The less said about electronic giant Sony’s attempt at an E-Reader the better. I expected more from the inventor of the Walkman.

John Doe 1 walks in to a restroom carrying a Kindle 2 on his person. John Doe 2 walks in to a restroom carrying a magazine on his person. John Doe 2 I feel would be likely to flick through a few pages of the magazine finish up and exit the restroom within lets say 10 to 15 minutes (20 at a push, pun not initially intended).

I really want an E-Reader, truthfully. I can shamefully reveal I’ve spent countless hours drooling over the Kindle pages at Amazon.com lusting for a Kindle 2. I’ve recently spent those hours ogling the news flooding through from the 2010 CES news wire. Every other press release recently seems to be for a new E-Reader. Perhaps the market is quickly becoming over saturated with product that hasn’t been launched yet but I am still keen to buy one now. My heart says “GO! BUY! HAVE FUN!” My head says to hold off and wait to see how this pans out, especially with market leader Amazon rumoured to be developing the Kindle 3 and colour E-Reader displays additionally being touted as ‘not too far away’.

I believe the right thing to do as of now is fend off any early-adopter syndrome you may be harbouring and wait to see how the market develops. As of now we have several devices lining up on the trenches ready to go over the top. When they do many will fall in the field, few will be left standing. My predictive senses believe Amazon will emerge from this market victorious if they can get the Kindle 3 right. The word ‘Kindle’ in my opinion is already becoming a recognizable device brand name akin to the iPod, Walkman et al.

The beginning of this article discussed a rather loose entwining of humans, toilets, faecal matter and the written word man relyeth upon for both factual and entertainment purposes. In fact recently a first edition of Evolution Of  The Origin Of  Species by Charles Darwin was found in a toilet (where it had been lain for years prior) and sold at auction for thousands of dollars! With so much choice and vast storage space offered by today’s current crop of electronic reading devices, what does the future hold for bathroom reading and will E-Readers become a bane of the bathroom for households across the globe?

I tried with little success to research the origins of when going to the toilet and bringing along reading material became synonymous. However the few scraps of information I did come across were filled with page after page of site visitors and forum users discussing the origins, the pros and cons of and suggested material for reading on the toilet.

Could the future of bathroom reading be set to change with the mass-market penetration and (according to Amazon.com’s Christmas 2009 sales figures) rapid uptake of E-Reader devices? Think about it carefully. I’ve devised the following for use as an example.

John Doe 1 walks in to a restroom carrying a Kindle 2 on his person. John Doe 2 walks in to a restroom carrying a magazine on his person. John Doe 2 I feel would be likely to flick through a few pages of the magazine finish up and exit the restroom within lets say 10 to 15 minutes (20 at a push, pun not initially intended). John Doe 1 meanwhile has an assortment of 1000+ books, magazines, comics, newspapers and annotations at his fingertips thanks to his Kindle device. Couple that with wireless access and you’ve the perfect recipe for longer toilet stall occupation than that currently enjoyed by that guy/girl in the stall next to you emitting nothing but the sound of a BlackBerry trackball rolling around and clicking interspersed with occasional ‘plop’ and ‘fart’ sounds (yes women are guilty of this too I have been reliably informed!).

I hope with this rather crude analogy you can see the point I am trying to make here. I believe if E-Reader devices do become a mainstream hit in 2010 it will essentially change how we consume printed media forever. The industry is already dying a death thanks in part to the explosion of the Internet over the last decade coupled with higher operating costs.

I strongly believe we will read more than ever over this coming decade. This can only be a good thing. If that means newer and successively cheaper devices, the ability to carry more books, magazines and textbooks on my person at one time and ultimately higher global literacy rates I’m all for it. Count me in.

Don’t try to act so surprised, we all know before today the only person who read this blog was me!

Today I feel like Ajay Bhatt!

What a day it has been, it appears the previous post regarding the Windows 7 party pack unboxing has proven to be quite popular across the Internet. It has been covered by rather large and popular names such as Ars Technica (who were very pleasant and asked me a few questions about the party pack and my emails, you can read more plus the interview on their website). Also big names The Consumerist and Engadget covered this blog entry in their news stories. Not to mention lots of forums, folk on Twitter and various other social networking and tech websites.

It’s quite a lot to take in to see your daily visitors jump from 31 to approaching 20,000 and still counting (I’m getting hits every 3 to 4 seconds, incredible). I shall enjoy my 5 minutes of web fame before falling off the map in to obscurity!

Some answers to frequently asked questions about the party pack

• Yes I received both 32bit and 64bit editions. The 64bit edition comes in the form of an Anytime Upgrade DVD which comes separately in the package. You can see it in the white disc sleeve on the photos. The other disc which is in the black Windows 7 card sleeve is the 32bit DVD.
• I have installed the Signature Ultimate Edition tonight and can confirm it a) needs activating, which it did successfully so it is not a different kind of key and b) it is just Ultimate Edition with different packaging. I have yet to find anything different about it from a quick snoop around.
• I’ll take some more snaps of the bags if you wish although my schedule is rather busy right now, if I said the weekend, many folk will likely have received their packages by then so images may appear for you sooner than you think!
• No I am not a plant, nor do I work for Microsoft. I simply sent an email with no intention of receiving a reply but Microsoft graciously replied to my email and very kindly offered me the gift.
• No my bedsheets are not from the 1940’s.
• Has anyone else played Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days yet? I’m looking forward to getting stuck in to it this weekend!

Thank you for all your great comments both on this site and across the ones I have seen so far on the Internet. I hope maybe some (or hopefully all!) of you will return here some day to read more articles at Stuff I Wrote.

Thank you!

Scratch what I said before, today I just received Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (for FREE!).

This post could be interpreted as an ode to the fantastic customer service you can receive from Microsoft. Actually scratch that, this post IS an ode to the fantastic customer service you can receive from Microsoft.

You can stop rubbing your eyes, it’s true.

About two weeks ago I happened upon a news item stating Microsoft were to celebrate the launch of Windows 7 worldwide by offering potential customers the opportunity to host their own Windows 7 launch parties. For your troubles (and assuming you were successful in being selected to host a launch party) you would receive a whole host of goodies in your ‘party pack’.

The official line was a mixed bag but was satisfactory although ultimately disappointing. I was not expecting to be graciously offered a USA Party Pack for gratis though!

Thinking this to be a great idea, and a great chance to grab a copy of Windows 7, I hastily made my way to the application website eager to submit my details in the hopes of making the cut to host a party. Unfortunately, living on an island the size of a pea doesn’t fall under the radar of countries eligible to participate in the promotion.

I was livid, every other region of the world was being represented here except for the Caribbean. Finding this to be a touch xenophobic I made a concerted effort to contact various folk at Microsoft (thanks The Consumerist!) to express my opinion and frustration. What happened next I could never have expected.

I received a reply via email the very next day.

A very courteous email arrived explaining reasons why the Caribbean region was not covered in the promotion. The official line was a mixed bag but was satisfactory although ultimately disappointing. I was not expecting to be graciously offered a USA Party Pack for gratis though! I submitted my delivery details as requested and sure enough today I received a giant box from Microsoft the contents of which you can see in my unboxing pictures below.

The goodies are actually very nice, especially the Windows 7 tote bags, perfect for the Cayman Islands for the beach! Also included were Windows 7 branded napkins, a puzzle pack; the pieces come together to form a wallpaper image from Windows 7. There was also a pack of Windows 7 playing cards, a colour poster and of course the piece de resistance, a FULL copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (Steve Ballmer Signature Edition). What I was not expecting though was the Anytime Upgrade to Ultimate Signature 64 bit edition. A nice bonus!

I feel very fortunate to have been offered the free party pack, but I hope also that the words I sent to Microsoft may make them reconsider their promotional strategy next time round. People do live in the Caribbean too you know!

[View with PicLens]

Cloud computing. It, along with virtualization are the two hottest things in the IT industry today. It’s also had a bit of a rough day today.

Virtualization speaks for itself (assuming you, the dear person reading this are IT savvy). If it doesn’t, to put it in basic terms, virtualization gives users the ability to consolidate several computers in to one ‘host’ computer. As an example let’s say I build one physical computer. I can then install virtualization software on that computer and effectively install multiple computer operating systems on to one computer. It therefore eliminates the cost of hardware and thus puts a nice big smile on the face of whoever handles the IT budget at your place of work.

Thus the few (!) folk out there that truly rely on Google’s lovely applications to get through their busy work days (and believe me, there are lots of these users; mostly working for companies with an IT budget of zero that see Google Applications as a cost-cutting superhero and who can blame them?) were left with nothing for the best part of 2 to 3 hours today.

The other hot topic in IT today is ‘cloud’ computing. It too uses consolidation (and also synchronization) to form its heartbeat. The difference being that the ‘cloud’ part means data is stored online (the cloud). This also means that all devices connected to the cloud (with relevant permissions of course) can access the data and any changes made to the data will be synchronized across all devices with access to the cloud.

A comedic view on cloud computing

There are currently two major mainstream examples of cloud computing available today, lots of other companies are joining the wagon at almost breakneck pace but we’ll concentrate on these two for this article. You may well have heard of them (sense the irony approaching); Google Applications and Microsoft Mesh. Granted Mesh is still in its beta infancy and will probably lose its ‘free’ status once it hits the market proper.

Google Applications (which forms the concentration of this blog entry) consist of a variety of tools, the most well known would comprise of Mail (or Gmail), Reader, Calendar and Docs. For the unfamiliar Gmail is your standard webmail (think hotmail, yahoo mail etc) client. Reader is (as you’ve probably gathered from my previous post) a fantastic RSS/Atom feed management tool. Calendar is the same as your calendar feature in Microsoft Outlook. Finally Docs is a fully fledged document viewing application, suitable for all those PDF and Word files you know and love. The ‘cloud’ formed here comes from the fact that all of these applications are offered to the end user by Google and hosted by Google (e.g. provided to you by Google for use online). The cloud is amassed further by these applications being accessible by the end user with any device they choose to use (including special Google applications for BlackBerry, iPhone and other mobile devices). For the cherry on the cake, all of these applications, from wherever you choose to access them, will remain in perfect synchronization with each other regardless of what you do with them. That’s your mainstream cloud computing right there.

It’s brilliant, it really is. Except it’s not really.

You see today, Google had a bit of a rough time keeping its Gmail application online. Thus the few (!) folk out there that truly rely on Google’s lovely applications to get through their busy work days (and believe me, there are lots of these users; mostly working for companies with an IT budget of zero that see Google Applications as a cost-cutting superhero and who can blame them?) were left with nothing for the best part of 2 to 3 hours today.

Zip, zilch, nada.

Right there is your problem. A percentage of users are so reliant on the ‘Google cloud’ that when it messed up today they were left with no fail-over to carry on with their work while Gmail was out of action. The same situation would apply within your workplace if (how IT industry brush-wielders see it anyway) cloud computing becomes the true staple of enterprise solutions.

It won’t. I guarantee it. At least not in the near future anyway.

Cloud computing at present is too risky. Especially for those who effectively have given ownership of their data to Google by using their ‘cloud apps’. If the cloud dies, and you become 110% reliant on it, you’re done for. Everything stops (as I am sure it did for many Google Applications users today). It certainly did for me. I guess it was fate telling me not to rely on the cloud as I was waiting for a really important email to arrive when the outage kicked in. Before this clash of fates amalgamated today I (on reflection) feel I put too much faith in the reliability of the Google cloud. Gmail (according to the Google dashboard status updates) was still accessible via POP and IMAP setups. For me, with POP and IMAP access not set up I had no other way to access my Gmail at such a crucial time.

How very appropriate.

I was infuriated. How could this be happening? A company as large as Google suffering downtime with their most popular application was for me a personal travesty. It was only when Gmail was brought back online that the aftershocks hit home and changed my outlook on cloud computing.

This evening, as I write this during the outage aftermath, I now feel entirely different about cloud computing. I wonder how many other users had developed a reliance on the cloud and what the future of this current hot topic may well be. I don’t think we will ever reach a point, at least in the Enterprise market, where information is stored and exchanged entirely within the cloud. That would just be stupid. On top of that I cannot see this happening from a security point of view. Leaving sensitive or classified data online presents a whole host of security issues that are significantly reduced with secure remote connectivity that is perfectly capable for the task and in widespread use today.

Cloud computing certainly has its audience but I can safely say with great confidence that I think it is more for the mass mainstream market and certainly not something that will be widely adopted by Enterprise.

I’ll leave it at that for now and let the good people at Google continue licking their wounds tonight.

RSS (aka: Really Simple Syndication) feeds have been a staple part of the Internet for several years. Conceived by employees at Apple around 1995, RSS feeds as we know them today were not widespread until around 1999 when the original idea devised at Apple was taken on by Netscape and used as part of their online web portal (by web portal think of the homepage of Yahoo.com for example). RSS as we know it now, complete with the little orange RSS icon found across millions of web pages truly evolved around 2005/06.

That’s your history lesson for the day but for me, being a super 29 years old; RSS has been a minute, almost non-existent blip on my life radar for all these years…until last week.

I was aware of RSS in its assorted incarnations as aforementioned but reiterate that it never really ‘did’ anything for me. I couldn’t see the point of it, kind of like how most of the sane world couldn’t see the point of the Sinclair C5… or Campari.

Older visitors to this website may remember early RSS Reader applications such as Klipfolio. At the time of its release (and with each new version) I would go through a phase of trying and immediately disliking RSS feeds. My assumption for this is back then the trend was to be seen ’surfing the net’; reeling off lists of .com’s, .net’s and .co.uk’s to your friends and colleagues all the time plagiarizing as much information you had gathered from this new explosion of easily-attainable information. I was aware of RSS in its assorted incarnations as aforementioned but reiterate that it never really ‘did’ anything for me. I couldn’t see the point of it, kind of like how most of the sane world couldn’t see the point of the Sinclair C5… or Campari.

Today I believe RSS sits atop the digital information pile or at the very least perilously close to the summit. I put it down to the sheer volume of information available to us today and how easy information is to obtain. Users ‘web habits’ have changed so significantly even within the last 5 years that now we have so much information available to us it feels like we have even less time to digest it all. RSS is the magic bullet to combat this problem. At the same time, RSS has the power and potential to change the way we obtain and consume information today and it doesn’t need 5 years to achieve this.

‘RSS Reader’ applications (software dedicated to handle RSS/Atom feeds) are widely available today but lack the ability to sync across the board to many of the mobile devices we carry with us today (correct me if I am wrong please). My magic light bulb moment arrived only a week or so ago when I finally decided to give Google Reader a genuine chance to impress. It succeeded and now has changed my digital life forever.

The beauty of Google Reader is the fact that everything you do with it is conducted online, in a web browser (you can use it offline too with Google Gears) and most important of all is its ability to sync across multiple devices (the Apple iPhone for example). It is true information management perfection it really is. I treat Google Reader (or GReader) as a sort of email inbox. I subscribe to sites I would usually frequent via the ‘traditional’ www.nameofsite.com method with a simple click of the RSS icon on my web site of choice, it drops in to my ‘inbox’ (or subscription list) in Google Reader and I’m off and running. Simple!

Where Google Reader steps up in to top gear though is how it has completely changed not only the way I obtain and digest information but the quantity of information. Because of it’s simplicity and easy management features, I can subscribe to hundreds if not thousands of feeds, arrange them exactly how I want and because I treat it as an email inbox I can quickly see exactly what I want to read and what I want to bin. This also encourages productivity as I find myself spending less time idly browsing web sites looking for new information, a great procrastination vaccine!

RSS and its newer rival format Atom are the real future of information delivery. I feel the next year to 18 months will see a dramatic increase in users accessing information via RSS and Atom feeds. I almost feel like sticking my neck on the line and declaring the within 5 years virtually all news content will be delivered this way to users and the days of the ‘traditional Internet’ will be numbered, just like they are now looking back over the last decade. In essence, personally, Google Reader has changed my digital life. Forever.

I have created a quick tutorial video you will find posted below that shows you just how easy Google Reader really is to set up and use. Have a look and see and do drop in your emails and/or comments as I would love to know what you think not only of this article, but if you would like to see more videos!

You’d have thought Microsoft would have learned something from the fiasco that was Windows Millennium Windows Vista. Microsoft Windows Vista started life as a disaster even Irwin Allen would have been proud of. Yet with Windows 7 now at the RTM stage (for the non-tech heads amongst us that means it is past the testing stage now and has been released to manufacture) I can’t help but feel like my head requires further scratching at the decision taken by Microsoft to have so many versions of their operating system. It was a failure when Vista was released and it will remain a failure when Windows 7 hits the shelves.

It’s like Ferrari offering you a choice of a Ferrari 458 Italia, the luxurious new ride from Italy’s finest and a Ferrari 458 Italia Basic Edition, only available in ‘certain countries’, that has a brown interior and the engine from an Austin Maxi.

I’m currently using the Release Candidate version of Windows 7 and must admit, from my use of this new operating system I feel it is far better than Windows Vista and would go so far as to say it is finally time to cast Windows XP aside and go ahead with Windows 7. The problem I have however is deciding which version I will want to buy.

There are many websites offering detailed opinion and comparisons of the different versions of Windows 7 that will be available, including Microsoft’s own ridiculous looking comparison and upgrade charts. I found a great list of the features available and missing from each version at Paul Thurrott’s Super Site. At first glance I actually cannot fathom why the extra features available in the Ultimate/Enterprise versions (both are the same, they only differ in the way they are handled on the licensing side) when they could have consolidated Ultimate/Enterprise extra features in to the Professional edition. It just makes no sense to have to pay a stack more money in order to access features that are only of any real use in a business environment which would be better suited loaded in to Windows 7 Professional.

Streamlining and Xenophobia

By discontinuing the Enterprise/Ultimate editions, consumer version confusion could be significantly reduced by following the simpler version track as utilized by Windows XP. That being a choice of two versions Home and Professional. Nice and simple, you choose one or the other. Done.

Of course in retrospect, the Professional version of Windows XP was initially available as an Enterprise version (until rampant piracy stomped all over it) and maybe it could have been made applicable to Windows 7 Professional (see what I done there?).

As for the various Basic and Starter versions, again this is a non-starter in my mind. If these versions were designed with ‘certain countries’ in mind not only is that xenophobic but it’s also borderline ridiculous to assume that these ‘certain countries’ are reduced to using a stripped down version of Windows 7.

What’s the point of giving them a ‘nearly-OS’? If it is based on the assumption that these nations do not have cutting edge technology in abundance then why give them the option to upgrade to a ‘nearly-OS’?. It clearly will not offer the same experience as that to be used by other nations. It’s like Ferrari offering you a choice of a Ferrari 458 Italia, the luxurious new ride from Italy’s finest and a Ferrari 458 Italia Basic Edition, only available in ‘certain countries’, that has a brown interior and the engine from an Austin Maxi.

A case of new clothes for an emperor

So what is missing from Windows 7 Professional that is exclusive to Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate? According to the version comparisons listed at Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate features BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branch Cache, MUI language packs and boot from VHD.

I took a look at these extra features and cannot fathom why these extras should slap an additional $20 on to the price tag. Seriously, twenty whole little dollars separates Windows Enterprise/Ultimate from the mainstream retail versions.

Twenty whole little dollars will buy you a bunch of features that really offer nothing very new or exciting and would actually be better off featured in the mainstream retail editions. The biggest con of all I feel is the ‘boot from VHD’ feature. The ability to boot an OS from a virtual disk image is already possible and for FREE by way of utilizing Virtualbox from Sun Microsystems Inc. The same applies for BitLocker, there are plenty of FREE open source applications available capable of encrypting entire volumes. Microsoft have a nerve to charge an additional cost for features that are available for free elsewhere.

It’s still great though

Version stupidity aside though, I must confess that I am very impressed (so far) with Windows 7. I love how it runs on even the slowest of systems (again, no need for the Starter/Basic editions really is there?) and installs literally in minutes (at least via a USB stick anyway).

I’ll most likely plump for Windows 7 Professional edition when it hits stores, I can see absolutely no justification at all to warrant getting the Enterprise/Ultimate version and I think Microsoft kind of see it that way too by only offering Ultimate on the retail side of things in limited numbers. I imagine eventually we will see this version dropped and the extra features found in that version made available via Windows Update.

At least Microsoft done something right and dumped the ‘E’ from the European versions. How about going a step further?