We all knew that the Windows 7 Starter edition would be limited to low-end computer systems only. It was also known that Microsoft would only sell Windows 7 Starter directly to OEM manufacturers such as Dell, Acer, HP or Toshiba and not to consumers or businesses. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed these Windows 7 Starter restrictions during Microsoft’s annual financial analyst day on July 30. While Ballmer did not go into specifics he confirmed that the Starter edition of Windows 7 would only be allowed to be installed on systems with super-small screens running certain processors.
In May tech news site Tech ARP published an (unconfirmed) document that detailed the hardware limitations. According to that document Windows 7 Starter editions are allowed on systems with a maximum screens size of 10.2″, 1 Gigabyte or less of computer memory, a hard drive with 250 Gigabytes or less or an SSD drive with 64 Gigabytes or less and single core processors that do not exceed 2 GHz and that have a CPU thermal design power that is less than or equal to 15 W.
Ballmer did not remain as closed lipped when it came to the motivation behind the decision to limit the Windows 7 Starter Edition.
Ballmer was frank with analysts about Microsoft’s rationale for setting Starter’s limitations. “We want people to be able to get the advantages of lightweight performance and be able to spend more money with us, with Intel, with HP, with Dell and with many, many others,” he said.
Microsoft is trying to selling higher priced versions of Windows 7 to OEMs by limiting the lower priced Windows 7 Started edition severely in order to rectify their Windows XP Home pricing strategy.
Ballmer acknowledged that Microsoft made a mistake pricing licenses of Windows XP Home that it’s been selling only to netbook makers since April 2008. “[Windows revenues are] down primarily because we did a program this year to cut prices in emerging markets with a theory that the lower price would lead to higher attach and higher total revenue,” Ballmer said.
“The theory was wrong. It’s not that it was untested, but it turns out the theory was wrong, and you will see us address the theory in the Windows 7 time frame. We’re going to readjust those prices north, so to say, and I think with our Windows 7 SKU lineup, we also have a great chance to do some up-sell … to Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home….”
Windows XP Home will continue to be offered to OEMs for a period of 12 months after the launch of Windows 7. It will be interesting to see how OEMs and customers react in this time.
