This one was just too good to pass up. If you live in Thailand, Malaysia, or Singapore, Microsoft has an operating system for you. It's called Windows "Starter Edition" and costs about $36 (I assume this is a US equivalent). However, the edition reportedly will allow only three applications to run at once (assuming you have the hardware to run more than one application at a time).
The crippled edition, due out in October, is apparently Microsoft's response to inroads made by the Linux operating system. Unfortunately for MS, Linux is widely available for free (so are stolen copies of Windows in Asia - ed.) so even at $36, Windows will be more expensive than Linux.
While I think a lower price is a good idea, getting an even more crippled operating system, in my opinion, is not the answer. The answer is to sell Windows XP Pro for no more than $50, which is what it's worth. When Longhorn comes out, they could raise the price to $75. But otherwise, Windows just isn't worth the two or three hundred dollars they charge now.
See the story from TheRegister here.
