Microsoft sending a giant fuck you to Latin America

I knew that they have introduced Windows XP Starter Edition in India and a few other markets before, but had not really paid attention before now to what it actuall means. They just released a Latin American edition, which stinks of a typical liberal “We know what these poor people really” need attitude.

I was trying to find out in which way it was limited:

Simplified task management. With Windows XP Starter Edition, first-time home PC users can have up to three programs and three windows per program running concurrently. Further simplification of the operating system includes setting a maximum display resolution of 1024×768 and no support for PC-to-PC home networking, sharing printers across a network or more advanced features such as the ability to establish multiple user accounts on a single PC.

This will never work in Latin America. First of all, your average Latino uses the PC way differently and often more advanced than your average Redmond trailerpark inhabitant. Home users will tend to use their PC’s mainly for internet use. Students will use Word or Excel, but otherwise it’s mainly internet. MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Skype are all always open. Web cams are way more used in Latin America than in Europe and the US. So that makes it how many concurrent programs?

1. Internet Explorer
2. Msn Messenger
3. Yahoo Messenger
4. AIM
5. Skype

Thats 2 programs more than you are alllowed. Also whats this only 3 windows per program??? Does that mean that besides the roster window in the chat program they are only allowed to have windows with 2 people at the same time? Walk into any Internet Cafe in Panama and you know that this wont fly.

Talking about internet cafes. This would not be usable at internet cafes. No network printing, no user accounts? Give me a break. The internet cafes are where the vast amount of people use the internet anyway in this part of the world.

I’m guessing that a lot of people will by their PC’s from Dell or whoever with this preinstalled. Realizing that XP Starter edition doesn’t work they give people like my old friend Armando a call who would then come over and “fix” windows for them (you know you would Armando). What they should have done was to simply sell normal XP Home at the XP Starter Edition price. They are only introducing more people to the wonders of pirated XP copies or better yet Ubuntu linux which I hope will find its way into more internet cafes in Panama.