Microsoft Longhorn could have 13 versions

[Alpine]

How about the 365 flavours of Unix?

WE ALL KNOW LONGHORN is going to come out in a whopping seven editions, but Microsoft isn't prepared to admit that yet. Who knows, we still have more than a year until it arrives, minimum, and that is plenty of time for everything to change again.



Microsoft won't answer any questions yet. We asked, and were told: "At this time no final decisions have been made on the naming, pricing or features for all the product editions in the line up." This is the PR codebase for everything is still up in the air.



Amidst the hubbub about the seven variants, there is one question that no one seems to ask, not that Microsoft would answer anyway, and that is the 32/64 bit question. The lowest end part, W43WC (Windows For Third World Countries) is only 32 bit, but that is wholly understandable. The rest will pretty much have to come in both 32 and 64 bit variants.



That brings the number up to not seven flavours but to 13, and twice that for a separate upgrade version. And that combo is enough to make any retailer, distributor, or system integrator shudder and lose lots of sleep. Not that they get much anyway.



With any luck, Microsoft will abandon the whole difference between bit widths and just license it by computer and version, shipping both on one DVD. DVD, not CD. The current version just about fits on a single CD, and if you toss in a great big HD video to show off Longhorn DRM, umm, media capabilities, you will eat up eating whatever space was left and more.

If Microsoft wanted to do things right, it would ship all the variants on one DVD-9 with a clever installer, clever enough to pick out the correct version from a single product key. You put it in, and get 'Welcome to Longhorn', please enter your serial number. Then it checks the hardware to see that it is right, and goes off on its merry way.



Don't have the right key? How about a 120 day trial so you can see all the versions and buy the one you want online. Upgrading is easy, if not cheap, and corporations don't need to worry about a dozen or so install disks, just one. People don't really care which version they have, all that matters is the serial number.

Microsoft could turn a potential nightmare into a good thing. If it did the 'one DVD to rule them all, one DVD to bind them' thing, it would win, retailers would win, distributors and integrators would win, and customers would win. As long as it doesn't repeat the 28 floppies for Win95B or the three supplemental CDs for 98, we'll be happy. OK, maybe not happy, but not in the slough of discontent.

The INQUirer