>> Only offer a single version loaded with features and people
>> will complain that it's too expensive and contains loads of stuff they 
>> don't
>> need.
>
>  Not if you offer it at the price you are selling the crippled version.

But you can't do that because your total revenue will be lower then so 
you'll have to charge more.  This will mean a lot of people at the lower-end 
of the market won't buy the software.

>  I have hard time believing people are buying the Home version *because*
> it has limited support for processors. They are only buying it because the
> other alternatives are more expensive. It's not the features, it's the
> price.

Exactly.  And the only reason MS can sell the basic version that cheap is 
because they are getting a load of money for the people who buy the 
expensive versions for the features.

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> One of the bugs is a branching instruction that may, or may not
> jump to the intended address +1.  For the moment it's being
> worked around in the compilers by putting a few NOP's at
> spots that require such branching. Since there may be such
> sets of NOP's in the code, a hacker might replace the NOP's
> with a jump code of their own in order to execute their virus
> code, then jump back to continue execution of the original
> program.

Bah, a hacker can put a jump to their code anywhere. The instruction they 
overwrote with their "jump" they just execute somewhere in their own code 
before returning.  Easiest way is to just overwrite another jump 
instruction, then jump to the location of that jump at the end of your virus 
code.  I don't think they need to specifically look out for NOPs to write 
over.

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Warp wrote:
>   However, compare the price of any Mac to the price of a PC with the
> *same* specs (computing power, memory, graphics card, etc). You might
> get a surprise.

Admittedly I haven't done this in the last 6 months or so, but the last 
time I compared specs the Apple computers were more expensive than 
Alienware.

I was able to find stock computers from several other suppliers at 
better prices, and of course building it myself would save me quite a 
lot more.

Maybe things have changed this year, but I doubt it.

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> And what, you'd prefer that everyone had to pay a kind of mid-range-price 
> for the top version, when 90% of home users won't care about all the 
> features in the top version?  Or that MS develop 2 or 3 totally separate 
> product lines, probably making all prices higher due to far more development 
> required?

  No, I would prefer they do the same thing as Apple.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> Exactly.  And the only reason MS can sell the basic version that cheap is 
> because they are getting a load of money for the people who buy the 
> expensive versions for the features.

  Yeah, with something like 90% of marketshare they really need to fiddle
with the prices in order to not to get bankrupt.

  Yet Apple, with something like 3% of marketshare sells full versions at
low prices.
  Of course the difference might be that they sell quality.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> And what, you'd prefer that everyone had to pay a kind of mid-range-price
>> for the top version, when 90% of home users won't care about all the
>> features in the top version?  Or that MS develop 2 or 3 totally separate
>> product lines, probably making all prices higher due to far more 
>> development
>> required?
>
>  No, I would prefer they do the same thing as Apple.

And I would prefer MS made Vista free :-)

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>> Exactly.  And the only reason MS can sell the basic version that cheap is
>> because they are getting a load of money for the people who buy the
>> expensive versions for the features.
>
>  Yeah, with something like 90% of marketshare they really need to fiddle
> with the prices in order to not to get bankrupt.

It's not about not going bankrupt, it's about maximising their profit to 
ensure they have maximum available funds to develop the next OS.  Why on 
earth with any company choose a sales strategy that wasn't the one that gave 
them most profit?

>  Yet Apple, with something like 3% of marketshare sells full versions at
> low prices.
>  Of course the difference might be that they sell quality.

No, the difference is that MS sells its OSs to a different customer base 
using different methods.  What will generate the most profit for Apple 
probably won't be the right strategy to generate the most profit for 
Microsoft.  It's like saying that Ford and Porsche should both have the same 
product and sales strategy.

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> And I would prefer MS made Vista free :-)

  I would still not touch it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> It's not about not going bankrupt, it's about maximising their profit to 
> ensure they have maximum available funds

  So far it sounds rational

> to develop the next OS.

  Now that's something I doubt. ;)

>  Why on 
> earth with any company choose a sales strategy that wasn't the one that gave 
> them most profit?

  I don't know. PR?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> And I would prefer MS made Vista free :-)
>
>  I would still not touch it.

The only reason I will upgrade is for DirectX 10.  Until a game I like comes 
out that requires DX10 (or looks amazing with DX10 and crap with DX9) I will 
stay with XP.  Of course if I get a new computer before then that comes with 
Vista, I would use it.

From a developer perspective, DX10 is a huge improvement over DX9.  Calling 
it DX10 is a bit misleading because it really is vastly different from DX9 
in many areas, a much bigger change than anything before.  Once developers 
start to make good use of DX10 hardware we should see some pretty 
spectacular stuff.

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