Binary Fortress Software

Has anyone else noticed that Microsoft’s marketing department has jumped right off the deep end? I mean, common. How many different version of Vista do we really need? Microsoft needs to simplify things a bit when it comes to their “flagship” product, Windows Vista. Remember back in the good old days when an operating system had just 1 version? This was the case up until (and including) Windows 2000 (not counting server versions) and is still the case today with Mac OS X. Windows Vista has 6 distinct versions (not counting the extra European “N” versions). What in holy hell is Microsoft thinking here? I challenge anyone to name the differences between these 6 versions. Anyone? What Microsoft needs to do is go back to the XP versioning. You have 1 home version and 1 business version. Done. No complications. Don’t have “special” versions that include Texas Hold ‘em Poker. Common Microsoft. And why on earth is the “Ultimate” version $500 Canadian? I can buy a computer for less than that. An operating system should NEVER cost more than the hardware it’s running on. Microsoft wonders why people pirate their software? Well, I think I just gave you the $500 answer. If Microsoft really wants to get serious about piracy and sell more copies of Vista they should eliminate all the home versions except Ultimate and lower the price to $99. Sure, it costs 1/5 the price, but I guarantee that they will sell more than 5x the number they do now. $500 is just ridiculous.

Visual Studio, I’m looking in your direction next. Why are there 11 different versions of Visual Studio? I mean, common Microsoft. You’ve got 4 “express” versions that are of no use to people like me. Then the next step up is the $300 “standard” version. However, this version has enough deficiencies to make it nearly unusable for real development and testing. No remote debugging? Common. For that feature you need to fork out $800 for the “professional” version. That’s well out of my price range, but contains the functionality that I desperately need to properly test and write applications. What happened to “developers, developers, developers”? Is that motto dead now? The next step up from the “professional” version are 4 “team suite” versions, each costing $5,500. Yes, you read that right. $5,500 for a development environment. Can anyone say LOL? The king daddy of the team suite costs $11,000. That’s unreal. You really need to simplify here, Microsoft. Get rid of the standard version and severely reduce the price of the professional version. Either merge all the team suites into 1 package for my $5,500 or reduce the price below $1,000 each.

I guess the moral of the story here is if you want to reduce piracy don’t assume everyone is rich. How much do I make from my software development? Almost nothing. It would take me about 3 years to save up enough money to buy the pro version of Visual Studio if I only used the money that I made on my personal software. So, that means I’m stuck using crap versions of Visual Studio at home, but at least I get to see what I’m missing while I’m at work using an over-priced version.