Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Henry Ward Beecher

Did Microsoft actually LEARN something?

Only TWO Windows 7 SKUs?  Are you kidding me? 

PressPass: Does that mean you’ll be streamlining the product lineup?

Ybarra: With Windows 7 there will be two primary editions: Windows 7 Home Premium, and Windows 7 Professional. We think those two SKUs will meet most customers’ needs.

Windows 7 Home Premium is the recommended choice for consumers. It gives them a full-function PC experience and a visually rich environment in everything from the way they experience entertainment to the way they connect their devices.

Windows 7 Professional is the recommended choice for small businesses and for people who work at home but have to operate in an IT-managed or business environment where security and productivity are critical. For those running Windows Vista Business, it will be a very logical move to Windows 7 Professional.

It’s still one more SKU than they need, but this is a start.  Of course, the fine print says…

For our biggest enterprise customers, we’ll continue to have an Enterprise edition. And we will work to make sure there continues to be strong value in Enterprise edition for our annuity customers with Software Assurance agreements. This edition will not be available at retail or by OEMs for preinstallation on a new PC. Windows 7 Enterprise edition offers advanced data protection, lower cost compliance and IT tools to streamline PC management and help save costs, while enabling access to information from anywhere for business users.

We know emerging markets have unique needs and we will offer Windows 7 Home Basic, only in emerging markets, for customers looking for an entry-point Windows experience on a full-size value PC.

We’ll also continue to offer Windows Starter edition, which will only be offered pre-installed by an OEM. Windows Starter edition will now be available worldwide. This edition is available only in the OEM channel on new PCs limited to specific types of hardware.

And certainly there is also a small set of customers who want everything Windows 7 has to offer. So we will continue to have Windows 7 Ultimate edition to meet that specialized need. Windows 7 Ultimate edition is designed for PC enthusiasts who “want it all” and customers who want the security features such as BitLocker found in Windows 7 Enterprise edition.

So they ARE still Microsoft after all. 

Sigh.

Bring on Snow Leopard.