[This was part originally of the previous post.]

A big reason for why Microsoft is still ‘playing catch’ stems from the fact that Windows is so very used in corporate environments. My opinion is that Microsoft should fork off the versions of their OS into Business and User components. So far they’ve been trying to nail two birds with the same stone - despite the relative differences between Home, Pro and Corp. editions of XP, for example. Sure, they’ve made their market research and know better what many companies want. This is me talking.

Average corporate users have little need for multimedia, eye-candy and all of that. They want familiar user interfaces, stability and teamwork-ready applications - and support. No crippleware, no services opened for things that don’t belong in their corporate environments in the first place but that cost them large amounts of money when a cracker gets through.

The end-user wants a machine that does everything around the house. House. Multimedia, IM, socializing. And something that looks good doing it without requiring a machine stolen out of NCERT to run the OS.

For those people that want more control over their machine there can always be the Ultimate, Super-Mega, Meta edition. Although there doesn’t need to be one.

If the entire system would be more modular, the components can be thrown together easier to make the generic technology behind the OS-es relatively the same but the special ingredients present. Corporate users would benefit from a stable UI and a core that’s being constantly improved on in terms of security with new features thrown in gradually [this can even be a good source of profit for Microsoft with a Custom Solutions division where low-level modifications to the OS can be made and sold for a nice development and support taxation.] The User edition, however, could explore more cutting-edge features and a more aggressive take on innovating. Even the target demographic can vary — bring Microsoft Bob back for the retired ladies please!. Most importantly, backwards compatibility can be thrown out of the consumer editions because most users don’t need to run old things and would be much happier with better response times or a smaller install size.

Just a thought.