Microsoft has announced how it will package Windows Vista’s successor, Windows 7. And as ever, Microsoft has put segmentation ahead of clarity.

The one bright spot in Microsoft’s Windows 7 news is that - contrary to some reports - it won’t add a brand new edition solely for netbooks. Although even this is not that straight forward.

On Tuesday, the company Tuesday said Windows 7 would come in six editions: Windows 7 Starter Edition, Home Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Not that the news was presented like this. Microsoft led on the fact that “most” customers would be served by “two primary” editions - Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional that respectively target consumer and business users.

via The Register

…you’ll see us be much more vigorous about stating the case for the PC. The truth of the matter is, this is ironic. The PC outsells the Mac 33 to 1—32 to 1. And despite the fact that we don’t sell PCs, we only sell Windows to people who make PCs. And the attack is actually on the PCs, interestingly enough. You’ll see us defend the PC. We’re going to talk about why — look, PCs are better than Macs. That is not something that can be debated. [TMO emphasis] 32 out of every 33 times, somebody buys a PC instead of a Mac. I’m not saying that there are not some things that people like about Macs, apparently there are. But have you ever seen a cheap Mac? No.

This one’s a great one too - has this guy even seen a mac in the last 10 years…

I’m very sensitive to exactly what mouse I have on my laptop. Can you find a range of choices? [for the Mac] Of course you can’t find a range of choices.

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Was round the in-laws the other day and couldn’t help but notice this one in the garden…

A fine way to retire an old web browser. At least it’s found some use…

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

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Microsoft has sent out invitations to a select number of testers allowing them to participate in a “limited technical beta program” for the upcoming Internet Explorer 8. The announcement also says that there will be a public beta as well, once the invitation version is complete.

So far we know that Microsoft claims that IE 8 will pass the ACID 2 compatibility test and include support for a controversial “version tag,” which will allow web developers to force the browser into “super-standards” mode — enabling the browser to correctly render webpages that adhere to the W3C’s standards.

We’ve written before about the contentious debate surrounding the so-called version tag, but the basic idea is that website developers will be able to add a meta tag to their pages telling IE how it should render the page — in traditional mode (non-standard IE 6-style rendering), standards mode (IE 7’s half-baked concept of standards) and super standards mode (where IE will render similar to the way Firefox, Opera and Safari have been doing for the last five years).

A number of developers have decried the meta-tag flagging as a way of versioning the web, which they feel is a bad idea. But regardless of how the meta-tag might play out, we find it interesting that, if the rumors are to be believed, IE 8 will automatically render in traditional mode.

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Microsoft has officially announced that the Xbox 360 sequel to the popular shooter Gears of War will launch in November of this year.

Much of the Xbox 360’s first year success was dependent on Epic’s Gears of War. It proved much more than just substitute until Halo 3 arrived and really showed the gaming quality that the console could deliver. In fact, many still favour Marcus Fenix over Master Chief Petty Officer John-117.

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In the area of web browsers, Opera Software has proposed a specific kind of remedy - that Microsoft only be allowed to distribute standards-compliant browsers. Microsoft’s IE is bug-ridden and the company, despite its vast resources, has shown little interest in fixing problems that cost web designers time and sleep. IE dominates the web due to its being bundled with Windows. This forces web designers to prioritize coding for IE. Coding for standards-compliant browsers becomes a secondary consideration.

Microsoft is keenly aware of this and therefore has little interest in improving their support for standards. They will never become standards compliant unless forced by someone in a position to demand a change, something that users and customers are not. Requiring standard compliance would greatly lessen Microsoft’s monopolistic stranglehold in the web browser market, would delight web developers everywhere and would, ironically, make IE a better product.

He’s a fan of Microsoft’s latest proposals in conjunction with IE8…

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