Windows 7: Why so many versions?

Windows 7 will be offered by Microsoft Corp in two primary versions (1. business users and 2. consumers), but six other editions of Windows 7 will be made available in total!

Aren't we all confused enough? But wait... there's this really good reason for all these versions: Microsoft has, like, a billion customers!

Mike Ybarra, Microsoft's Windows general manager, said the multitude of versions is necessary in order to fully meet the needs of PC makers and the huge base (billions and billions) of Windows users.

"Our biggest challenge is that we have over 1 billion customers. It's hard to satisfy all of them [with two versions]." Ybarra said.

Windows 7 Professional and Home Premium editions will be accompanied by an Enterprise edition for large corporate customers, which will include advanced networking and security features that won't be in the Professional edition. Microsoft is thinking about axing the Ultimate edition, targeting gamers and PC junkies.

Microsoft will offer upgrades from XP to Windows 7, leapfrogging Vista, but this just means users will be purchasing discounted upgrade licenses.

And a word of caution on this upgrade; the XP machines will require clean installs of Windows 7, and that means the hard drives of the XP machines will be wiped and overwritten.

So do those backups folks.