The cheapest option of the next version of Windows will be Windows7 Starter Edition.

According to Microsoft this Cheapo Cheapo Productions version is specifically optimised for Netbooks.
But it has one huge and potentially irritating restriction.

It will only allow the user to run a maximum of 3 applications at once.

Browser tabs don’t count towards this limit, neither do Windows explorer windows, Control Panel applets or desktop gadgets.

So what does this mean? Open a web browser, open Outlook, open MS Office, Open your IM client and, oops…

It’s worth mentioning that any anti virus applications that run as system services thankfully don’t count either. Just so long as you don’t try opening their main program window.

So a cut down, slightly less bloated Windows optimised for low powered Netbook devices. The cynics suggest it’s crippled enough to force users into upgrading to a more powerful, and expensive, version.

It’s worth mentioning here that the full, and incidentally the only available, version of Apple’s OS X runs quite happily, albeit not legally, on many of these Netbooks and possesses just as much functionality as Windows7.