Still, it is very important to understand that Microsoft will focus on Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional, rather than pushing all editions on the market. Moving from Starter to Ultimate, each edition will supersede the previous, containing all of its features and additional components on top. When it comes down to the editions of Windows 7, the relationship between SKUs, in terms of the model, can be defined best by the Russian matriosca dolls. With Windows 7 there is a more natural progression from one edition to the next,” revealed Mike Ybarra, general manager for Windows. Customers won’t have to face that trade-off with Windows 7.

As an example, some business customers using Windows Vista Business wanted the Media Center functionality that is in Windows Vista Home Premium but didn’t receive it in Business edition. That is to say, as customers upgrade from one version to the next, they keep all features and functionality from the previous edition. “The first change in Windows 7 was to make sure that editions of Windows 7 are a superset of one another. Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate, along with the N variants for the European market, represent a simplification over the Vistas that hit the shelves at the end of January 2007, although they might not appear so at first. The next iteration of the Windows client will come to the table in no less than six flavors, but possibly as much as eight, with Microsoft planning to focus on just two of the editions. The Windows 7 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) are out from behind the translucent barrier set in place by Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, and out in the open.

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