Name reached for stripped-down Windows

[Steve]

For those of you not following Microsoft's battle with the European Commission, MS have been told to ship a WMP-less version of XP in Europe. Since the EC ruling, MS have been struggling to find a name for the new version that the EC liked. However they have now settled on adding the letter "N" to the end of the usual title. Interestingly, this wasn't MS's idea.

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's top lawyer in Europe, said the names "Windows XP Home Edition N" and "Windows XP Professional Edition N" were suggested by the Commission after it rejected 10 suggestions by Microsoft.

...

Microsoft wanted consumers to be clear what they were buying but the Commission said it should not put off consumers, like Microsoft's first choice, "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition."

"Reduced Media Edition" is a bit cheeky if you ask me, but "N"? I can't see this whole mess-about making any difference in the long run anyway. Never mind.

CNN has the story.

[0iD]

I was reading abt it on ZDNet, or was it Newsforge....anyhoo, what a pointless fiasco. Couldnt they just let it be & work the changes into the next edit of windoze?

[wasabi]

While the media player part may be a farce, it is needed to stop MS establishing a precedent that they can keep chucking in 'features' to Windows that we have to pay for, even though they're really a bltant attempt to grap market share in new areas for MS. Not sure what it comes with media-player wise, but they should be made t4o put the old DRM-crap free media player 6.4 back as default.

Personally I'd like to seee the EU force them to halt the 'embrace and extend' tactics over the internet - i.e. the encroaching mixing up of Active Directory, kerberos and DNS.