Late last year, Microsoft launched the Windows XP Starter Edition - a stripped down version of its operating system that it wanted to be bundled with systems sold in Asia. Unfortunately, according to Silicon.com, it looks like it's not taken off as well as they'd hoped.
Unlike Microsoft's flagship Windows offerings, however, Starter Edition is not for retail. The firm is banking on its partners to bundle and promote the software with their low-end PCs, a strategy which has so far received lukewarm response.
Kharisma Shintara, director of Arta Computer Centre, a computer assembler in Indonesia that has licensed Microsoft's scaled-down offering, said: "We're not focused on Starter Edition."
Piracy's still a big problem in the Asian market, with many retailers loading the systems they sell with unlicensed software, and it doesn't look like SE is making many inroads into that culture.
