NeoWin.net informs us of a new edition of Windows XP (though I’m certain there were other more official sources), the Starter Edition (SE). SE is an ambiguous cloud of hype that many industries implore. It could be anything from “Second Edition” to “Special Edition” or “Sales Executive.” By maintaining the “SE” non-clarification however, a company may resist the public perception of a product being hindered in some way. It’s a little like the politically correctiveness around mentally retarded people. Refer to them as “special people” to draw away from the fact that they’re handicap in some way. In any form, I generally feel that the use of such terms is a form of belittlement. Why is it that industries feel that they must protect consumers from some kind of embarassment by labeling products to hide the fact that they’re actually crippled? Is it apparent to marketing wiz’s that the human race is unable to accept minimalism as a feature? Oh! I guess I just talked myself off of this soapbox.
Funny thing though – I didn’t start writing this post to express the point I just made. I was actually just intrigued by the desktop screenshots from the product. They’re in a different language, as that is the perceived initial target for XP SE. I was concentrating on one to try and determine the nationality from contextual clues (linguistical wannabe). My best guess was that it was an Indian language I was unfamiliar with (that would be all but about two). After doing a Google search for some keywords, I came across this site which I can neither read nor guess at the text. I did glean, “Microsoft Indonesia” from the article, which led me to believe that it must have come from New Jersey (kidding, of course). What’s funny about this is that had I instead just looked at the other pictures from the Microsoft site (or probably read anything from the comments), I would have noticed that Malaysia and Indonesia were represented. Of course, that’s far too easy and requires no innovation. Incidentally, “tampungan daur” means “recycling bin” somehow.
