piratePenguin,
You've made a perfectly valid point but I was joking (hence the smiley) as well as proving worker201's argument being nonsense.
There will be seven versions of Windows Vista, and there are, say, X-hundred versions of GNU/Linux. It's mostly a good thing for GNU/Linux, because each distribution concentrates on different things, and generally any user can find one that suits their needs almost perfectly. I said "mostly", because it's not all good - it introduces confusion for the new user. But IMO, it's not a bad tradeoff.
Now Windows Vista - seven versions. Only a few - the most expensive ones - haven't been intentionally crippled by their creators without their users in mind. Microsoft aren't releasing seven versions of Windows Vista so more of their users can have an operating system that fits all their needs!
Windows users will be confused about these seven versions of Windows Vista - some will find it harder to find one that fits their needs better than the rest and some, when they
do find which one fits their needs most might not be able to afford it. Which should be interesting (will they settle for the crippled editions? Will they pirate it? Will they ditch Microsoft altogether and switch to the alternatives?).
What I don't like about this the most is that Microsoft are working hard to handicap the cheaper versions of their operating system just so more people "upgrade" to the more expensive versions, and worse than that, it's not likely that most Windows users will give a crap. They'll just keep gobbling up whatever shit Microsoft throws at them, and they'll continue to give Microsoft what they want no matter.
Of course, this is all IMO.