18. Versions and editions

Ultimate Edition

I've been critical in the past of what I expect to be a high price for Windows Vista Ultimate, but that doesn't change the fact that I love the idea of one Vista SKU that contains all the enterprise and consumer Vista features. If you're going to have a big GUI operating system with millions and millions of lines of code, you might as well go all the way and get all the features and functionality you can. I am currently living that way, with one notebook PC for my business and personal life -- and if you can grab just that, it makes life a lot easier. I tote my notebook to and from work every day, but the upside is that there's only computer in my life that's mission-critical, that I must ensure data backups from, that I need to handle all my e-mail, where I've saved some document I have to find, where I've saved some bookmark I want to check and so on. It's my computer of record. Windows Vista Ultimate makes working that way more possible for more people.

In particular, Vista Ultimate is aimed at self-employed professionals or small-business owners who want only one PC. Newer notebook PCs with high resolution wide-aspect ratios screens and powerful dual-core processors cater to this "one PC to rule them all" mentality.

In addition to having all enterprise and consumer features, Vista Ultimate also comes with both Tablet PC and Media Center functionality. It'll be interesting to see what kind of excuses some execs at many small and large companies will use to try to get new Vista boxes that come with Vista Ultimate. Like Vista Aero top-end video support, I think that Windows Ultimate will be an echelon-differentiating feature in business.