Ed Felten reports on Microsoft’s decision to offer a cheaper, crippled version of Windows XP in Asia. So Asian customers can choose to buy pirated copies of Windows XP for next to nothing, use any distribution of Linux they choose without paying a thing, or pay more for a version of Windows that leaves out useful functionality like being able to take advantage of having a decent monitor. What kind of market do you think they’ll find for that? I honestly can’t imagine that anyone will choose the crippled version over stealing the full version. Would you?