Microsoft announces the Microsoft Student Innovation Suite, a package that contains Windows XP Starter Edition, microsoft office home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office and Windows Live Mail desktop, all for US$3. This offer, however, is only available to governments and students from emerging countries. Sounds great, right? Hang on... it gets better.

Windows XP Starter Edition is crippled in such a way that you can only use three applications and three windows per application running concurrently. Wait, there's more:

Further simplification of the operating system includes setting a maximum display resolution of 1024x768 and no support for PC-to-PC home networking, sharing printers across a network or more advanced features such as the ability to establish multiple user accounts on a single PC.

It gets even better... Windows XP will be retired in 2008. So, where does that leave those who pay US$3 then? Back to the stone age? :)

Why would you want such an unusable software package? So, put your US$3 to good use and donate it to your favorite charity and get Linux - everything you need is included for free! :)

For me, US$3 can get me a venti-sized java chip banana frap lite without whip from my favorite coffee shop. :)