[sirsar]

> Why the hell would they do this?

I held the same perspective until I worked for a manufacturing company. Many of that company's products, and indeed many products throughout the world, _would not exist_ without market segmentation. Selling the same hardware with different software often makes the company more money than only having one model. In some cases, that extra money is the difference between the product, or even the company, existing or not existing.

R&D and manufacturing are hard and expensive.