Rumors and headlines are flying all over the web about Windows 7. But how will Windows affect you and Microsoft? Let’s discuss the tremendous importance of this milestone, that could ultimately prove to ‘make or break’ Microsoft.
Windows 7 mock-up from xazac.
Deconstructing the marketing
In the eve of PDC(Professional Developers Conference), a lot of people are starting to talk about Windows 7: features, release dates, and of course deciphering Steve Ballmer’s comments.
It appears that Microsoft is taking the Apple approach – creating hype and expectations, columns on major publications and flame wars on forums.
They’re keeping the tech world on its toes, not a good thing to do if you don’t have something worthwhile coming out:
Customers are prepared to walk if you don’t deliver when you promise. So, in order to meet these demands, for the last 20 years or so, we’ve all been applying the mantra: “Under Promise & Over Deliver”.
Their current strategy would indicate that they’re going to launch something pretty impressive. Of course, if they don’t deliver (aka Vista), the first to be disappointed are the nerds and tech journalists, both with huge influence on the mainstream users.
They’re doing the same mistakes over and over again.
Windows 7: More than an operating system
Windows 7 is more than an operating system, its a 3-5 year strategy that affects billions of dollars of revenue, millions of people and companies around the world. It represents the lion share cut of Microsoft’s revenue.
Just imagine what would happen if people just stopped buying new versions of Windows. Profits would collapse and the huge costs of running such a big corporation would bring the balance to red fast.
Courtesy of ZDNET
In many ways this phenomenon has already started. A lot of people, myself included, are running the same copy of Windows XP they bought back in 2002, over 5 years ago.
And even with its huge marketing campaigns and deals with manufacturers people downgrade to XP because it’s faster, less bloated (700MB CD – 4,7GB DVD) and less bling-bling style. Why would I want to run Photoshop slower? Or wait 2 minutes for the system to start up?
Features such as 3D rendering of the desktop are nice from a technological standpoint, but not very useful. This kind of feature-creep should be avoided for Windows 7 – and instead try to make it as lightweight as possible and let the users chose the features they want at installation.
Bottom line
People don’t care about Microsoft’s profits – if Windows 7 proves to be a flop, they will just stick with XP for a while longer. And, considering the tremendous efforts from both Apple and Canonical, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if more and more people bought Apple computers and PC’s with Linux preinstalled.
Microsoft is not going to go away soon – they sit on very large pile of cash – and in a worst case scenario they’ll become an IBM-type company.
While the demise of Windows may bring some smiles to the open source community and Steve Jobs, it will actually be a loss for the consumers: basic economics tell us that the more competition, the lower prices and better quality of the products.
Let’s hear it in the comments: What do you think about Windows 7 and the future of Microsoft? How would it affect you personally?
Tags: Closed Source, windows 7
If Windows 7 delivers what was promised that vista failed to deliver then it’ll be good enough for me but I wouldn’t believe any of the hype from Microsoft, after all the hype of new features from Vista that either didn’t work or were pulled before the release I wont believe any promises from Microsoft until the final product is in front of me.
Of course its no big deal if Microsoft fails again, because Windows is now a secondary OS to me, the only thing it offers is games, everything else I get from Linux, and XP has done fine for games so far.
I disagree with your competition statement at the end, if anything Windows has created a software monopoly and damaged the quality of software throughout the industry, but I must agree that to see them collapse would simply pave the way for a Mac monopoly, and from what I’ve seen of apple that would be much worse.
I run XP on one laptop and Vista on another…………I now like Vista SP1 better….I was expecting to have problems, but have been pleasantly surprised. It runs fast as Xp and I like the look better
“Just imagine what would happen if people just stopped buying new versions of Windows. Profits would collapse and the huge costs of running such a big corporation would bring the balance to red fast.”
Basically. I tried Vista SP1 and it worked for a good amount of time but I have a weird bug with my hardware and it freezes on shut down. It doesn’t do this on XP. When it wasn’t stuttering on shut down it was super fast and it was great. 7 needs to offer light weight computing with good features. If it was like OSX with the current game library I would be set. If I could run Far Cry 2 perfectly on Ubuntu I would be there. Windows has the monopoly on games and needs to just make the system streamlined. I used to use vista on my laptop but since have opted to just start Ubuntu even if some features aren’t fully supported (FN Keys, Suspend on Close). But overall I like lightweight computing and fragging every now and then. So Vista just doesn’t work for me.
What amazed me was that their profits this quarter were up in spite of the issues they had and the gloomy economy. I guess people are so used to buying Microsoft they don’t even think about the alternatives.
I have been a windows fanboi since ver 3. Now.. since Ubuntu 8.04, 70% of my time is spent on Ubuntu linux and the rest on XP. The time spent on XP is when I’m playing Warcraft or something. Linux is snappier and better still, I dont waste my time on virus and adware scans, defragmention runs, registry cleans , driver installations etc. To be fair, the earlier versions of ubuntu linux sucked.
“What amazed me was that their profits this quarter were up in spite of the issues they had and the gloomy economy. I guess people are so used to buying Microsoft they don’t even think about the alternatives.”
What amazed me was you deleted my comment which showed how you did not do your homework before dissing Microsoft. Then post this to try to cover up your mistakes. Remember that “Free as in Free Speech” slogan?
Your comment was automatically flagged by the Akismet spam plugin because it contained too many links. And I did my homework on Sunday
I knew Microsoft profits were up, it was up on Digg a few days ago. I didn’t think it was relevant to Windows 7 which is in the future.
Lets put this into perspective. If you had a website would you delete the comments that called you an idiot?
Hello,
I downloaded the M1 edition of Windows 7.
I liked it, it isnt a vista copy but rather an XP improvement.
Please try it out for yourselves, dont take my opinion.
But don’t knock something before you try it.
It might turn out to be better than you think.
Is that up on the torrents?
I’ve been following the Engineering Windows 7 blog, and I get the sense that the developers genuinely want to get it right this time. Of course, the final result is what needs to be judged.
Operating systems these days are interchangeable. I’m currently working on getting my Macbook triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and Windows. Ubuntu and OS X are already on it. In theory, all three are capable of reading ext3, and my “Big 3″ programs – Eclipse, Firefox and OpenOffice.org – run on all three platforms.
Granted, the use of Windows is mostly motivated by the desire to run games. Microsoft deserves credit for DirectX, which is far more advanced than OpenGL, although not open-source.
As far as the critiques of Vista’s 3d look, I have to say I like it. One of my motivations for installing Ubuntu was Compiz Fusion – so really, all the major operating systems are capable of serious eye-candy.
I bought a new laptop w/ Vista pre-loaded, and haven’t been tempted to go out and buy XP at all. I had a handful of compatability issues, all of them simple to fix. Otherwise, it runs great and hasn’t had a single problem.
Just make it faster to startup and use. The minute I hit the switch I want it working! Everything else in my office and home is that way. And don’t say it can’t be that way I’ve got a 20 year old Comodore 64 that starts faster than my dual core XP machine. Why do they have to make the software load everything up at startup, say I don’t want to surf the web I just want to get a document printed for a customer why should I have to wait for I.E to load, for all the other softwares to start checking for updates and to make sure they are still the default app. Maybe one day when Microsoft gets some serious competition it will happen. Until then the only thing slower is my coffee maker.
I must agree with bigbluealien on most of his points. The competition statement I think is correct….to a point. Windows failing 2 times in a row (and failing big) would be a huge problem for Microsoft. And us. I don’t like Microsoft. Never have. But the one thing it has done is brought many software titles to the masses. If Linux is going to improve, then Microsoft must do moderately well. This will give incentive to more programmers to make more software for Linux. Again, competition breeds improvement. If for no other reason, Microsoft must survive to help Linux grow. You can’t build muscle without opposing forces. On a side note, I have noticed that MS builds 2 good OS’s then one bad. Hopefully this trend continues. Same with their Office products. But again, BigBlueAlien is very insightful.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Apple would be disastrous. I would rather use O/S 2 Warp for the rest of my life then let Apple become the mainstream. They just plain kill any joy in computing.
Here’s my guess as to what will happen. Windows 7 will be a slightly better version of Vista with more doodads and some new, shinier UI idioms. The same flawed security infrastructure will be there and will still cause the same sort of problems it did before, but they will be less annoying on first impression and the underlying bugs will become much harder to identify. There may be a few new apps relating to the handling of media and social networking but nothing spectacular and certainly nothing that would merit the long dev cycle when a 3rd party could put out something more slick in much less time. MS will try to get the hardware vendors on board in terms of their certification process but this too will be half-assed, with some vendors working tightly with MS and some not. Those who don’t have the staff to manage the integration of their offerings as MS goes thru their stages of development and testing will be hard put to deliver quality drivers or applications that will take advantage of the ‘new’ features. As with the last few major releases MS botched there will be a few changes of the guard and possibly a reorg or two as everyone spends a lot of time giving lipservice to what went wrong. If MS makes the insane decision to stick with some of their more restrictive DRM policies and not address the difficulty in mass deployment/provisioning found in Vista, IT staff will seriously consider moving away from MS lock-in and Apple shares will soar. The Office side of things will continue as usual but more and more online offerings and open document standards the expensive licensing of MS products will put pressure on players like Apple, the Linux distros, and startups to puck up the slack. There’s a good change the Office and OS sales will both stagnate. It would take an act of god to push MS from the mountaintop but their inability to push out frequent releases, their reactionary product development and marketing people, and the increasing competition will suddenly make them seem vulnerable. Any failure after this in either the Office or OS side will lead to a drastic loss of confidence and put the company back 20 years, similar to when both Mac and Windows were considered equal competitors.
It’s simple really. MS has taken a lot of steps to improve the quality of their builds and the design and dev cycle in general, but product bloat, a distinct lack of vision and some entrenched upper level management will be their biggest enemy. You can have the best gun in the world but if you don’t know where to point it someone who is unarmed can easily defeat you. That’s their problem in a nutshell.
Windows 8, if it ever gets there, will be much much better (kinda like how NT led to 2000 led to XP). At this point however it might not matter. Predicting the tech market that far out is fraught with failure.
They need to get back to basics, shelve their 20 year plans for a moment, and pour their efforts in figuring out what the new plays are. The most obvious ball they are dropping now is mobile device convergence. Apple is all over this and MS is nowhere to be found. Distributed storage, media delivery, ubiquitous device integration are all areas they are lacking in (although the small Zune team is putting out some outstanding product). In short, they need recapture the personal user market to the point where it will start driving the business market again. They need to cater to devs and align themselves with the bevy of quality entrepreneurs that will shortly be available when their financing runs out.
I doubt they’d go into the red, they make a lot of other very profitable software. http://www.belshe.com/2007/01/04/microsofts-revenue-breakdown-2003-2006/
MS is really up against the wall with Windows 7. Not only does it have to deliver everything that Vista was supposed to have had but it will also need to keep pace and/or overtake anything that comes to fruition in Linux or Mac OS X in the next year or so (and given the level of creativity and innovation at work behind those two OSes, that’s not going to be easy.)
And to top it off, Windows 7 is going to have to be solid, no half-assed efforts resulting in a feature list where nothing works in a so-so way.
And it will have to be on time. If MS allows themselves to fall into that slip-sliding release date nonsense we saw with Longhorn/Vista, then they are dead.
No way do I envy MS right now. They’ve dug themselves into one nasty hole in the ground and no real way to climb out.
New feature I want in Windows: Double click an icon, find the nearest iPhone to me, cause it to crash.
The only people who ever whine about Windows Vista are people who never have used it, such as Apple Fan Boys and gay fruity ass actor on the Apple commercial.
Interesant… un blogger roman care s-a instalat pe nisa de IT si scrie in engleza… si-ai mai ajuns si pe front page pe digg
. Felicitarile mele.
I tried using Vista with SP1 on my laptop but I soon discovered it was pointless. In my opinion Vista is nothing but a bloated version of XP. Windows 7? Well, if they don’t deliver on this one I’m gonna stick with XP and consider installing Vista fore DirectX 10/11.
I expect Microsoft to not deliver however… I expect them to announce tons of features and then remove them along the way because they couldn’t implement them. They should also find better names for their stuff… I liked Longhorn, Vista sounds idiotic
.
-H.S.
As the System Admin for roughly 7500 workstations and 800 servers, I can say we’ve stopped migrating to Vista and are backpeddling into XP. It will take this company at least 6 years to make another decision on it because they want stability more than features.
At home I run VirtualIron single purpose virtual machines from disk images, one being an XP gaming image. The rest are all either Kubuntu or my own reverse engineered flavor of Menuet64.
Windows desktop OS is never going to take any market from the Linux desktop.
The people who have successfully switched to a working Linux distro are going to stay with it. What type of “bling bling bloat” can there ever be to justify a $300+ price tag and draconian DRM schemes ? Have fun with your retail copy and if your mainboard breaks, you have to call MS to explain WHY and WHAT you are trying to do with your own software. Just that hassle is a big reason to switch to another OS.
Like I pointed out, this is only applicable to the ones who have successfully switched. For certain people the switch to another OS (Linux , etc) wasn’t great and swapped back. This is just normal and very healthy.
In an ideal world – 33% Windows, 33% OSX, 33% Linux and the rest of the decimals on OS/2 warp
The only reason why microsoft still made a profit is that most laptops still come with vista pre-installed. I am running 2 machines 1 destop with XP and ubuntu 8.10 and a laptop with vista and ubuntu 8.10.
The only reason I still have vista in my laptop is that it came pre-installed and I can’t get a refund for that. generally ubuntu is not as heavy on it, the temperatures in ubuntu as always lower than XP, it’s faster and safer. I don’t want to have to spend money on an anti-virus software which progressively slows down the performance.
Aslo take time to develop a new file system or ever use an open source one, one that does not corrupt or fragments itself constantly. On my work that are very few programs that are windows exclusive, but that has been changing, with new advances in wine I have been able to run them with some minor hitches, hopefully I can look forward to running them 100% in linux.
So aside from gaming and very few programs, I have no use for windows anymore.
and windows pricing is too unrealistic, Microsoft should take not that there’s much better stuff out there being given away for free.
So if windows 7 is a flop would this mean the end of MS?
No, but it would signal the end of MS led software and the rise of standards for data. That is what MS fear, the end of them controlling how and what you can do with you data. Its not that they were’nt great at what they did, just that the world has moved on and they are stuck in the 20th century.
Kevin has a good point!
“Just imagine what would happen if people just stopped buying new versions of Windows. Profits would collapse and the huge costs of running such a big corporation would bring the balance to red fast.” – haha
Do you really think that MS gathers its profits only from Windows? MOSS got MS more than 1 billion in profit last year.
Stop all this nonsense about the downfall of Windows. There isn’t going to be one. What’s happening now is a re-run of the Windows XP story (when Win98 was the “best”)
I support open source, but while Windows and Apples run the OS game, it’s kinda hard not to go those ways. I’m looking forward to Windows 7…. bring it on MS.
My decision profile is extremely simple:
I was very happy with XP from 2002 – 2006.
In 2007, I switched to a brand new laptop and Vista.
Was disgusted by the performance and underwhelmed by the new OS.
Since then, Vista has been getting better, to the point of it being a ‘pretty good’ experience.
However, the initial bad impression and the length of time it took MS to get Vista into a decent state (really, it took SP1) have left a bad impression. Combined with the ability of macs to now run vista, I’ve gone from a MS supporter (pre-Vista) to a very ‘independent’ mindset.
Thus: If the reviews on Windows 7 aren’t FANTASTIC, my next computer will be an apple, running OS X natively with a dual-boot of (?Vista?) for gaming or other specialized apps.
To be honest, from the getgo, I’m already slightly biased against Win7: I feel like MS is pushing a product out without having a reason for making the product (from the consumer’s perspective). I see talk of ‘DirectX 11′ and I laugh – what did D10 do? Why are so many games still D9? The ‘upgrade push’ that came with the XP->Vista transition has made me particularly suspicious of new MS products: if the system requirements for Win7 are outrageously high, that’s going to be another negative mark.
I think MS has a LOT to prove with this next release. This might be their most important release since Win95. And I mean that from a ‘keep the company healthy’ standpoint, not necessarily a technology standpoint. They need to price it right, code it properly from Day 1, and deliver on their promises.
I had three powerful Vista SP1 computers and returned them. I laugh at comments when users say Vista is “just as good as XP” or “I have no problems” or “I thought there would be a lot of problems, but I was pleasantly surprised.” I am a lifetime Microsoft user and push operating systems to their limits and beyond. If the software has a problem, I will find a work around plan.
The situation MS currently has is, Vista has absolutely pissed off some it’s most loyal customer base with the way it rolled it out. They did it in a way where they were basically saying we are going to for you to buy a beta system over XP. They were told 512 MB RAM would be needed to run the OS and manufacturers put in 1 GB and the systems were still crashing. The OS needed to waiting until Intel shipped faster processors before the OS eve began to look like it was working. Manufacturer felt the OS was so unstable, they were shipping things like the HP advisor just to see if the OS was able to speak to other parts of each platform. Sound and Video platforms were not even near completion and are still not, contrary to what anyone says. Because of that, drivers would not go far enough. Nobody could develop drivers because there was no platform-Nvidia is a perfect example. They could complete drivers because the platforms were not completed. All you have to do is run Real Audio and look at the clarity on Vista and XP and you will see the difference. Sound still seems like you’re riding on the yellow submarine.
If you want to run Vista like it runs on XP you need literally 3GB RAM. That’s pretty much all the 32 bit OS can take. You can load 4GB, but the OS itself can only use 3. Since Vista rolled out its software, it did do its best to quickly resolve and complete the development issues (not the bugs), but because they were clearly losing customers in droves, completed most of the development at the expense of more RAM.
Cal me crazy, but when a company refuses to post what it recognizes as problems and when of it it will be fixed, after 1-1.5 years, you cannot expect them to enjoy spending $1000 plus on paper weights. When you spend to or three times that on hardware and can obviously see platforms are not close to being finished the screen is jittery and certified hardware don’t have drivers that work-its took long in this environment. On top of it you see manufacturers being strong armed. Microsoft invading social networks and posing as normal people trying to down play the problems saying from day one, they saw no problems-you are asking for you most loyal customers just give MS money for no other reason that to keep their profits up.
Now 2 years later we see the operating system and what does it do better than the previous OS it developed in 2002? Absolutely nothing. If you use the same hardware you use for Vista in XP, XP literally uses 75% less hardware resources to run its OS and therefore applications and games run like rockets. The Direct 10X that was touted as being so much better, can actually still be played on Direct 9X format in the enhanced mode and actually look better that 10X graphics cards. Games that run on XP don’t see to run that well on Vista. And the games that run on XP are better by far.
It makes you wonder why MS even bothered to develop another 32 bit OS. Why didn’t it develop a 64 Bit that would run all the previous 32 bit applications? When you have Apple or Linux nipping at your heals and a clear rival in open source developing at a rate faster than you have over the past 7 years, you need to show you are doing something more than trying to change the shell and maintain the same functionality. The rest is smoke a mirrors.
If all you do is surf the web, chat on line store your music and picture, you will not notice anything regardless of what OS you use and it will work fine for you. If people don’t know if you are going to correct a problem that is seriously affecting them, they are forced to try alternatives because they don’t if it will ever be solved.
People discovered if you buy a Mac, you can run XP. People who have never bothered to even think of a Mac were then forced to consider it because they had no choice and took the chance. It is no surprise that Apple computer sales moved up from a 2% market share to 7-9% during the major Vista fiasco.
It is still amazing to me that everything I hear about Windows 7 appears to be just fixing the bugs in Vista and charging the users for it. In the meantime Apple users who migrate over to Macs are almost universally saying they will never come back. If you give people a reason to leave you and offer no reconciliation, you run the risk of those customers staying for good. Now Apple has a quality product and on OS that easily rivals Microsoft. They have applications that are on the cutting edge. When you force people to try quality of equal or like to you, yo can expect to lose a lot of customers plus other decision makers. There is 10X more profit on Computers than an iPod.
When Open Office is released and in hours you have 1 million downloads and the servers crash, you are seeing things that are are clearly affecting Microsoft. That 1 million times $150 that vanished in sales in just 4 hours. At the same time, as Linux becomes more user friendly, more people-particularly low end users are trying it.
For every Apple system sold, there is a loss in profit for MS. MS changes its OS primarily to keep competition away and not to innovate. Now for the first time it looks like they will be forced to innovate
i dont know where you people come up with all this negative vista stuff but… it has been working very well for me
i have a 2.0 dual core with 2 gigs of ram. The system starts up in under 30 seconds, (with 10,000rpm Raptor) and everything works incredibly well. I have now run it with 1 year straight, with not a single hinch. I can leave my computer on for 3 weeks at a time, to come back , click the mouse and have everything work.
The first 2-3 months of trial.. i decided to test it against my XP, and to my surprised programs really did not run much faster. Maybe 2-5% better. Which is not much at all. With 2 gigs of ram, i still have plenty to spare, and what? 2 gigs now cost 20-30$
vista is much better to use
the search, even little things like the image of your tab on the task bar
things such as CTRL – ALT – DEL = close anything instantly and fix your computer.
everything just works so well, the buttons, organization is perfect.
i literally have no reason to ever use XP again If windows 7 is as good as Vista then i will be very happy.
VISA = bad if you had a slow computer
same as.. try using windows XP on a 486… (bloated OS, they tell you)
Vista is for the future (which is here already) when computers are fast and we are no longer fighting for a few tiny resources to run what we need.
i keep fire fox, and Gbrowser with 20+ tabs in each, 3dsm, like 10 folders, music, videos, and photo shop all in my vista. I have 0 problems.
@Tudor
“Do you really think that MS gathers its profits only from Windows? MOSS got MS more than 1 billion in profit last year.”
MS earns 16,4+18,9=35,3 bilions just from selling MS Windows and MS Office, mostly OEM (“pre-install versions of Windows operating systems because the OEM channel accounts for over 80% of total Client revenue”). It’s over 58% of their annual income total.
Table from their annual financial raport
Sgment revenue and operating income (loss) was as follows:
(In millions)
Year Ended June 30, 2008 2007 2006
Revenue:
Client $16,472 $14,844 $13,077
Server and Tools 13,189 11,184 9,670
Online Services Business 3,214 2,441 2,303
Microsoft Business Division 18,937 16,404 14,461
Entertainment and Devices Division 8,139 6,066 4,761
Unallocated and other 469 183 10
Consolidated $60,420 $51,122 $44,282
Client – Windows Vista, including Home, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, Enterprise and Starter Edition; Windows XP Professional and Home; Media Center Edition; Tablet PC Edition; and other standard Windows operating systems.
Server and Tools – Windows Server operating system; Microsoft SQL Server; Microsoft Enterprise Services; product support services; Visual Studio; System Center products; Forefront security products; Biz Talk Server; MSDN; and other products and services.
Online Services Business – Live Search; MSN; MapPoint; MSN Internet Access; MSN Premium Web Services (consisting of MSN Internet Software Subscription, MSN Hotmail Plus, and MSN Software Services); Windows Live; MSN Mobile Services; AvenueA Razorfish media agency services; Atlas online tools for advertisers; and the Drive PM ad network for publishers.
Microsoft Business Division – Microsoft Office; Microsoft Project; Microsoft Visio; Microsoft Office SharePoint Server; Microsoft PerformancePoint; Microsoft Office Live; FAST ESP; Microsoft Exchange Server; Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services; Microsoft Office Live Meeting; Microsoft Office Communication Server; Microsoft Office Communicator; Microsoft Tellme Service, Microsoft Dynamics AX; Microsoft Dynamics CRM; Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online; Microsoft Dynamics GP; Microsoft Dynamics NAV; Microsoft Dynamics SL; Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System; Microsoft Partner Program; and Microsoft Office Accounting.
Entertainment and Devices Division – Xbox 360 console and games; Xbox Live; Zune; Mediaroom; numerous consumer software and hardware products (such as mice and keyboards); Windows Mobile software and services platform; Windows Embedded device operating system; Windows Automotive; and Surface computing platform.
Microsoft has been a victim of their own success with Windows XP. XP has the stability, familiarity, and functionality everyone has grown accustomed to over the past 7 years. It was a vast improvement over Windows 98, bringing kernel-mode drivers with the NT kernel, NTFS with it’s support for large drives, and better networking support. Windows Vista offered us what? UAC and performance degradation? More DRM opportunities?
I think everyone here can agree that the vast majority of Vista purchases come with new laptops these days. I don’t know anyone who really *wants* Vista on their machine – from the experienced IT pro, to the e-mail forwarding grandmother.
IMO, Microsoft should have kept making XP better and faster, perfecting it until new technologies demand a new OS from them. We just weren’t at that point, yet. OTOH, you have to keep “DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS” (- Steve Ballmer) employed, and you can’t have the same number of people who developed Vista simply working on XP improvements, I imagine. No one in America wants to see another American unemployed, and I give Microsoft respect for giving these guys work to do, and they have done a fine job of it. So, on a side note, pay for your Windows, and let’s keep an open mind about 7.
@Jay
I have an academic license for both XP Pro and Vista Business, and one thing I can say for sure is that once this license expires I will not pay 1 cent for the crap that is Vista. I’m going to buy a license for XP, then wait for Windows 7 to come out, read the reviews, wait a while to see how it performs further down the line and only then will I buy it, IF it proves to be better than XP and Vista.
@*brotha
I agree that a newer, more powerful OS needs a newer, more powerful hardware platform to run on, but Vista runs like crap even on 4GB of ram (the x64 version). Moving files from one place to another is a total nightmare, downloading files from computers which are on the same LAN network is a nightmare, hell even downloading a 600 kilobyte shortcut takes 5+ seconds (I am not joking here). I’m not even going to get started on the most annoying “feature” of Vista… the stupid UAC which you can’t leave turned because it will DRIVE YOU INSANE.
How, again, is Vista better than XP? Because it looks better? I can make my XP look like it came 30 years from the future. What about Apple’s OS? That thing already looks 10 years from the future. And Linux? You can make that looks like it came straight out of a Sci Fi movie… I know you can, because I did it.
Did you use MS Paint to resize those pictures? j/k
Anyway I think Microsoft has an opportunity with Windows 7 to start fresh, a bit like Mac OS X did. However I doubt they’ll take such a leap.
I personally use Vista and Linux, Windows XP is getting pretty old and that is why I got rid of it altogether on my laptop.
The only thing I believe will really happen is that Microsoft will take a page from Macs and Linux to improve their own. A bit like Internet Explorer 7 did, they took all the good ideas browsers like Opera and Firefox had and made their own adaptation.
“While the demise of Windows may bring some smiles to the open source community and Steve Jobs, it will actually be a loss for the consumers: basic economics tell us that the more competition, the lower prices and better quality of the products.”
WTF?
Pray tell what competition Microsoft has in the operating system area other than Linux? — which by the way is free, more secure and of better quality?
If Microsoft went under in the operating system area, software developers would move to Linux and the computing world would be much better off.
Ok, i told myself i wouldn’t get involved but here goes.
I work for a mid size white box computer supplier. As it stands at the moment about %85 of the computers we sell (either in parts or compleat) come with a microsoft OS. Of those systems about 1/3 are shipping with 64bit vista. less then %10 come with XP. Judging by our sales within 6months most will be 64bit with 32bit being the excption.
Based of our service stats, Of the systems we receive for repair about %53 have virus and spyware problems. Of that %53, about %87 are windows XP machines and %11 are running Vista. Of the Vista machines most are minor fixes and and can be cleaned without a reinstall. (its worth noting that almost all of the vista machines infected had User Account Controls turned off). Most of the XP machines that come back have to be reinstalled.
Like it or not Vista is WAY more secure and resistent to viruses then XP.
Almost all of the new hardware we sell nowdays has at least 2gb of RAM (even the mid range has 4gb now) and has no problem running Vista.
It would be my advise that the tech world should stop putting Vista on older machines and then blaming it for running slow. Its like putting XP when it just came out onto a PIII 133MHz and expecting it to run better then 2000/98.
And really, the DirectX 10 issue. We know that games have a 1-2year dev cycle. Its only just now that we are seeing games built on DirectX 10 coming out. You can’t expect it to go faster then DirectX 9 if the game hasn’t been built to take advantage of it.
I’m running Vista x64 with 3gb of ram on a dual core system and its much faster then XP with the way I use my system. On the same computer running XP i would top out with 4-5 copys (each 10+ tabs) of firefox open as well as all the other crap I have running. In Vista i can have that open and fire up a 3d game in a window and treat it just like another app and my computer still runs fine. PS, I have UAC turned on. You just have to setup your system currectly and you get hardly any popups. I get at most one a day.
Why is everybody allways hating on vista. its a great operating system. and if it is running to slow for you, then upgrade your hard ware and stop crying
I work at a Hospital, and we’ve given up on Vista. Basically becos our PACS client software is still not Vista-ready.
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It would be a very long while before we even think about Windows 7.
MS need to ditch backwards compatibility completely and start again with a lightweight, secure and robust version of Windows that ships at the same time as a new version of Office. That alone will help a lot of small and medium-sized businesses move over as well as home users.
They should also give as much help as is necessary to help publishers and driver writers get the best out of the system and investigate some kind of XP-in-a-window emulator application to allow older software to work.
They could even give it a fancy new name. Windows X or something.
Wow dude that is like a MAJOR breakthrough. Very nice indeed.
JIff
http://www.anonymity.cz.tc
Microsoft will always be at the top. The majority of users whom move to OSX or Linux are what you call regular users. They do things like read email, browse the web, listen to music, watch videos, do some photoshopping and use some office product. Now for the “non-regular” users it’s not as simple as finding replacement applications. For example my company runs several in-house .NET applications. They work perfectly and leave us with no reason to consider a non-Microsoft environment, but even in a hypothetical situation it would be almost impossible for us to move to another OS. Now this goes for millions of other people and companies around the world.
I can only predict what Windows 7 is going to be like, and I think that Microsoft is really going to differentiate themselves from their competitors with this release. The obvious and most talked about feature is touch, and considering that not a single competitor has it in desktop OS form, most consumers will be clamoring to use Windows 7. Even though Steve Jobs said that it doesn’t make much sense, Apple will be quick to add touch to the next version of OSX, if it’s not already in the works.
Then there’s going to be Vista SP2 – we remember what SP2 did for XP. So you’ll end up with a rock solid version of Vista that you won’t want to let go of, kinda like XP.
The thing about Windows 7 is that they can’t over promise and under deliver – they’ve learnt from their mistakes, and this time they’re not promising anything.
I bought a laptop pre-loaded with Vista and I updated it to SP1 through windows update. Till now, I didn’t have any trouble with the OS. everything is very smooth. My linux experience comes from my desktop. I love ubuntu as its stable, smooth and its a great linux distro.
What i expect from Windows 7 is being light. Vista takes lots of space on installation and memory.
My thoughts on Vista, better UI, no doubt, somewhat improved security as well. However for the techie none of these things really matter. Let me put it this way, I never had a problem with XP security and the so called security improvements can already be attained through anti-virus software and windows defender running on XP. So the things that have changed for are primarily around the way I go about doing everyday tasks.
I find that with Vista, the outlook on the user is that the user is not an expert and needs an explanation for everything they are doing. This may be true for some, even most, but for me there is a whole heap of text i need to scan through and find the word with the underline which allows me to do what i want to do.
This approach does not cut it when it comes to business, can you imagine how to give directions for somebody to disable a NIC in vista vs XP. XP would be far more direct.
I also believe that users should not be running with administrative privileges, so what if the UAC component is active? If the user is not aware, and lets face it, they shouldn’t need to be, they are going to approve things anyway.
I must admit that one thing Microsoft got right is the direction they have taken with Windows defender. Here we have a product, which based on community input can tell you if the software you are trying to run is trusted.
For the next version of Windows, if they can somehow work on a way to meet the needs of the techie without dumbing things down and also make it possible for a novice user to understand what they are doing they may get my business. Clearly appealing..or trying to appeal to both markets does not work.
I would expect Windows 7 to be a lot more easier to use for the techie, that is the only way I am going to buy it. Assuming, of course, that I haven’t overly committed my business to Linux or OS X by that time.
laurence, since when is a PENTIUM 133 a Pentium THREE? Being as how you messed up that very simple thing, I have to doubt you. I work at a private college and we rarely have to reinstall xp because of a virus. When vista machine comes in, it turns into a crapshoot. Half the time it needs a re-install. Yes vista IS more secure but once infected, it is much harder to fix. Just remember, if you want a little more credibility, a 133 is a PENTIUM. Pentium TWO started at 233mhz and went to 450. AFTER THAT it was pentium THREE.
compared to windows xp, vista offers no new performance features.
while windows xp was slower than windows 98 and other older versions of windows, windows xp was inherently faster as it supported multiple CPU cores and also supported more memory
but windows xp 32 bit and vista 32 bit have the same amount of memory support , same cpu support, and overall the same hardware support, the only thing that changed is the system requirements being higher due to the extra bloat
and don’t say any thing about vista needing a high end system to run fast. I am not saying vista is slow, I am saying that on the same hardware xp will be faster
other than eye candy and a few UI changes, vista has almost nothing new and most users will never even use any of the new vista features
windows vista 64 bit and windows xp 64 bit also have the same hardware support
the only new feature that is noticeable to the users is direct x 10 (currently a few groups are working on porting it to windows xp )
and with linux, it would be more popular if it was easier for the average user to use. in the time it takes to install a .tar.gz file through command line in linux, i can install probably 5-6 programs in windows because while the linux user is busy typing away commands, I am just double clicking on my installers.
the reason why windows has thr largest market share was because it was able to avoid the command line use (in windows command line is completely optional unlike Linux where it is needed to do basic things thats only 1 or 2 clicks away in windows
a long time ago when every OS was command line based. only a few people used computers, many found it complicated, others found it frustrating but once Microsoft came out with windows and a GUI, it suddenly became popular and everyone wanted a computer
the general public hates command line, and compared to linux or even the mac OS, windows has the least requirements for command line
I use sidux.com (debian based linux) Very easy install.
You can from a root shell apt-get update and apt-get install synaptic
or use smxi script makes the install setup for hardware easier
The best think Windows 7 could do is go back to XP and add some eye candy to it. Vista is TRASH, I have used it for almost 1 year and it still has problems and it is SSSSLLLLLOOOOWWWWWWWWW. They need to abandon Vista and start over upgrading XP. XP is much faster and more stable.
eldar: I know, I was thinking after i posted that that was wrong. I also had a couple of spelling errors there two but i can’t edit my post.
Windows XP in a corp enviroment is way different to a non domain enviroment. For a start its way more secure as you would expect your uses to be runing as a non-admin user. This alone makes it more secure.
For businesses with 100+ PC’s i know know of a couple that are runing Vista at the moment. Most are waiting untill all there hardware is up above the sweet spot so that they don’t have to support a mixed enviroment.
Razor512: Have you ever run XP 64bit? Its a nightmare. Driver support is limited to the minimum. Its unstable and i hate it with a passion. (i had to support a half dozen clients running it as they needed 8gb+ of RAM). (They have all been moved to Vista 64bit by now).
Wow i need a edit button. (Thats what i get for typing with no coffee in me).