Why Windows 7 Will Be a Success, Whether Good or Not
Software October 8th, 2009
Windows 7 hasn’t even arrived yet but the speculation started: What’s wrong with Windows 7. To be fair, the speculation is fueled by an unlikely source: Steve Ballmer himself. He is trying to manage a potential fallout by warning us:
“’The test feedback (on Windows 7) has been good, but the test feedback on Vista was good,’ Ballmer, 53, said in an interview last week. ‘I am optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.’”
Indeed. But I actually think Windows 7 does not even have to be good to be a success (and my readers know I am not exactly a MS-fan). Here’s why:
- Vista was such a disaster, that everyone will be happy to escape it. Says Walt Mossberg: In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over. Yes, we’ll be happy to leave that nightmare behind, even if we got raped in the process (had to pay ransom to get out of a failed OS)
- Those who avoided Vista (smart decision), and that includes most of Corporate IT are on a good but ancient WinXP, which will be phased out eventually, so the only choice is to go ahead with Windows 7.
In other words, this OS does not have to be particularly good. This is it, the World will adopt it. And if it turns out to be another dud (which I doubt) well, we will have a few years to ponder why keep on buying software ( and that includes Office and more) from a company that hasn’t been able to produce a decent OS in a decade.
Tags: CloudAve, microsoft, operating system, steve ballmer, vista, windows 7, windows vista, windows xp
Oh, No – Yet Another Windows Release?
Software September 23rd, 2009
Two years ago I wrote: Windows Seven in 2010. Does Anyone Still Care?
I simply don’t get it: Vista is barely out, nobody seems to like it, CIO’s refuse to upgrade, analyst firms tell them to wait, individual users who tried it switch back to XP, others time their new PC purchase so they can still get an XP machine – generally speaking Vista was as poorly received as the ill-fated Windows ME.
Apple is gaining market share, the major computer manufacturers are offering Linux PC’s, the Web OS concept is getting popular, applications are already on the Web – can anyone clearly see the shape of personal computing in 2012? (Yes, I know MS plans for 2010, I’m just adding the customary delay.) Will it still matter what OS we use to get on the Internet? How can Microsoft be so out of touch?
I was right and I was wrong. Right in the assessment, but not foreseeing that Vista would turn out to be such a disaster, that Microsoft would be better off releasing its final version under a new name:
Make no mistake, the accelerated move to Windows 7 is a marketing decision, not a technical one. Vista became such a disaster that Microsoft finally realized no amount of marketing can save it: it was better the abandon the shipwreck and start with a clean slate, a “new” Windows product.
And so it happened, and millions of Vista victims end up paying the ransom to get out of the trap and get the version of the OS that actually works: Windows 7. Which means by late 2009, but mostly 2010 we’ll be where we were supposed to be in 2007. But now, as people count down the days till they can escape Vista and upgrade to Windows 7, Mary-Jo Foley who is always amongst the first to scoop out Microsoft’s plans is already talking about Windows 8, as early as 2011 or 2012.
It’s almost like Microsoft got infiltrated by secret agents who plot to alienate most of their customers. Because it’s hard to imagine why on Earth we would need yet-another operating system. Windows is not an application, it’s a friggin’ operating system whose job is to get us into applications and get out of the way. Assuming Win7 finally works, MS should leave us alone licking our Vista-inflicted wounds, instead of dumping another OS on us. Have they not learned from the Vista fiasco? Users don’t want to upgrade their OS every two years, they just want to use their computers and be left alone. How can Microsoft be so out of touch?
Tags: microsoft, operating system, vista, windows 7, windows xp
Break Free of Vista for a $50 Ransom. Catch Win7 Upgrade While You Can.
Business, Software June 26th, 2009
Fellow Windows Vista victims, there’s light at the end of the tunnel: we may soon set ourselves free and only have to pay a $50 ransom. I just did.
The $50 ransom is not a bad deal. Forget the myriad of Win7 SKU’s and whopping prices all the way to $319.99. I’m calling BS: the real standalone Win7 price is $50 or $100. Period.
Tags: CloudAve, microsoft, operating system, os, vista, vista final, vistasucks, win7, Windows, windows 7, windows upgrade, windows xp, winxp
Blinded by Vista Sales Numbers
Business, Technology August 18th, 2008
This is one of those rare occasions when I can pull up an old post, dust it off, and voila! – I’m done. Yes, I am lazy – but hey, I can’t help, this is one of those “I’ve told you” moments. Here’s what I wrote last year:
Time for a reality check. Product quality, customer satisfaction and market success have very little to do with each other when you have a monopoly.
The Vista problems are real, they are not fantasies created by bloggers. But how exactly are consumers supposed to revolt? They still need computers, and despite Apple’s respectable growth, they still represent a fraction of the consumer PC market. Try to buy a PC today, it’s hard to NOT end up with Vista (even I got one)
Customer demand for Vista? No, it’s customer demand for computers, in a market with no choice. I’m not “making this up”, Donna. It’s all in Microsoft’s 10-Q:
…Client revenue growth correlates with the growth of purchases of PCs from OEMs that pre-install versions of Windows operating systems because the OEM channel accounts for approximately 80% of total Client revenue. The differences between unit growth rates and revenue growth rates from year to year are affected by changes in the mix of OEM Windows operating systems licensed with premium edition operating systems as a percentage of total …
The increased “demand” for premium versions comes from another well-documented fact, i.e. Microsoft’s new segmentation, castrating Vista Home Basic and essentially making Home Premium the equivalent of XP Home – a hidden price increase, by any measure.
A true measure of “demand” for Vista would be corporate licenses and retail sales, and both are behind. But not for long: eventually, after the release of SP1 corporate IT will give in, too – who wants to be “left behind”, after all.
Today InfoWorld burst the Vista Sales Bubble (if you ask me, there never has been a bubble, but that’s another matter): 35 percent of mainly enterprise-class users “downgrade” their Vista systems to XP.
The numbers speak for themselves, let me just add this: next time you look at Vista Sales figures, remember: these customers did not have the choice to buy XP directly, they had to get Vista on their systems, then “downgrade” (upgrade, if you ask me) to XP. But by then their transaction is booked as a Vista purchase!
Vista sales figures are inflated, these transactions were not real purchases, just ransom paid to the monopolist for the privilege to use the OS that actually works- XP.
Tags: microsoft, microsoft monopoly, oem, vista, vistasucks, windows market share, windows vista, windows xp, xp
Windows XP Twice as Fast as Vista?
Software, Technology November 24th, 2007
Ouch. This hurts. Devil Mountain Software, the outfit that had previously declared Vista SP1 a Performance Dud came to the conclusion that Windows XP SP3 Yields Performance Gains – about 10% compared to XP SP2. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the very same tests show the outgoing operating system, XP twice as fast as Vista, the “flagship” OS. No wonder Forrester Research says Vista’s biggest problem is XP. 
Of course most users won’t notice it. Why? Because very few upgrade their existing computers from XP to Vista. We don’t buy operating systems, we buy computers: try to get one without Vista. (Fact: most of Microsoft’s Vista Revenue comes from the OEM channel.)
The Vista-based new screamer clearly runs a lot faster than the 3-year-old laptop running XP, but in reality it’s running at half-speed – the other half eaten by the Operating System. Which proves my earlier argument abut this being a pointless arms race: buying faster and faster machines only so they can maintain themselves and barely let us use basic applications.
Unless those applications are in the cloud. 
Related posts: PC World, Hardware 2.0 and TECH.BLORGE.com
Update (12/14): Coding Sanity has found a solution.
Tags: cloud computing, desktop software, microsoft, vista, vista performance, vistasucks, Web Applications, Windows, windows vista, windows xp, xp
Angry Mom Spanking Ballmer Over Useless Vista
Software, Technology October 10th, 2007
Well, it’s not the Microsoft CEO’s mother – it’s analyst Yvonne Genovese who interviewed Ballmer at the Gartner Symposium.
“My daughter comes in one day and says, ‘Hey Mom, my friend has Vista, and it has these neat little things called gadgets — I need those.’”
Said Ballmer: “I love your daughter.”
“You’re not going to like her mom in about two minutes,” said Genovese, while the crowd laughed.
She went on to explain that she installed Vista for her daughter — and two days later went right back to using the XP operating system.
That must have been one entertaining session. Read the full story at Computerworld. But first, here’s another quote from Ballmer, clearly on the defensive:
“There is always a tension between the value that end users see — and frankly, that software developers see — and the value that we can deliver to IT.”
Yesss. The key word is IT. As in “expert only”. Perhaps it’s time Microsoft recognize that they failed to serve two “masters”, and in catering strictly for IT, delivering a super-secure (?) system they created a monster quite unusable by individual consumers.
I’ve been ranting about Vista enough here, let me just add another gem to prove my point.
It’s probably fair to assume that a lot of Vista (home) users will have at least one older, XP machine around – and if they do, they want these to see these connected on a Home Network. This should be a piece of cake… or not.
- Your Vista PC won’t see the XP ones on the network at all.
- There’s no documentation whatsoever, but after Googling around you can figure out that you need to patch the XP machines (!) for them to be seen by the Vista. (Incidentally, the patch requires WGA, which fails on one of my perfectly legit computers, but that’s another story)
- When Vista still can’t see the networked machines, back Googling again.
- After some research you’ll discover a well-hidden statement that it may take up to 15 minutes for a Vista PC to see a networked pre-Vista one. Fifteen minutes!!!! in 2007!!!!
This is just one example of the many idiocies crippling Vista. Nothing major, just stupid little things that don’t work and there is no easily accessible info about.
Vista is for the corporate world with IT departments, period. I can hardly think of better promotion for Apple then releasing Vista to the consumer market. Oh, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s one from Princeton University (by way of Espen Antonsen)
Update: It’s not just kids anymore 
Update: Ballmer speaks; Can Microsoft be everything to everyone? at Between the Lines. More on the Computerworld Blogs
Tags: Apple, ballmer, Gartner, microsoft, vista, vistasucks, Windows, windows vista, windows xp, xp
Zoli Erdos
