Et Tu, Intel? Chip Giant Won’t Embrace Microsoft’s Windows Vista

NY Times ^ | June 25, 2008 | Steve Lohr

[Southack]

Et Tu, Intel? Chip Giant Won’t Embrace Microsoft’s Windows Vista By Steve Lohr

Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft’s Vista operating system, a person with direct knowledge of the company’s plans said.

The person, who has been briefed on the situation but requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of Intel’s relationship with Microsoft, said the company made its decision after a lengthy analysis by its internal technology staff of the costs and potential benefits of moving to Windows Vista, which has drawn fire from many customers as a buggy, bloated program that requires costly hardware upgrades to run smoothly.

“This isn’t a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista,” the person said.

[Southack]

More at link...

[Fractal Trader]

Tech ping!

[littlehouse36]

Sounds like Intel has a chip on its shoulder.

[musicman]

[musicman]

"Sounds like Intel has a chip on its shoulder..."

It seems to be spreading....

[Paladin2]

M$ announced today that support for XP would continue until 2014.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I had always thought a company had to provide support
for 10 years after the last item was sold!

[gitmo]

Most corporations are holding off. XP works fine for them. The difficulties of converting a couple thousand computers and making sure all apps continue to work as desired are not trivial problems.

With a decent firewall, XP is secure enough. We’ve spent years getting the tools in place to administer a network of XP boxes. We’d have to pretty much start over building our array of tools for network management.

[itsPatAmerican]

I had always thought a company had to provide support for 10 years after the last item was sold!

I don't think there are--nor should there be--any laws saying how long a company needs to support a product.

[Paladin2]

Spare parts maybe, especially for autos.

[CaspersGh0sts]

Do you think Microsoft is guilty of making a product in XP that is “too good?”

Or a horrible product in Vista that will outdate a lot of computers (via hogging system resources) and peripherals for no good reason?

Obviously the latter plays into this, but I’m curious how much the former does. If Vista had been much more stream-lined, I’m curious what would have happened.

[gitmo]

If Vista had been much more stream-lined, I’m curious what would have happened.

We went thru some of the same stuff when XP was introduced. The initial expense of upgrading was too stiff, and most companies held off as long as possible. It really wasnt until Service Pack 2 came along that XP began being widely adopted.

Eventually companies will come around. A lot of the really slick Microsoft architecture requires Vista. Shorter development cycles will prompt large projects to be developed for Vista, and boxes running those apps will have to be Vista.

I saw a MS demo last night where a developer could have an app up and running in a few hours that would otherwise take a team several weeks to get going. And it was more reliable, reuseable code. But it's going to require a Vista OS to develop and run it on.

[TKDietz]

Vista is a buggy resource hog. I’m seriously considering spending the money to put XP on all my Vista machines. I’ll save money in the long run not having to deal with all the issues Vista continues to cause. If money wasn’t an issue, I just switch to Macs and be done with it. Screw Microsoft and their buggy software that’s never ready when they force it on us.

[Swordmaker]

Riddle for you: Who wrote the following eMail?

---

Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
...
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg. What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

---

Good description of Microsoft Hell... now, who wrote it?

[twntaipan]

Mr. Bill Gates.

[Swordmaker]

Bingo. We have a winner...

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

Though to be honest, the complaint was not about Windows, but about the web site.

[LTCJ]

Do you think Microsoft is guilty of making a product in XP that is “too good?”

Only in comparison to Vista. Vista is to Micro$oft as McCain is to the GOP.

Bush is the GOP's XP; not somebody you'd be proud to take home to meet Mom but at least she'd let you through the door with him.

[KoRn]

lol!!

[w1andsodidwe]

I saw a MS demo last night where a developer could have an app up and running in a few hours that would otherwise take a team several weeks to get going. And it was more reliable, reusable code. But it's going to require a Vista OS to develop and run it on.

Right more reliable, reusable code. What is it with the reusable code? Code has always been reusable. What the heck is so special about that?

My company is just going through a conversion from GroupWise to Outlook. Novell's Groupwise mail functions are so far superior to Microsoft's Outlook that I really wonder about their analysis process. Everyone keeps telling me how special the calendar functions are, but believe me after you have used Groupwise, Outlook mail is very crude. For example, if I schedule an email to go out in the future, it will only go out if I have the Outlook client running. Groupwise sends from the server. That means I can't go on vacation and stage reminder messages to go out to my team. Unless, of course, I log in and fire up my Outlook client, they are just not going anywhere. What kind of analysis would produce such an unusable useless function?

[antiRepublicrat]

Do you think Microsoft is guilty of making a product in XP that is “too good?”

Not at all. The problem is that XP is "good enough." That requires releasing a next version with enough new features , speed, stability and security to compel people to buy it.

If Vista had been much more stream-lined, I’m curious what would have happened.

Definitely a lot more purchases. Look at OS X. Generally each version gets faster on the same hardware with more features and stability, and people flock to the $129 upgrade. And that's another thing that hurt Vista, too many choices based on "How neutered do you want your copy of Vista to be?"

[antiRepublicrat]

I saw a MS demo last night where a developer could have an app up and running in a few hours that would otherwise take a team several weeks to get going.

I saw one like that with OS X in the early days of the OS where somebody wrote a web browser in Cocoa/ObjectiveC in about an hour.

[big'ol_freeper]

Microsoft is the tech world equivalent of the dinosaur media.

[papasmurf]

“I had always thought a company had to provide support
for 10 years after the last item was sold!”

I was with Honda Motor for a while, and was told the auto industry signed an understanding in the 60’s to that effect to avoid a collusion lawsuit or something. Some States require it still.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

The reason I thought it was 10 years was a company sold us
their complete inventory of spares 4 years after they sold
the last system with the agreement we would guarantee 6
more years of support.

[papasmurf]

Did it have anything to do with MS? I only ask because I bought 10 refurb’d Tablet PC’s, sans OS. Then I bought, online, Tablet PC OEM edition, and MS wouldn’t activate them unless I signed a system builder statement promising support for two years past XP’s announced expiration.

So I’m curious. lol

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

No, it was Seismic oil exploration systems,
new price about $100,000 to $200,000.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

2010.

Microsoft also announced that the next version of its operating system, Windows 7, is scheduled to go on sale in January

. . . a few months after Snow Leopard . . .

Working Group Formed For Royalty-Free Parallel Computing Programming

Apple has proposed the Open Computing Language, or OpenCL, specification to enable applications to access GPU and CPU resources through a C-based language.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
June 18, 2008 06:00 AM

Industry consortium the Khronos Group has formed a working group to create royalty-free, open standards for programming data and task parallel computing across graphics and general purpose microprocessors.

(snip)

"The Compute Working Group potentially will be one of the most significant standardization efforts at Khronos," Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group, said in a statement. "Highly accelerated parallel computation across GPUs and CPUs is essential to many emerging rich consumer applications that will transform the computing experience of diverse users."

The initiative is aimed at desktop and embedded devices, Trevett said. "The day when you will be able to hold a supercomputer in the palm of your hand is perhaps not so far away."

But perhaps not for System 7 users, since Microsoft isn't a member of the Khronos Group.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

ping to my #29.

[rabscuttle385]

Bush is the GOP's XP; not somebody you'd be proud to take home to meet Mom but at least she'd let you through the door with him.

And Obama is the Democrat Party's Windows Me. Looks great on the outside but crashes everything, turns your system into one gigantic charlie foxtrot, and is really just a grand rehash of the worst parts of your past.

I would compare Jimmy Carter to Microsoft Bob, but I might be pushing my luck here.

[Kevmo]

Thanks for the ping. This is as close to a kiss of death as you can get in this industry.

[MichiganMan]

This is as close to a kiss of death as you can get in this industry.

But... but ...some Freepers here have installed it and are using it with no problems so that proves that all of the complaints about it from across the industry are wrong. And besides its been scientifically proven that all this stuff is exactly the same stuff they said about XP.

So everyone stop complaining about it, 'kay?

[gitmo]

I saw one like that with OS X in the early days of the OS where somebody wrote a web browser in Cocoa/ObjectiveC in about an hour.

This was pretty slick. We took a database with about 20 tables and it generated an entire lookup and maintenance app in a couple of minutes. It xrefed every field that could be xrefed, and you could click on the xref fields and chain over to the maint screen for the field. You could add your own theme pages and they would be perpetuated thru the system.

[DesScorp]

“I don’t think there are—nor should there be—any laws saying how long a company needs to support a product.”

A company doesn’t HAVE to support anything. They’re simply stupid if they don’t. When Red Hat ended support for version 9 less than a year after releasing it, a lot of people left.

Microsoft is extending that support deadline because if they don’t, Apple will start making lots of money from corporate sales. They’re an Intel partner now, too.