Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 01/11/08

[TigerLikesRooster]

Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later

A year since the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is cringing at the poor sales of the new operating system. It was initially touted as a landmark new development to reinvigorate the IT industry, prompting expectations of wide-ranging “Vista effects.” Instead, Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs, is stealing the thunder. Microsoft has hurriedly responded by developing a new version of the old XP.

◆ Windows Vista flops

According to market researcher Net Applications, Apple is enjoying the largest-ever share in the global operating system market with Leopard, the newest version. Since its release in December last year, Apple OS including Leopard have gained a market share of 7.31 percent, a record high. During the same period, Windows OS products including Vista saw a drop in their market share ? although their aggregate market share still stands at 91.79 percent. But Leopard is enjoying critical and consumer acclaim, which Vista has signally failed to win.

Major media outlets like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have showered compliments on the Apple OS, which they say is easy and fast. Consumer opinions about Vista have not yielded to Microsoft’s efforts. Tech product reviewer CNET’s UK division picked Vista as one of top 10 “terrible technology products” for 2007.

◆ Microsoft in Agony

Vista cost US$6 billion and a workforce of 8,000 to develop before making its debut in January 2007. It shows a handful of good improvements, especially better security features. But the bundling of too many functions into the OS takes up a considerable portion of the computer memory and causes unexpected hitches like a slowdown in processing speed. The IT giant faced a stream of consumer requests to change the operating system of their computers back from Vista to XP. In Korea, Microsoft failed to win a single corporate customer.

Kim Hyun-jung, an analyst with Tongyang Investment and Securities, said the Vista effect did not happen, and memory chip makers are “suffering from their miscalculation.” Memory producers aggressively increased investment in developing facilities in expectations of Vista effects, but they have yet to see a profit from the investment.

A Microsoft spokesman said XP was only in genuine demand one year after its release. His company, he said, has follow-up plans to boost sales of Vista like the release of a service pack in the first half of the year. But he declined to reveal exact sales figures of Vista in Korea. Despite Microsoft’s efforts, many IT insiders worry because there is insufficient supply of programs that run on Vista. One IT industry guru said the operating system market situation shows that “even the mythical Microsoft monopoly could break down if it fails to meet the demand of consumers.”

[Incorrigible]

That’s too bad. Windows Vista offers much more than XP for Tablet PCs.

Don’t assume everything you read on the internet is the truth.

[an amused spectator]

I am not a "power user". I only need a basic OS. It irrates the hell out of me that it can take several minutes from the time I turn on my computer before it is ready for me to start using it (and do get me started on the several minute shut down which requires me to stand around and wait since every so often a file will not close and I have to close it manually.)

Basic users shouldn't have to have their life sucked up by a box that they bought to make their life easier.

I'm a computer professional, and my main box has only 256Mb of RAM, with a PIII 933MHz processor.

Its speed leaves most people's newer boxes with 4 and 8 times the RAM (and 2 to 3 times the processor speed) in the dust.

45 seconds up and down, that's as much time standing around as I'll accept.

[chilepepper]

I have developed a working hypothesis on software development. When the lines of code exceed 100,000 and the number of arbitrary constants approaches 50,000, no man (or woman, or group of programmers) have any idea about what the program is doing.

that is *precisely* why open source (and Linux in particular) has a huge advantage over Microsoft, and to a much lesser extent, Apple -- and as time goes on and software becomes even *more* complex, that advantage will accelerate.

Because things are in fact so complex, you need as many eyes as you can to look at things. Even with a $6B budget, 8000 pairs of eyes is not anywhere near enough...

if you analyze how the open source community is structured, you see that the effort really transcends international boundaries - not only American, British and Finnish eyes are developing and improving open source, but pairs of Hungarian, Korean, French, Brazilian eyes are looking at the same code and contributing what they can to making it work, all completely out in the open and subject to review by their colleagues.

the economics and motivations of those who contribute to open source are complex - many companies, such as IBM, use the software developed under open source framework to sell hardware. many contributors to open source are trying to establish a reputation to get a better job, others do it because they have picked up the skill at work and are paying back the open source community for times that the net and the community helped them save time on the job...

the bottom line is that software is *so* huge an complex these days is that it requires eyes and contribution from as many people as possible, no matter where they come from...

[Gorzaloon]

I have a laptop I purchased in June that has Vista. I like it, have not had any problems at all.

Out of curiosity, and possible fairness to MS, what kind was it?

We had a lot of local sales on Toshiba Satellite laptops, and all with Vista were returned. If it was a brand-specific turkey, then people should know about it.

[Incorrigible]

Why only 1GB of RAM on a new computer? Keep Windows Vista just turn of the “areo” windows interface:

http://www.vistaclues.com/turn-off-the-fancy-windows-vista-aero-interface/

It will look like Windows XP but give you better security.

[Incorrigible]

Thank goodness! Another reasonable poster!

[MichiganMan]

The problem with Linux is that there are too many versions (around a dozen), which is confusing.

Actually there are more like over 300 Linux distributions in active development, not that that helps alleviate your confusion. ;) Of course the number that are widely known is much closer to your estimate, give or take, depending on how much you follow Linux.

After wearing the wheels off my beloved Windows 2000(due to an idealogical aversion to XP's requirement to "Activate" a product I paid for) I switched over to Ubuntu Linux back in 2005 and have been using it full time since. Its mature, and fully featured. All the eye candy of Vista, if that's your thing, mature and effective security and user management, and tons of free software to do just about everything you need a PC for. Oh, and the OS itself is free, and updated every six months with a brand new version.

Sure, Linux has its limitations, but most have at their base that its not Windows. ie. Gaming: Quake4 and Quake Wars run natively, beautifully, and likely better than they would in Windows due to the lower OS system requirements, but playing Half Life 2 requires tinkering in WINE, and then there are some games that are just going to be a complete no-go. Admittedly, thats a hassle. On the other side, the games that are available are startling in their number and quality. My son is currently hooked on TORCs, a racing simulator.

As for the non gaming utilities, like I said, you can do pretty much everything you want, and probably for free. With modern distro's such as Ubuntu and Fedora, the learning curve for running a desktop linux system has been tremendously flattened, and is now, IMO, equivalent to a new computer user learning XP from scratch.

[relictele]

As John Dvorak has pointed out, games and their insatiable demand for high-end components are a bigger driver of PC and OS sales than many are willing to acknowledge.

DX10 will only run on Vista (MS are too clever by half) and many games either require DX10 or are optimized for DX10.

[bajabaja]

I don’t know how much Leopard (an Apple Operating System) costs, but linux is free. You can download onto a DVD a “live” distribution of linux. (There are several “flavors”.)

Then just boot the system from your cd reader and test drive it. (It will operate more slowly when booted from the disk, but you will still get a good idea of what it is like.)

You don’t have to abandon your MS operating system first.

After some Vista glitch prevented me from listening to Rush on line (I am outside the US at the moment) I investigated LINUX and settled on Ubuntu. (PC/touchy feeley version of Linux, but I have regained operations lost in Vista and am learning linux.)

Hope you find this insprirational. Another Freeper’s suggestion started my journey.

[bajabaja]

Now that is true. Became a linux convert, though I do not have the hostility some linux users have towards MS. Linux is still around 0.7% of the market, up from half that a few years ago. But I found it more stable and reliable than Vista.

[RachelFaith]

There are many sites which can tell you how to do this. I have done it. I have an Acer running both Windows XP and OSX. It is not allowed under the license agreement however to run OSX on anything but Mac hardware. But there are those legal types who say if you paid for the software, what you do with it is your business. Choose for yourself.

[RachelFaith]

Correction of YOUR Correction: Mac OSX does run on MOST PCs. There are dozens of websites which tell you exactly how to do it and where to get any help doing it.

Google OSX86

[chilepepper]

With modern distro's such as Ubuntu and Fedora, the learning curve for running a desktop linux system has been tremendously flattened, and is now, IMO, equivalent to a new computer user learning XP from scratch.

and if you compare the Linux learning curve to Vista, it is probably less.

[RachelFaith]

Leopard costs $125. Tiger costs less and is the better OS for putting on a PC.

[TruthWillWin]

It was a Toshiba Satellite P205-S6237 with a 17” screen.

[ReignOfError]

First Law of Business: If you make a product your customers don’t want, they won’t buy it.

Unless you can squeeze them into it.

In the 1970s, the Big Three US automakers were making, let's be honest, crappy cars. IBM was building pretty crappy computers. But they were the only game in town, and if you went elsewhere, you were hurting for parts and support. You were stuck, captive on the plantation.

It's a different game today. As Sun used to advertise, way ahead of their time, the network is the computer. Mission-critical work is on TCP/IP based servers, accessible by Macs, Windows, Linux, cell phone, or Blackberry. Why discriminate?

In 1981. the IBM PC made desktop computers credible with business; the Apple }{ was popular in homes and schools, but had no corporate cred. Microsoft leveraged its association with IBM, the big swingin' Richard of the day. And for two decades, that was enough to keep them on top -- DOS begat Windows begat Windows 3.1 (the first really usable version) begat Windows 95 begat Windows 98, and so on.

IBM PC/Microsoft DOS became the norm, and held sway because anything else was not compatible. Those days are gone. Any computer can read a PDF. Or HTML. Or CSV, or MP3,. Or even DOC. Open standards are the coin of the realm, and that proprietary jazz won't fly any more.

Microsoft prospered not because it had the best answer, but because it had the most popular. Now, when machines and people are closing in on common languages Microsoft cannot control, its influence is fading.

In this new universe, the next version of windows will have to be, how shall I say this? Good. Which Vista isn't. For a couple decades, M$ could coast on its laurels (yes, I know that's a mixed metaphor) because it held the keys. It would be too difficult and costly to convert from one standard to another.

Today, even M$ has been forced to open its homegrown standards and adopt standards from outside. Windows, Mac, Linux, can all open the same files. Coexist on the same networks. Access the same servers. View the same Web pages. "Microsoft compatible" means precisely jack/squat.

Here and now, in the 21st century, The network is the computer. Windows and Mac and Linux and Solaris mean nothing more than Ford and Chevy and Dodge and BMW. They're all running on the same roads to the same places, using the same fuel.

Microsoft is stuck in the same trap as the Big Three American automakers were in the 1970s. They've been so dominant for so long that they think folks will swallow whatever they ladle. They fail to see that the situation has changed. No hegemony lasts forever.

[antisocial]

BTTT

[AmericaUnite]

Gotta show this to Hubby. He needs more convincing VISTA sucks. And he’s in IT (continuity tests) over a big corporate network.

[bajabaja]

“The IT world lives in a bubble.”

VT, SWTAATATPKWTM. (Very true, starting with the acronyms and the assumption that people know what they mean.)

[catfish1957]

Horrors with Vista is the reason why I won’t buy a new PC. I wonder if the Dells, Compaq’s Hp’s, and Intels have taken notice yet?