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.”

[marajade]

Why should MS write drivers for third party hardware and software?

[ekwd]

The old sw still ran. Just slowly.

I'm not sure which "old" software you are talking about. If it's old Windows software, I don't find that surprising, since, in my experience, software designed from the gitgo with an OS in mind runs better on the OS. If it's pre Tiger apps on OSX, well Apple users would have you believe there are no problems.

[ReignOfError]

I'm not sure which "old" software you are talking about

PowerPC software that hasn't been re-compiled for Intel yet. It runs slower and has more "bounces" before it fires up.

If it's pre Tiger apps on OSX, well Apple users would have you believe there are no problems.

I don't know who told you that. No machine has zero problems Macs have fewer than the alternatives.

[Riley]

Tactics II in the early Seventies, later Panzer Blitz, Panzer Leader, and finally Squad Leader. GHQ Microarmor, Harpoon, with miniatures.
SL finally lost me; I got tired of keeping track of dozens of variables. I finally got rid of my old copy of Campaign for North Africa. All that survives is an old copy of Avalon Hill’s ‘1776’, which is sitting on the shelf, next to me.

I got back into it with Steel Panthers. Now that the WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2 are around, I still play. I have a 1943 Northern European invasion ‘what if’ campaign going on right now. Taking losses digging Fallschirmjaeger out of the hedgerows. :-)

[Blue Highway]

Anyone know when the Service Pack 3 is available, if the download will be a free upgrade?

[Blue Highway]

I just started reading the thread, but I am sure Swordmaker will be by if he hasn’t already.

[ReignOfError]

Most mission-critical applications still run on mainframes. Almost every bank, insurance company, airline, hospital, and government entity that provides vital services uses a mainframe. Which is not to say that distributed systems aren't growing in importance, or that they won't eventually edge the big iron out. But at this point, legacy still rules.

1) You're describing big business. 75% of the economy is in small businesses.

B) The definition of "mainframes" has shifted radically. your average "mainframe" today is a row of rack-mounted PCs. Even Cray has gone to massively parallel multiprocessing. The vast majority of IP addresses are allocated to machines that would fit in the trunk of a Volkswagen.

IBM and IBM COMPATIBLES made inroads into business.

IBM opened the door. The clones rode the coattails. That was what made Microsoft the juggernaut it is today -- when it sold DOS to IBM, it retained the right to sell it to others.

Xerox, TRS, and Texas Instruments were already there, but couldn't carry the clout IBM did. When Blue stepped into the game, the PC came of age.

Don't forget Apple. Desktop computers were seen as toys, or as ways for the little woman to organize her recipes; they didn't become serious business tools until they had the IBM name. IBM stands for International Business Machines. That neatly summarizes their reputation.

To make a breakthrough, a new technology needs a "killer application" -- one use or one piece of software that, all by itself, justifies the cost of the device. For the IBM PC, the killer app was Lotus 1-2-3. Word processing, spreadsheet, and -- primitive as they were back in the day -- graphics.

Unfortunately for IBM, its own models were overpriced and underpowered, so they eventually lost their market share to the Dells and Gateways and Compaqs.

That description of what happened is a little simplistic. IBM thought it could control the desktop market as it had controlled the mainframe market. Compaq was the first company to reverse-engineer the IBM BIOS -- not to make a cheaper PC, but to make a "portable" one (suitcase-sized and about 20 lbs.)

IBM fought that through the courts, and lost. So the clones walked in the door IBM had opened.

However, the operating system they used -- compatible with the Intel chipset -- became a de facto standard.

True. IBM made three key mistakes that caused it to lose its ownership of, and eventually any position in, desktop computers. (1) they used off-the-shelf components. (2) they used a BIOS that wasn't copyrighed and could be imitated, and (3) They bought an OS and didn't buy it outright. So they built a machine anyone could build, running an OS anyone could buy.

I was a kid spending the summer in Silicon Valley in the summer of 1981. We were spending the summer with a friend of my mom's, a engineer at Intel. At dinner one night, the wild rumor was that IBM was planning to sell a microcomputer. That's what they were called then. A few months later, here came the PC.

Yep. Then IBM decided it didn't need Microslop so it came up with OS2, a better OS by the way. But nobody bought it, even though it was part of IBM's Enterprise Service Architecture. DOS, which was really just a rip-off of Unix, continued to run most of the world's PCs in one form or another.

After the failure of OS/2, IBM joined Apple to form another OS -- called, at various times, Taligent or Pink. After that effort collapsed, Apple went running to Steve Jobs and bought NeXT. Jobs came back to Apple with not only a new OS, but with his old mojo.

From the day OS X was released, there was a hush-hush parallel effort to develop it for Intel processors. The kernel was ready there, in the form of NextStep. When they finally got sick enough of Morotola's failure to deliver speed gains, Apple was ready to switch.

According to Silicon Valley lore, IBM was ready to buy the rights to CP/M, but its developer, Gary Killdall, was out fluing his Cessna and didn't want to interrupt his fun to meet with the suits from Armonk. So they went to Bill Gates.

>>>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.

Exactly. Java has had a lot to do with that, as well as Microslop's arrogance about its marginal products. My next machine will run Linux; most of the machines at work run some form of Unix. Microsoft's days on top are numbered.

Java is certainly a facto. I think bigger ones are open standards in general -- POP, SMTP, HTTP, HTML, XML, CSS. Most of the things that most people do on their computers most of the time, they can do on any platform without breaking a sweat. So M$'s main marketing tool -- "It's compatible" -- is moot.

[neverdem]

Thanks, bfl

[IronJack]

Very cogent points, all. Suffice it to say that nobody will own a stranglehold on the software business in the future. Open systems are just too good, too available, and too cheap for the monoliths to compete.

Right now, we're looking at a product that will monitor some WebSphere stuff we're developing. The product is more than $100K a year, plus maintenance. The learning curve is ungodly. We could build a pared-down version that would deliver the same functionality for a tenth of the cost, using Java, MySQL, and TCP/IP developed on an Eclipse platform. All that stuff's free.

[Conan the Librarian]

Try checking out multimanpublishing.com. They are sort of the heirs of Avalon Hill. Then there is decisiongames.com the heirs of SPI.

If you are interested, try consimworld.com. A community of wargamers.

I never got CNA, but, MMP published a version, same scale, that is actually playable.

BTW, MMP is partially owned by the pitcher Curt Schilling. He is an Advanced Squad Leader fan.

[ekwd]

PowerPC software that hasn't been re-compiled for Intel yet. It runs slower and has more "bounces" before it fires up... don't know who told you that. No machine has zero problems Macs have fewer than the alternatives
If a program runs slower and has more "bounces" on Windows, it would be the subject of endless threads like this one slamming Microsoft.

[primatreat]

Gave my LISA to a Quaker middle school a few years back... Keeps going,going.... My 1985 macdrive gave out though.. 10 megs and cost 2 grand.. How times have changed... I have 3 or 4 older power books you are welcome to if you email me. Gots lots of stuff is you need stuff. We have 34 macs in the business plus 2 u1 servers running 10.5... really neat on time machine for email, etc for the customer service folks.

[bcsco]

Installing XP itself went generally okay, but left me without most drivers, like USB, network, sound card, video, etc, etc. The system still worked, albeit with no network, low screen res, USB 1.1, etc.

Did you first format the HDD then install XP? Or is the above because you installed XP on another partition? I don't understand why installing XP would come out only a partial install.

Forgeddabout gathering the drivers from DELL; they must have aggreements w/ MS that the machine is vista-only.

This is also likely for others (i.e. Best Buy) I'd assume.

Other users have now gathered all the required drivers and put them in single packages for download. The bottom line: Everything works now with no "yellow-flag" hardware.

So, you're saying, XP can only be installed 'partially' on a former Vista machine, but the balance (drivers, etc.) can be obtained from sources online. Is this correct? What are those sources?

[bcsco]

VT, SWTAATATPKWTM

ROTFLMAOAD!

[ovrtaxt]

lol you guys were into it! I just played D&D over bottles of everclear with my geek buds, and inhaled much lead action-figure paint in those days.

[Richard Kimball]

According to Silicon Valley lore, IBM was ready to buy the rights to CP/M, but its developer, Gary Killdall, was out fluing his Cessna and didn't want to interrupt his fun to meet with the suits from Armonk. So they went to Bill Gates.

I think the actual background on that was that Kildall, being a free spirit, was pretty difficult in negotiations. IBM was also a collection of jerks and suits. For example, they required at the start of negotiations that other parties sign an agreement stating that the other parties wouldn't use information IBM discloses, but that IBM could use all information from the meeting. I think the actual truth is that Gates was simply a far more savvy businessman, and was able to hammer out a deal when Kildall wasn't.

[steadfastconservative]

My Mac can do any job I need it to do. Moreover, the newer Macs can run Windows, which means that they run the same programs that PCs. Of course, there aren’t any PCs that run the Mac OS so I guess the advantage here would go to Apple.

[ReignOfError]

If a program runs slower and has more "bounces" on Windows, it would be the subject of endless threads like this one slamming Microsoft.

Sure, it would. Is. Has been. Every revision and every service pack causes some programs to, as my developer friends so delicately put it, s--t the bed.

I should explain the "more bounces" for anyone who's never used Mac OS X. When an app is in the process of launching, its icon bounces up and down in the dock. "More bounces" means that the app takes longer to launch -- just that and nothing else. It's not necessarily true that the application will be slower or less reliable once it's running.

[Casaubon]

never said they should.
however...most devs (like this geek ) normally get the dev pack for vista...which i did.

the time between the developers ability to create drivers for vista and vista’s release, add direct x 10, dotnet3 and a host of other hurdles.

basically Microsoft called for a pot luck lunch for the customers on friday. Gave the 3rd party devs the menu on Wendsday. Showed up on thursday Before anyone else could bring their food to the table. Customers only got part of what they needed.

lord i pray for microsoft to get the next server OS better then this.

[an amused spectator]

Blackboard has had serious compatibility problems with Vista.

Ouch! Blackboard is BIG on a lot of university campuses.