Posted on 12/01/2006 7:49:10 PM PST by Zakeet
As he took the stage to usher Windows Vista to market, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last week tried to put the software's laborious birth behind him. The company's 71,000 employees -- and the entire PC industry, for that matter -- could be excused for breathing a sigh of relief, too.
"It's an exciting thing to finally be here, and that's probably all I'll say about the past," Ballmer said at the unveiling from Nasdaq's cylindrical high-tech building in New York's Times Square. Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 also were introduced, and 30 more products will follow over the next year, all part of the same technology wave. "This is the biggest launch we've ever done," Ballmer said. Microsoft will spend $450 million marketing it all.
Yet for all the design missteps, overly ambitious plans, and personnel changes that led to a five-year lag between versions of Windows, questions about the future of Microsoft's software are top of mind for customers and partners. Ballmer swears to never let as much time elapse between Windows versions; the question now is how the company can keep churning out innovative products on a compressed timetable.
"Vista is the last of the Big Bang operating system releases from Microsoft," Credit Suisse research analyst Jason Maynard wrote in a report last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
Someone please send up a warning flare before the old-timers start the vi vs. emacs flame war.
You are right, but I did not want to get that deep.
You are welcome.
LOL...Too Late!
I agree, but is it cheaper than running a mac item for item software and hardware. More options in my opinion.
Thanks. I love finding great free software that does it's job as advetised and makes my life easier.
There are a lot of ways to calculate cost. The biggest variable is how much value you place on your own time. I'm not second-guessing your calculations, just explaining my own and trying to broaden the discussion a little.
For example, I don't change my own oil any more. There's a place down the street that will do it in ten minutes for thirty bucks. When I weigh that against an hour of my time, crawling under the car on my decidedly un-level and uncomfortable driveway, and then having to wash off oil from my elbow down because the plug-nut ALWAYS falls into the drain pan where I have to retrieve it, oh, who the hell needs the aggravation.
And don't get me started on the filter. The oil filter wrenches never seem to work quite right, because the last guy to change the filter used air tools and torqued the hell out of it. So the only way to get the little bastard off is to stab it with a screwdriver and use that leverage to twist it off. Which gets more oil on me and spills a bunch onto the manifold, so I get to enjoy the smell of burning oil for the next hundred miles or so.
The worst Jiffy-Lube waiting room is more comfortable than my driveway on its best day. And I can bring a book.
Malfunctioning computers don't usually douse me in petroleum products, but they take more time and can be more frustrating. The more time I can spend solving problems by using the computer, and the less time I spend solving computer problems, the greater my sense of inner calm. And for that, I'll pay a few bucks more.
"The Vista "feature" that's a deal-killer for me is the new limitation on the number of installs on "new" machines. Vista limits you to two, and then you're forced to buy a new copy of the OS. I build my own machines and I usually upgrade motherboards, CPU's, etc. about every 18 months to two years. After my second new motherboard in the same computer case, Vista would not install/activate, under the "assumption" I was trying to install the OS on multiple machines. This new activation policy is simply corporate thuggery."
Yeah, but I think the real killer long term will be "virtual" machines. If I've got a quad core, and virtualize 4 different machines, I would guess I'm out 4 licenses. Pretty soon they will go to 8 core, what happens then? Say you virtualize your home, you have 1 machine that is multi-core, and a bunch of machines that are in essence terminals, how much am I out then? Now say I try to reinstall one of the virtual os's a couple times, running on the same motherboard/IO/video hardware? Now say my dumb terminals all have multi cores, all virtualized?
Now install MS Office on each virtual system, also sql server, visual studio, etc. Now run the whole shebang as a hot swappable grid (unix was the source of grid software, have to use a clipped MS version)..
Now add in DRM costs during the course of reinstalls.
Ok, someone compute the license costs for a 5 machine system as described using Vista etc. I'll hold my breath - not!
Linux cost =$0
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Microsoft changed that due to outcry. Its now like the XP license.
Not that I know, I've run pirate XP since day one. But, I'm in the market for a new laptop and they will send me a legit Vista copy, which I can use on my home PC.
I don't normally pirate, but with Micro$oft, I don't feel guilty about it.
Microsoft's prohibitive licensing is what kills their clustering strategy. From your link:
"A lot of them have shied away from cluster computing because the barrier to entry was just too great up to now.”
Microsoft can steal clustering and grid code from Unix with ease, what they can't do is free up the licensing because that would kiss their profits goodbye.
ping
Flight Sim X is very good, but a serious resource eater, have a very powerfull machine if you wish to use it.
As for Office, why spend money on Office? Just download Open Office (www.openoffice.org) and run a better set of office programs that are 100% compatible with Microsoft Office.
I started running CHKDSK /r regularly on XP a few weeks back. This led to a noticeable improvement in responsiveness.
It's a ponderously slow nag-screen nightmare that looks pretty. I happily went back to XP Pro after 2 months with the final beta release turkey.
How bad did Apple screw up to lose to these guys?
"Cheaper' item for item is another. As a previous poster mentioned, TCO is important.
But also, on hardware alone, Apple is now, arguably, quite competitive..
But my main point was that if you don't need a ton of options - if you just need browsing, email, spreadsheet/WP/Office - and you're not a gamer - why put up with all the hassle?
I think this covers a lot of folks who use Windows; I don't understand why they put up with it.
Anyway.. thanks for your reply, and for helping those Window's non-techies keep up and running and posting to FR...
I upgraded to IE 7 yesterday (which I now hate) and when I looked at my Program thingy, Napster was on there. I am positive I didn't download it from anything else, so XP must have put it on there in the download. I wasn't asked to verify anything, or else I would have said no.
Lo and behold, what comes through my PayPal account today but a charge to activate Napster to Go. I should add that in the past I have downloaded from Napster, but that was a least a year ago and I did pay with my PayPal account, but only used Napster Light; and I sure as hell did NOT activate it yesterday.
You can believe this: I am going to raise holy hell about that with everybody concerned.
At home I've been loyal to Netscape for years.
I'm used to it. I like the way it works, and there's nothing 'hidden' in it.
They don't bug me with incessant requests for personal information, either.
L
The M100, M200, and NEC 8201 were rugged and reliable, and had longer battery life than most current laptops. They were great little computers for their era. I had both an M100 and a NEC 8201.
I recall reading that the BASIC in those computers was the last programming project for which Bill Gates actually wrote code.
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