Posted on 02/28/2009 11:10:45 PM PST by Swordmaker
It's official, Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system gets the prize for being the most overhyped, underperforming information and communication technology (ICT) project. Windows Vista garnered 5,222 of 6,043 votes (86 percent) entered via the Web to snag top honors in the first-ever Fiasco Awards announced in Barcelona, Spain, today, beating out other contenders, including Google's Lively virtual world, the One Laptop per Child computer (developed by the Nicholas Negroponte-chaired One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc.) and Second Life. Second prize went to SAGA, the oft-malfunctioning administration and academic management system developed by Spain's Catalan Education Department for public school teachers in Catalonia.
Vista was announced in July 2005 and hit the market in January 2007 after a mega PR blitz by Microsoft, which promised it would be a slick, secure successor to the company's popular Windows XP operating system. Vista came with an eye-catching graphical user interface, and Microsoft positioned the operating system's Windows Media Center software as a tool that would make the PC the new hub of home entertainment systems. What Microsoft made less clear was that many customers couldn't run Vista without upgrading their PCs.
What's more, the Fiasco Awards Web site points out, the new operating system was complicated to navigate and had compatibility problems with many programs and hardware drivers, leading many people to just stick with Windows XP. Vista was such a dismal failure that many PC makers even recommended that consumers steer clear of it.
The company's recent introduction of Windows 7—Vista's successor after only two years—indicates that even Microsoft views Vista with disappointment, according to the awards organizers. The lesson, they said: more testing should be done to check reliability and performance before rolling out major product-marketing campaigns.
The purpose of the Fiasco awards is to "promote critical spirit and a positive attitude towards failure, which is a necessary stage in the road to success," say the award's organizers, who are identified on the Web site only as a "group of people linked to the ICT (information and communication technology) sector." The site notes that Thomas Edison made more than 1,000 attempts before inventing the light bulb, "so he learned how not to do it in more than 1,000 different ways."
Other finalists: Second Life (the virtual world's Web software must be downloaded on one's PC, which excludes people who don't own their own computers), One Laptop per Child (a plan hatched by the developed world to bring computers to the developing world at $100 a pop, only they it ended up costing nearly twice that), and Google Lively (a virtual world that relied more on the company's brand than on any interesting features to compete with Second Life; it was put out of its misery at the end of 2008, after just five months of operation).
I haven't noticed any performance issues, course this new box is a Phenom Quad with 4GB, so who knows? I'm on v3.0.0 build 9358 and I've had zero problems with tables or headers/footers, of which probably 50% of my docs have one or the other. My problems are with usability/features. Like in Word, I often search for non printing characters in the search and replace dialog. Tabs are "^t", para marks are "^p", etc. Writer doesn't allow you to do that. The drag-and-drop is significantly more awkward in Calc than in Excel, as well. Annoying little things like that.
I found out that I did not have to go to that extreme, they now have Live CD's that boot up Linux without having to touch anything on your hard drive so you can try it without any worries.
So what are the advantages of Linux over Windows? I mean, can it do everything Windows can? Sorry don't really know much about it...
Kinda says it all, doesn't it? But marketing always takes precedence over technology and Vista is the result.
Nah! That would have to be the Commodore Plus 4... hyped as a "productivity" computer which would include the best C64 word processing, spreadsheet, database, and graphing apps built into its ROM (the "Plus 4" of the name).
When it was finally released instead of four usable productive apps it had a word processor that was limited to 58 lines, the spread sheet was only 16 x 48 cells, a database that was also limited to 48 items and 16 specifics about the item... and the graphing capabilities was only able to draw graphs using a daisy wheel printer!
Can you say "lead balloon?" The inventory was remaindered very quickly to time share resorts who gave away a "computer system" to people who took a tour and listened to the high pressure sales spiel. That's how I got one to add to my collection of Commodore Computers.
I think they meant you must use the same computer to run it every time as it has your persona information on it. They may store some data client side.
Persistent worlds usually save the data server-side so you can play on any computer that has the client installed anywhere in the world as long as you have your account and password names.
They probably did this to cheap out on server space.
I bought some people I know a computer over Christmas with Vista Premium Home Edition. The thing came with 3GB of memory, and cost about $400. No problems whatever. It did everything it was supposed to do, did it quickly, and was nice to look at. The supposed changes to the interface, were minor at didn’t affect usability one iota.
I think this whole Vista fiasco thing is a bunch of FUD and doesn’t reflect what’s really going on. Sure if you install it on a legacy machine, or a new machine with not enough memory, or inadequate video card, it probably will suck, but on a modern, full featured piece of hardware, it’s fine. Don’t believe everything you read. And believe me, I’m not some MS fanboy - quite the opposite.
That’s funny.
I wouldn’t consider One Laptop per Child to be a fiasco, especially since Microsoft went out of its way to try to sabotage the project (since it used a free and open-source operating system rather than Microsoft Windows), the best example being the immense pressure put on Nigeria to cancel a previously-signed order for a very large quantity of OLPCs. The entire point was that the greater the volume, the greater the volume discounts on hardware components, so MS’s actions helped make it cost more. Many hundreds of thousands of them are out there in those countries that resisted MS blackmail, and the children are using them.
M<ore of the same bullshite form FR resident Apple propagandist. And just like dung on a summer day, the usual Linux/Apple fanatics start buzzing around like flies.
For such a “Fiasco”, it’s odd how it is used everyday by people without problems MORE than OSX and all 1000 distros of Linux COMBINED X 2.
You people have become beyond pathetic in bashing Microsoft at this point for no other reason than they exist.
I’ve got better things to do honestly, but I think maybe I should start posting PC-related stories that actually involve something other than mindless MS bashing, Apple propaganda, and FUD, because this is just getting ridiculous.
No problems whatever...
I think this whole Vista fiasco thing is a bunch of FUD and doesn’t reflect what’s really going on...
Could be. Or possibly, just possibly mind you, it might have just a tiny bit to do with the fact that Vista was released a full two years ago and has had a bunch of development, polishing and a Service Pack dropped into it by Microsoft by the time you bought it in late 2008.
Or maybe all the complaints about Vista during its first year of release from users, the tech media, IT departments, game developers, Intel, etc was just people jealous of Bill Gates.
Who knows?
It is NOT "form" me, Van, it is a news article that is being picked up by various news organizations around the world. Should we ignore it merely because it criticizes YOUR favorite company? I found it humorous.
Oh please.
You are likely to post either one of two things:
Some rah rah Apple is so awesome story.
Or “M$ Sucks and here some kooks reason why” article.
This was nothing but an article about a bunch of nobodies that hold a vote for an “award” no one has ever heard of.
And If that award was for something other than something from Microsoft, I can guarantee you you would not have touched it with a ten foot Macbook.
There is never a balance ever. It’s always MS = Bad, Apple = Good.
It’s like MSNBC.
I suppose anything is possible - but my personal feeling is that this was a marketing disaster - not an engineering disaster. Near as I can tell, Vista does what it’s supposed to do and what it says it does. However, anyway you want to slice it, it’s been a PR disaster.
Which is n sharp contrast to Windows ‘95 which was like a Harry Potter release, with people lining up at midnight to get their copies.
We tend to disparage the marketing types, but probably not rightly so. Steve Jobs was a marketer par excellence. Bill Gates was no slouch either. The clowns they got now have done a terrible job at defining their product, generating buzz, and overcoming the naysayers. That’s how I see it.
And again, I have no dog in this fight. I’m typing this on a windoze box, but immediately to my left is a linux box that I’m doing work on.
Oh, please, right back at you.
Invariably, and that includes this thread, you enter with insults. Argumentum Ad hominem is not considered a valid debating technique. You use it, you lose.
NeoOffice is much slower than open office still not terrible but it works
Well Linux cant do everything windows can do and Windows cant do everything Linux can do but for 99% of people they are pretty interchangeable.
Usually the deal breaker for Linux are a few specific apps.. if you *need* visio you cant use Linux (for example)
You know, I didn't know if I wanted to respond to your post just because I didn't know if I had the energy to get into another kinda-necessarily-detailed-but-still-user-friendly description of what advantages Linux has over Windows. But then it occurred to me that I could take the easy way out and let Linux sell itself.
Tell you what, if you have the technical know-how to be able to format and install Windows, you officially have the aptitude it takes to learn Linux. Its occasionally different than than Windows, but just as easy, and usually less hassle. Start with downloading, burning and running a Ubuntu Live CD. The hardest part is you mighthave to tell your BIOS to boot from the CD. This allows you to test drive Linux without touching your hard drive. Biggest hassle is that running from a CD is unavoidably slow.
From there you can get a taste of what a free, fully equipped OS can do for you.
Some of us are unaccustomed to merely clicking the heels and doing whatever Microsoft says to do.
“Invariably, and that includes this thread, you enter with insults. Argumentum Ad hominem is not considered a valid debating technique. You use it, you lose.”
You post almost nothing but FUD bash articles about PCs or Microsoft. Mostly insulting to people, or at least the intelligence, of who use those products.
What do you think, no one was going to comment to the contrary of this repeated theme?
And spare me the “Argumentum Ad hominem is not considered a valid debating technique” nonsense. Every time on a messageboard you challenge this anti-PC drivel, the person pushing it never shows you how you are supposedly wrong, they just try to dismiss what you say as argumentative or insulting to them.
You post almost nothing but FUD bash articles about PCs or Microsoft. Mostly insulting to people, or at least the intelligence, of who use those products.
I challenge you to prove that assertion. If you think that posting articles for the 344 FreeRepublic members (who have REQUESTED to be on the Mac Ping list), most of which have nothing at all to do with Windows or Microsoft, is posting "FUD bash articles about PCs or Microsoft," then you are hopelessly suffering from OS identification syndrome.
How can criticizing a company or an operating system be insulting to people... or their intelligence... unle ss you have your own doubts about your choice in the first place. Or is it YOUR company? Are you actually Ballmer??
Most of the critics of Microsoft Vista are, or have been, USERS of Vista who are relating their own experiences with problems that Vista has caused them. Are all of them misguided, mistaken, or deliberately bashing Microsoft? I doubt it. Where there is this much smoke, there just has to be a lot of fire as well.
Note that I did not PING the Mac Ping list members to this article... and the only comment I made was a tongue-in-cheek statement about Vista now being able to claim to be "award winning."
And spare me the “Argumentum Ad hominem is not considered a valid debating technique” nonsense.
It isn't and you always use it. Your replies are dripping with ad hominem intended to denigrate those who happen to disagree with your position. It indicates you really have no facts to back your position. If you can't attack the facts, then let's attack the person presenting them. Let's look at your first commentary in this thread... I will mark in bold the insults and ad hominem.
More of the same bullshite form FR resident Apple propagandist. And just like dung on a summer day, the usual Linux/Apple fanatics start buzzing around like flies. . . You people have become beyond pathetic in bashing Microsoft at this point for no other reason than they exist. . . mindless MS bashing . . .Your post contained nothing of substance and was filled with insults and slurs to and about hundreds of people, your fellow Freepers, who have not attacked or insulted YOU. You are nothing if not consistent... and that is truly pathetic.
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