Xmas PCs Cooler than Macs? Ping!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 07/30/2009 11:59:33 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Ballmer expects Windows 7 to grab share from Apple In a bullish presentation to financial analysts today, Steve Ballmer promised Windows 7 PCs that would 'overturn the conventional wisdom that Apple has the coolest hardware'.
He also described Apple's impact on Microsoft sales this year as 'a rounding error', saying that; "Apple's share globally costs us nothing."
"Hopefully we will take share back from Apple," said Ballmer, "But they sell only about 10 million computers globally so it's a limited opportunity."
Taking a bite out of Apple
Ballmer said that research data showed that Microsoft adverts targetting Apple's prices were working, claiming that three times as many 18-24 year olds now think that Microsoft represents better value than Apple - a reverse of the situation before the commercials ran.
"We don't believe in coming to market like Apple - high margin, high quality, high price. We believe in high volume and low price," Ballmer told the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting. "Investors are pushing us to spend more money on this marketing."
Ballmer also released the latest data on Windows 7: 8 million copies of the release candidate have been downloaded; half of IT managers plan to upgrade to Windows 7 'as soon as it's available'; and 80 per cent intend to move within 30 months.
The Microsoft boss revealed a change in pricing strategy for Windows 7 in developing countries: "We did a programme to cut the price of Windows in emerging markets. The theory was that lower prices would lead to higher attach rates and higher revenues. That theory was wrong, so for Windows 7 we'll readjust those prices north."
He also had a few words to say about open source rivals, noting that: "It's hard to build ecosystem momentum with a chaotic operating system like Linux," and gloating over expected delays to Android-based netbooks.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
“Ballmer also released the latest data on Windows 7: 8 million copies of the release candidate have been downloaded; half of IT managers plan to upgrade to Windows 7 ‘as soon as it’s available’; and 80 per cent intend to move within 30 months.”
Wow, Vista really must suck with those numbers.
I know silly me!
Remember, Microsoft needed vista to suck in order to rebound. Without Carter there might not have been Reagan =-)
Gosh, Swordmaker!
Maybe we oughta sell our Macs quick before Windows 7 makes them totally obsolete and all we can do is use them for door stoppers.
Actually, I really like Vista. From what I understand, if you upgraded to Vista, it was problematic. I got my Vista with a laptop that was made for it and I haven’t had a single problem with it. I think that Apple has been parroting the initial complaints of upgraders for years now and they’ve gotten away with it.
True. Even if Microsoft grabbed all the Apple mac sales every year, it'd only about to about $500 million extra revenue for Microsoft per year, which isn't that much when compared to Microsoft last 12 months revenues that came to approx $60 Billion. This is not so much about grabbing share from Apple, it's about not losing Windows PC sales to the mac.
“We don't believe in coming to market like Apple - high margin, high quality, high price. We believe in high volume and low price,”
Shoulda said, “high volume, high quality and low prices for Windows PC’s..”
“Investors are pushing us to spend more money on this marketing.”
Question is, why the heck did it take Microsoft so long before running attack ads against Apple, after Apple had been running attack ads Against Windows for to the tune of 7 years, with no reply from Microsoft?
“Ballmer also released the latest data on Windows 7: 8 million copies of the release candidate have been downloaded; half of IT managers plan to upgrade to Windows 7 ‘as soon as it's available’; and 80 per cent intend to move within 30 months”
Good, good. But ummm..as an investor, I'd be happy to know total pre-order figures for Win 7 so far in retail as well. I know it's high, but just how high?
“We did a programme to cut the price of Windows in emerging markets. The theory was that lower prices would lead to higher attach rates and higher revenues. That theory was wrong, so for Windows 7 we'll readjust those prices north.”
Bad idea. Adjust the prices even lower south for a lower powered version of Win 7 for the much poorer developing countries.
It has more to do with the fact that Win 7 really rocks!
I should know. I have been using it in beta/RC1 for months.
Not to mention a lot of those wanting to upgrade will be upgrading from XP, not Vista.
I wish I could say the same.
My wife bought a Toshiba laptop in 2008 that gave her nothing but trouble.
(And I had to figure out why stuff would not work, or why this crashes, etc.)
I bought her a Macbook 2 months ago. I had to show her how to work the camera.
That was and is the only tech support she has needed so far.
Too late MS, I already went Mac, I won’t be going back.
Those that stayed with XP will be upgrading with Windows 7. Microsoft will be posting some incredible numbers in the next year. Apple is going to be savaged in the next 12 months when it comes to market share.
I have Vista on my new machine and it’s not outrageously bad. So far only 2 blue screens have shown. My other machines run XP and they’re rock solid. I will be upgrading to 7 on the new machine though.
“It has more to do with the fact that Win 7 really rocks!”
Whoa! Steady Silver. I to have been using the beta for about six months now. I would not go so far as to say that the OS rocks. It is slightly more polished than XP, but it is not that much better. I’m typing this on a netbook running Win 7. Truth be told I do not find it superior to XP. It is more of an incremental advancement over XP. It seems to work ok, but from the users standpoint it is not that different than XP.
Having provided that measured response, I’ll allow that I have 7 on order. On this machine, it seems to work flawlessly, which is far better than the reports I received on Vista. We’ll see if it “rocks” after a year of so.
18-24 year olds are often naive and stupid.
Ballmer thinks everything microsquish does is awesome.
I'm still using Windows 2000, I doubt I will upgrade.
Out of curiosity, I upgraded a spare laptop to Windows 7RC. It’s an older Compaq with a single AMD Turion processor and 1GB of ram. Previously the machine had been running Vista Home Premium.
The upgrade went off without a hitch and with little interaction from me. The machine now runs noticeably faster, boots faster, shuts down faster. I don’t use the machine alot, mainly for coms, but it’s on 24/7 and has yet to crash or miss a beat. This wasn’t the case when it was running Vista.
The 7 interface is nice and clean, and more intuitive than its predecessor. I like it. Microsoft has a winner here.
On the other hand, I just downgraded my main laptop; a dual-core AMD HP with 2GB of RAM, to XPSP3. It now runs way faster than it did under Vista and I find it easier to use too. Sure, I lost the eye-candy but I’ll take performance over eye-candy any day. And I didn’t have to tweak XP to avoid those dumbass UAC prompts. Once 7 is released, and the price of the software comes down, I’ll probably set this machine up as dual boot.
My 2 cents. I bought this puter a year ago, it has vista and I have detested every day I have used it. At the time, it had the most RAM, so it was not a question of going cheap. My most favoritist error.. “not Responding”. Drives me nuts. Never again will I own another MS product. I am going Mac this year. There was that one upgrade that took me offline until I could restore as well. Not another dime for MS OS, ever.
I would.
Best desktop operating system I ever had, even in beta.
“It is slightly more polished than XP, but it is not that much better.”
XP is not even on the same planet as Win 7.
The entire kernel was re-written from XP to Vista, with huge improvements in security and every aspect of the operating system(that's why Vista took over 5 years to make, and Vista used to break a lot of XP apps when it was first launched), and Win 7 really polishes up what was started in Vista.
For gaming, nothing in XP will even comes to close to DX 11 in Win7 when it launches.
” It is more of an incremental advancement over XP.”
Come again?
Even Vista was a heck of a lot more than a mere incremental over XP, let alone Win 7.
“Having provided that measured response”
You mean having done your best to propagate as much disinformation as you could in the shortest possible time, no?
“It seems to work ok, but from the users standpoint it is not that different than XP”
Oh yes it is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.