Stocks stumble on Microsoft Vista view

Reuters (excerpt) ^ | February 16, 2007 | Jennifer Coogan

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday after Microsoft Corp. tempered revenue expectations for the Vista computer operating system.

~ snip ~

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Balmer said late on Thursday analysts' revenue forecasts for Vista were "overly aggressive." Shares of Microsoft were the top-weighted decliner on the Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.

"Microsoft can't catch a break. We're at 20 million shares in volume already - that's not your grandmother trading," said Cummins Catherwood, managing director at Rutherford, Brown & Catherwood in Philadelphia. "Those hedge funds can't deal with disappointment. They can't afford to wait for the impact to dissipate."

~ snip ~

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Why MS thought letting the NSA work on their code was going to help them is beyond me.

Ray Ozzie . . . Groove . . . Adm. Poindexter . . . NSA . . . and now MSFT. Strange bedfellows indeed!

[AFreeBird]

seemed very telling that he was more conversant on how MS is already working on a new system for 5 years from now,

I read something over on /. or Ars Technica, regarding those plans being 2 years out, not 5. And it was a recent article; like the past week or so, and quoted vista's product manager.

vista has serious problems/issues and EULA and driver issues are just the tip of the iceberg.

If you want a really good read on the issues I suggest A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

[AFreeBird]

It may very well be, but it's a lemon we're going to be made to consume sooner or later.

Only so long as people keep drinking to Kool-Aid without question.

If you want a new machine and your only choice is vista; scream and yell, jump up and down (granted this works best at a retail outlet), get nasty about it and ask for (demand) XP, Linux, or FreeDOS, and install your own previously purchased/downloaded OS.

When the OEM's start getting the idea that people won't put up with the forced upgrades anymore, they'll start giving the customers more options and pushing back on redmond.

But as long as people just "accept it", then, you're right, you will be forced to consume the lemon.

[antiRepublicrat]

The only thing the RIAA did not include was a credit card swiper to take your money each time you turned the thing on.

I guess they figured their up-front money when a consumer buys a Zune was enough. :)

[Constantine XIII]

The NSA's ok for some things. SELinux is pretty dang nice.

[GATOR NAVY]

It may very well be, but it's a lemon we're going to be made to consume sooner or later.

Not a MS hater here, but I'll take later if you don't mind. I'm sure I'll be forced to get it with my next computer, but right now both my desktop and laptop are fairly new and my XP is tweaked, stable and running fine. I feel no compulsion at all to get Vista.

[MadIvan]

I think I should elaborate on my last post - I use Linux at home, and when I replace my laptop, I intend to get a Mac.

Still, I won't be untouched by Vista - I'll have to use it at work or elsewhere. In that sense, we are all going to have to adapt to it.

Regards, Ivan

[Constantine XIII]

"You can actually use a USB 2.0 based thumb drive as system cache if you feel the need instead of just adding more ram. "

LOL, what?

[Constantine XIII]

Well, after the get those NVidia drivers working, anyway, lol.

[AFreeBird]

Well don't just assume that every game publisher is going to rush out and write to DirectX 10. Since DX 10 is vista only, and there are heck of a lot more systems out there not running it, and may not ever be running vista, I don't see them in a hurry to write two versions of every game (one for vista, and one for all the rest) for the windows platform.

I'll go out on a limb and assume the DX 10 will render DX 9 games.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Well waddaya know, the DOW closed,.... UP!

Nasdaq is down 79 cents.

[antiRepublicrat]

In this day and age you're recommending a Celery, especially for a notebook? Kiss battery life goodbye. If you want a bargain basement notebook, go for a Pentium M now that Core is out.

BTW, hope that Acer doesn't come with the LunchApp.APlunch ActiveX control.

[HEY4QDEMS]

It's true, you can, it's call "Speed Drive" and MAC and Linux don't have it.

[antiRepublicrat]

Why MS thought letting the NSA work on their code was going to help them is beyond me.

It'll help Microsoft get government accreditation for Vista faster.

[-YYZ-]

I'm not a MS-hater, but I don't want anything to do with Vista. Dog-slow, resource-intensive, DRM-laden steaming pile, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't even pirate it, nevermind pay for it. I think there's a real opening out there for alternatives who aren't as arrogant as MS, and who aren't in the MPAA and RIAA's pocket.

[AFreeBird]

Fair enough, but I think corporations, large ones in particular, are going to be slow adopters. Most have probably just gotten in their upgrade cycle for XP, and will be in no hurry to buy new hardware for vista, and for any new systems they will still probably require XP until all their system tests have been completed for vista. And lets face it, what compelling business reason will there be to make the switch to vista?

Shiny objects (areo glass)?

Oh the and the EULA? You grant redmond the right to delete (without warning) any programs it deems unacceptable. That could cause some problems with in-house developed, proprietary software. And then there's the phone home and transmit who knows what date back to redmond.

And by the time their current systems are depreciated and allowed to upgrade, the replacement for vista may be out. I think it's going to be codenamed "Vienna". Someone on another forum suggested "Titanic". Now the small business man may make the choice to switch to say Linux, then expend the money for high performance hardware just to run a flashy OS that provides no real benefits to running his business software.

We'll see.

[antiRepublicrat]

LOL, what?

It means you can read application cache from a 25 MB/sec thumb drive instead of from your 40 MB/sec SATA hard drive. On the plus side, latency will be lower, but that's not a big advantage if you just want to pull a 300 MB chunk of application cache into main memory.

[MadIvan]

I'm doing some volunteer work at a museum near where I live - my first task is to get them off of Windows and onto Linux; as they are using their machines for word processing and web browsing, there is no good reason to stick to Windows. I suspect I am not the only admin making this decision.

We will have to encounter Vista eventually, the longer run to it, the better. I saw no compelling reason for it in the first place - XP is a known quantity and fairly standard - this is just bloatware.

Regards, Ivan

[antiRepublicrat]

Well don't just assume that every game publisher is going to rush out and write to DirectX 10.

I definitely won't since John Carmack said he's not interested in DX10 anytime soon.

[AFreeBird]

On one of your posts you were talking about .NET. Just, curious, have you done any work with it on the Mono Project?

If so, what are your impressions?