Posted on 10/24/2009 3:43:52 PM PDT by SmokingJoe
Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7, is on course to break sales records following its launch today.
The online retailer Amazon said that it was the “biggest grossing pre-order product of all time”, having overtaken the likes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Nintendo’s Wii.
Speaking at the launch of Windows 7 yesterday, Jeremy Fennell, Category Director at DSGi, which owns Dixons, Currys and PC World, said: “We have sold more copies of Windows 7 in three weeks on pre-order than Vista sold in its first year.”
At midnight, queues could be seen outside stores as computers users got ready to upgrade their PCs to the new system as soon as possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at technology.timesonline.co.uk ...
Um, "Snow Leopard"? At US$30 for the upgrade to SL, I can see myself doing it at some point on my home computer, in the meantime, my corporate refresh notebook MBP has SL and I have zero issues with it and current refresh notebooks with Microsoft Windows come with XP. That should tell you something.
That's going to leave a mark.....All you MS haters and Liberal koolaid drinking Mac cultists are going to have trouble sleeping.
Of course Rush uses Mac, but I think he should go into one of their stores and see where they have their political heads firmly rooted.
And looking at actual statistics, PC’s still outnumber Mac by more than 10 to one, for a good reason.
I installed it, had issues with the network printer and the sound not working right away, had to seek out the drivers for those, but after that, so far so good.
That's my impression too, but don't try to tell the microsofties that.
I'm typing this from a Leopard MBP and I am in no hurry to upgrade the OS. My work MBP is Snow Leopard and it's nice, but heck, it's just a great a piece of hardware any way you look at it.
I'm a Linux guy. I've worked on making Open Source operating systems a reality most of my adult life. I really, really like what AAPL has done with OS X. Really, really like it. It combines user friendliness that my wife loves (and I enjoy) with all the Unix goodness I demand from an OS.
Perhaps if Microsoft hadn't reintroduced things which had been identified as Bad Ideas years earlier, there wouldn't be such a problem?
Put down the crack pipe Joe. AAPL never invented anything. All their GUI they took from Sun & Xerox. Microsoft has only copied AAPL (and AT&T) in a hopeless game of catch up.
Hey, a hundred billion flies can't be wrong either.
They didn’t reintroduce anything. The problem is they have an OS that never had communication with other machines at its root. Even when they went to an NT base that DOS mentality of making the administrator god still infiltrates the OS. Of course most of what we’re hearing from outside the Windows world is your basic non-nerd user tends to run under the most powerful account they can get their hands on, whether it’s Windows Mac or Linux people like the god account. Computers are just like buildings in that regard, in the end it’s the PEOPLE that are the biggest security risk.
Then it's too bad they decided to use the crappy API from their consumer OS in order to make it easier for programs to operate on both systems. It wasn't originally headed in that direction, but Gates decided to do that with the popularity of Windows 3.1, dumping the API in the middle of the project. Good business decision, bad design decision.
There have always been equally good, much lower priced MP3 players from Sandisk, Creative and a host of others
There weren't any good ones until the iPod came out. Being the first popular one has its advantages in brand recognition and loyalty. It's the same market inertia that keeps Windows going. Plus, nobody's quite got down that overall ease of use and sense of quality and attention to detail that Apple did.
On the Windows side, riding on IBM got DOS/Windows pervasive in the market, which achieved that inertia.
You were in effect using an absolute.
Sorry, "more usable." Windows 7 did some good things, especially in fixing the downward usability trend of Vista, but it's still not up to OS X in usability.
Apple isn't always the first one to do it. Apple is often the first one to do it right. Backups sucked until Time Machine. Virtual desktops sucked until Spaces. Switching between apps sucked until Expose. Desktop search sucked until Spotlight. Smart phones sucked until the iPhone. Digital music players sucked until the iPod.
Apple and Microsoft were founded at around the same time, take a few months.
Four things happened: One, IBM used DOS instead of CP/M because Kildall was being difficult (DOS was a cheap copy of CP/M). Two, IBM pushed DOS to the businesses, and everything else followed. Three, the PC was meant to be as closed as Apple's computers were, but Compaq reverse-engineered the BIOS in a clean room, freeing the hardware. Four, Gates retained the rights to sell DOS to others because IBM didn't think the OS was important.
Notice none of those reasons has anything to do with high quality of the Microsoft products.
So if anyone was in at the start of the PC age, it was Apple, not Microsoft.
There were a lot of personal computers around the same time as the Apple II: Commodore, Radio Shack, Atari and TI. There were even some before, like the Datapoint. As you mentioned, Microsoft was even involved in that.
Now you are talking nonsense.
I showed you exactly how, with specific design decisions relating to poor quality, but also helping marketshare. Apple's decision to completely ditch the antiquated OS 9 is the main reason for the high quality of OS X.
W7 is a welcome relief! I’ve been using XP but a few advanced features were missing, like extending the boot volume and mirrored volumes. It is also much, much faster.
Stupid analogy.
8 million beta testers have actually used Win 7 over the past year, and found it to be an excellent operating system. So effecyiveky, everyone knows someone who has been using Windows 7 for months, or knows someone who knows someone who has, and so on. The positive word of mouth and buzz for Win 7 has been incredible. That beats the albeit positive reviews from the “experts” or the media, and makes Apple's pretty, weak, pathetic attempts at FUD ineffective and laughable. It would also explain the record pre-orders that Win 7 had. By the end of December, Win 7 would probably have sold more units than all the Apple sold macs in the past 10 years!
ROFL!
What Apple does is to makes a heck of a lot more noise than anyone else, when they include a feature, that has been in other operating systems for years, . And Jobs usualy flat out lies, and pretends they were the first to do it. Meanwhile, the Apple sheple, who are more fanatical than Al Quaeda fundamentalists, will sallow every bottle of Kool Aide that Jobs hands them. Their usual reply to a barked out commend from Steve Jobs to jump is “How high?”.
It helps(in a creepy kind of way) when you have an army of rabid fanatics, a lot of whom think a lot more of their operating system, than they think of their wives.
“One, IBM used DOS instead of CP/M because Kildall was being difficul”
You left out the other part of that equation: IBM DID offer Kildall’s CP/M as well. A lot of people conveniently forget that little fact.
“Two, IBM pushed DOS to the businesses, “
Together with With CP/M
“Three, the PC was meant to be as closed as Apple's computers were, but Compaq reverse-engineered the BIOS in a clean room, freeing the hardware”
There have been mac clones as well. It was the same Steve Jobs who killed the mac clones business. Even as we speak, Jobs is busy trying to crush another mac clone maker.
“Four, Gates retained the rights to sell DOS to others because IBM didn't think the OS was important.”
Apple has always had the rights to their OS, and like I said before, they did sell their OS to clone makers for some time.
“I showed you exactly how, with specific design decisions relating to poor quality, but also helping marketshare”
Nope.
“Apple's decision to completely ditch the antiquated OS 9 is the main reason for the high quality of OS X”
Now you are contradicting yorself.
You can't on the one hand claim that “poor quality” is the reason why Windows sold so well, while at the same time claiming that Apple had to ditch the poor quality OS 9 in order to increase their market share.
For one example, show me a backup system prior to Time Machine so easy to use that any idiot could both get it reliably running and retrieve his files.
You left out the other part of that equation: IBM DID offer Kildall’s CP/M as well. A lot of people conveniently forget that little fact.
No, we remember that fact. We also remember that IBM charged much more for CP/M.
Together with With CP/M
IBM pushed MSDOS. CP/M and p-System were expensive options. They faded quickly due to that fact.
There have been mac clones as well. It was the same Steve Jobs who killed the mac clones business.
Wow, and look what happened to the value of Apple during that time. Look what happened to IBM's slice of the PC market after the clones took off, too. Oh, I forgot, they're not even in the market anymore.
Nope.
Yes. An advanced API for NT was ditched mid-production to be replaced with a 32-bit version of the 16-bit Windows 3.1 API. This was done at the order of Bill Gates so that Windows 3.1 applications could be run on NT, and NT developers wouldn't have to learn two completely different APIs to develop for the two different systems. That was a business decision to encourage development and increase the popularity of NT at the expense of what could have been a new, advanced API designed by Cutler and his team.
You can't on the one hand claim that “poor quality” is the reason why Windows sold so well, while at the same time claiming that Apple had to ditch the poor quality OS 9 in order to increase their market share.
The poor quality didn't sell Windows. The business decisions did, but some of the core decisions made were at the expense of quality. Apple went the opposite direction. They were willing to suck up application incompatibility and angry users and developers in order to produce a better operating system.
This lessened backwards compatibility is one of the things Microsoft did partially right with Vista, but it was also a source of complaints. Instead of sticking on principle Microsoft caved.
I have another secret one for you. Riddled throughout the NT code are hacks, and I mean literally labeled by the developers as hacks. These hacks are meant to allow various non-conforming applications to run. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of these. When an app didn't conform to the API and thus had problems, Microsoft didn't just tell the users to talk to the vendor, Microsoft actually put hacks into the OS to fix it.
That is not a good thing from a development standpoint.
Apple had to ditch the poor quality OS 9 in order to increase their market share.
Apple ditched OS 9 because they knew the architecture couldn't be improved enough to meet their expectations. They realized that in the mid 90s. Too bad Microsoft won't do that for Windows. Windows 7 was supposed to be something like this, mostly rewritten. But then Microsoft's interim release to keep the cash flowing after XP ended up being a huge five year-long project (Vista) and they decided to make 7 just an incremental build on that.
Apple had the same problem with their Copland OS as Microsoft had with Vista. It was just taking too long and it wasn't working right. So they ditched it instead of forcing it to market as a broken product.
For one example, I will show you how 64 bit computing had been done, and done excellently on DEC Tru64 UNIX, other versions of Unix, and on Windows, long, long, before Apple did in OS X Leopard.
“We also remember that IBM charged much more for CP/M.”
Yeah? Now why don’t we go back to what you said, and I quote:
“One, IBM used DOS instead of CP/M because Kildall was being difficul”
The operative word here being “INSTEAD”.
Merriam-webster:
instead
1 : as a substitute or equivalent
2 : as an alternative to something expressed or implied : rather
You were in effect, saying IBM used Dos, without CP/M.
“IBM pushed MSDOS. CP/M and p-System were expensive options. They faded quickly due to that fact”
They still offered CP/M. Period. If CP/M was as superior as you claim it was, it should have sold even at a higher price. Plus CP/M was the established OS, with all the market/mind-share share at the time.
“Wow, and look what happened to the value of Apple during that time”
I am not bothered about that. It was you who claimed that Dos/Windows was successful because “Three, the PC was meant to be as closed as Apple's computers were, but Compaq reverse-engineered the BIOS in a clean room, freeing the hardware”
I am pointing out to you, that there were mac clones too. If all it took to succeed was the clone market, the mac should have been selling as much as Windows PC's when they had the clones.
Wow, repeating what I tell you back to me. How inventive.
“One, IBM used DOS instead of CP/M because Kildall was being difficul”
So now you're reduced to picking apart my grammar. IBM initially didn't offer CP/M. It was added to the lineup after legal threats from Kildall over the CP/M knock-off Gates had found and delivered to IBM (QDOS, renamed MS-DOS). IBM wasn't happy about this, so they let CP/M languish as a high-priced option that they didn't push.
If CP/M was as superior as you claim it was, it should have sold even at a higher price. Plus CP/M was the established OS, with all the market/mind-share share at the time.
CP/M wasn't necessarily superior, they both had their advantages, I just liked CP/M better. Plus, it was very easy to port programs to MS-DOS since it was basically an 8086 CP/M clone. No real need for CP/M anymore, especially at a higher price.
I am pointing out to you, that there were mac clones too. If all it took to succeed was the clone market
It was too late. It was a desperate reaction to the success of PC clones, but those had already taken over the market. The phenomenon wasn't going to happen twice. In a sea of clones, Apple's fortunes didn't turn around until they really had something to differentiate from the others, and you can't have that kind of control with clones floating around. You really need to temper your general concepts with actual history.
Nt quite.
This is what you said:
““64-bit: Not copied, inevitable. Either that or they're all copying DEC Tru64 UNIX from the early 90s”
And this is what I said:
“ will show you how 64 bit computing had been done, and done excellently on DEC Tru64 UNIX, other versions of Unix, and on Windows, long, long, before Apple did in OS X Leopard.”
That post was to bolster my earlier post that:
“There is not even a single thing on any OSX version, that hasn't appeared in some other operating system before, or been pioneered by someone else before”
You are the one that claimed that :
“Apple is often the first one to do it right”
Well 64 bit had been doe right in almost every desktop operating system and done VERY RIGHT, long before Apple did, yet here was Steve Jobs, cheerfully hollering :”Redmond, start your photocopiers” when he finally got 64 bit into OSX Leopard, even though Apple was one of the last to do bring out a 64 bit OS.
It's a hoot!
Only Steve Jobs can get away with such sheer chutzpah, lies and arrogance, thanks to his army of mindless Applebot Kool Aide drinkers on the internet. It's much worse than the 0bama worshipers. At least the guys at DU seriously question 0bama wining the Nobel Prize when he didn't deserve to win it. As far as the idiotic Applebots are concerned, Steve Jobs can do no wrong, especially when he tells blatant lies.
Nope.
Crammer has nothing to do with it.
Inaccuracies.
When you claimed that IBM used MS Dos instead of CP/M, you were implying that CP/M was not used by IBM.
That was not correct.
” IBM initially didn't offer CP/M.”
Ummmm...IBM DID offer CP/M as an option on their original IBM PC from the get go, when the IBM PC 5150 was introduced in August 1981
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC
“It was added to the lineup after legal threats from Kildall over the CP/M knock-off Gates had found and delivered to IBM (QDOS, renamed MS-DOS).”
Again, CP/M was an option for IBM PC buyers from the start.
” IBM wasn't happy about this, so they let CP/M languish as a high-priced option that they didn't push.
“
INM didn't price nuthin. Gary Kildall did. He thought his OS was superior so it should cost more. IBM merely sold CP/M at the price that Kildall wanted them to sell it at. It was Kildall’s OS after all. He called the shots. He made a wrong business decision, and ended up losing. He's one of the great pioneers of the personal computer industry, yet most of kids these days, don't even know him.
Ummmm...IBM DID offer CP/M as an option on their original IBM PC from the get go, when the IBM PC 5150 was introduced in August 1981
Not quite. The only O/S sold with the first batch of IBM PCs was PC DOS. CP/M 86 and the UCSD P-System weren't made available for something like nine months after the initial release.
I have no experience with CP/M in any flavor, but the lab I worked in at the time was interested in the UCSD P-System (we used the P-System on Apple ][s) and I got a chance to use it on an IBM XT. It was pathetic.
It was a combination of a) the delay in releases of alternatives, b) the delay in the original Macintosh (which had so many stupid hardware compromises that they had to redo the core graphics in assembly language), c) the IBM PC was shipped as open hardware, everyone got hardware specs and could design plug in cards for it, and d) arguably, PC DOS was strong enough that most people weren't looking for alternatives to it once they had it.
Agreed as to your comments regarding Kildall. He is the epic fail of the computer age. #2 would be Scott McNealy.
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.