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 ...
If it talks like a mac crazy, walks like a mac crazy, and shills like a mac crazy, it IS a mac crazy.
“Let me repeat: Windows 7 is just Vista”
Let me repeat. Windows 7 is NOT Vista.
It's Windows 7, the most tested in beta by more people, operating system ever. There is a reason its already sold more in pre-orders than Vista sold in it's entire first year. Consumers wouldn't be out there, buying Win 7 in record numbers, faster than any other operating system in history, if Win 7 is exactly the same as Vista. They would simply have bought Vista instead before the Win 7 launch.
Plus 41% of businesses (who have missive IT departments know the difference between Vista and Win 7) plan a wholesale migration to Windows 7 within just the first year alone. That is virtually unprecedented.
Examples, please.
runs more apps than OSX, runs more AAA games than OSX, supports more peripherals and accessories, and its far more useful to me than OSX would ever be.
None of those have anything to do with the features you mentioned, which were more about the architecture of the system itself. And I'm not so sure about the peripherals part. So far I haven't had a peripheral that didn't work on OS X, and some I have worked better on OS X. The install is certainly more simple, like "plug it in" vs. "insert this disk, install this driver" etc.
Way I see it, you gotta be a nuts or an idiot or both, to go buy an overpriced Apple mac.
It's a damn good deal if your time is worth anything to you. But if your time is worth nothing to you, go ahead and waste it.
Do your own research.
Plenty of articles were written in that aspect on tech sites even before Vista came out, which lead to the usual slinging matches with the Applebots. I am sure its not going to be too hard to find if you really wanted to. There is something called a search engine, in case you ever heard of it.
“None of those have anything to do with the features you mentioned”
They don't have to be. They are pure gravy. They add to why Windows 7 is better for most consumer users. That is why Windows has over 90% market share worldwide, and Apple can't even get a 4% world market share after over 30 years in the business.
“which were more about the architecture of the system itself”
This is what my earlier post said:
“It very smooth, solid, and unobtrusive(as any good OS should be). It just lets you get on with your work, without you even noticing it's there. Plus it has some sweet usability features, which you just come to love, and wonder how you managed to do without in Vista.”
Nothing I have said since, changes or goes against any of that. Win 7 simply rocks! And the record early sales figures show just how much consumers have taken to it.
“And I'm not so sure about the peripherals part.”
I am.
Every single accessory and peripheral I have works on Win 7.
“vs. “insert this disk, install this driver” etc.”
ROFL!
I have never had to install any disk for any peripheral of mine on Win 7. If the peripheral works on Vista, it works on Win 7. Just plug it in, and the driver installs by itself. If it's a totally new peripheral, it simply connects to the web site and downloads the drives. Easy.
“It's a damn good deal if your time is worth anything to you. But if your time is worth nothing to you, go ahead and waste it.”
Given that over 90% of the world's computer users, including rocket scientists, top cancer researchers, top physicists, biochemists, and some of the smartest humans on this planet, plus over 95% of the biggest firms on the planet, use Windows to do most of their computer work, your statement just looks laughable and ridiculous.
You made the claim, you at least come up with an example.
That is why Windows has over 90% market share worldwide,
Windows marketshare is about a lot of things, both legal and illegal, but none of them are quality of the software.
And the record early sales figures show just how much consumers have taken to it.
Windows users have been waiting for a usable Windows successor to XP for about eight years. They're buying because there's finally something worth buying.
and some of the smartest humans on this planet
I've seen some of the smartest people become dumb as a rock when it comes to computers.
PC instructions for XP:
Sigh.
I am surprised you never saw the big fights all over the internet when some tech reviewers wrote articles about features that Apple stole from Windows. I suppose I am going to have to help you out, since you can’t appear to be able to use a search engine:
“Apple Mac OS X Leopard Preview: Who’s the Copycat Now?”
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp
Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp
I am sure you will find more if you looked.
“Windows marketshare is about a lot of things, both legal and illegal, but none of them are quality of the software”
Just keep telling yourself that. :)
It never falis to amaze me about the dichotomy of the thinking of Apple fanboys. The Apple fanboys will swear from here to Timbuctu that the iPod has the biggest market share, because it’s superior to every other MP3 player out there. At the same time, the same Apple fanboys will swear with a straight face that Windows has an even bigger market share by far than the iPod has in MP3’s, but then that as nothing to do with quality or the sheer volume of apps that Windows has.
“Windows users have been waiting for a usable Windows successor to XP for about eight years. They’re buying because there’s finally something worth buying.”
Win 7 is an excellent operating system, but that doesn’t no one was doing any work with XP or Vista before Win 7 came out, because they were “not usable”. Both operating systems are very usable. Most of the world’s work which is done on computers are done on XP and Vista, and that has been the case for at least 6 years.
“I’ve seen some of the smartest people become dumb as a rock when it comes to computers.”
Funny. I have seen the direct opposite of that.
64-bit: Not copied, inevitable. Either that or they're all copying DEC Tru64 UNIX from the early 90s.
Time Machine: Apple did not copy what makes Time Machine great, the absolute brain-dead usability to back up and retrieve files. Also, the under-the-hood implementation is completely different, and utilizes the Spotlight indexing and technologies specific to UNIX.
The Complete Package: Not a claim of copying, he just doesn't think it's great.
Spaces: An implementation of something much older than any done by Microsoft, like an 80s Amiga. But again Apple made something simple that was usually too complicated for the average user.
Spotlight: Microsoft announced the general concept early, but then Microsoft announced many things that didn't entirely make it for Vista. In any case, Apple did it first.
Core Animation: Not a claim of copy, he just doesn't find it impressive. Same for Accessibility Improvements, Mail, Dashboard improvements and iChat.
The Apple fanboys will swear from here to Timbuctu that the iPod has the biggest market share, because it’s superior to every other MP3 player out there.
Windows had some unique circumstances with Microsoft being in the beginning of the PC age backed by big IBM. One of the reasons it is so popular is directly related to poor quality. NT was supposed to be better than it turned out to be, but Gates wanted to use the antiquated Windows 3.1 API. All the way through you will find examples of this backwards compatibility hurting the quality and stability. But that kept people buying the product since they could use their old stuff.
And then there's that little anti-trust conviction issue.
MP3 players had been out for years before Apple got into the market. Apple was just the first one that got it right, which exploded the market from a geek toy to something the average person might buy instead of a Walkman. In contrast, DOS was not the best text-based OS, and Windows was not the best GUI-based OS, nothing revolutionary about either.
Win 7 is an excellent operating system, but that doesn’t no one was doing any work with XP or Vista before Win 7 came out, because they were “not usable”.
Usability is a gradient, not an absolute. Windows 7 did indeed make great strides, especially over Vista which actually got in the way of you doing things. OS X is still the best example of OS usability, although it's not exactly perfect itself (I have some complaints). Yes, I specialized in usability as a software developer.
Chortle!
You see the sheer absurdity of you Applebots, don't you?
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, yet Applebots, led by the cheerleader and trash talker in chief, Steve Jobs, have been shrilly screaming about Microsoft copying OSX for eons.
That “Not copied, inevitable. Either that or they're all copying DEC Tru64 UNIX from the early 90s” can be thrown right back at ya, over every single feature Jobs/you accuse others of copying from OSX.
Paul Thurrott pretty much captured it all in his article that I posted earlier, when X Leopard launched.
X Leopard was so full of features that had long ago appeared in Windows that Paul Thurrott headlined his article:
“Apple Mac OS X Leopard Preview: Who's the Copycat Now?”
Answer: Apple and Steve Jobs.
Steve jobs is the only guy I know, who copies from someone else and regularly tries to pass it off as Apple “innovation” even while accusing the people he copied from, of copying from him.
The sheer chutzpah of the guy is breathtaking. But hey, Steve Jobs has never been honest in his entire life. Why, he even cheated his own pal that he founded Apple with, Steve Wozniack.
“Windows had some unique circumstances with Microsoft being in the beginning of the PC age backed by big IBM”
Umm..Apple and Microsoft were founded at around the same time, take a few months. Plus Microsoft wasn't even in the PC business to start off with. They were only a development tools company. Apple was in the personal computer business before Microsoft even started writing operating systems for IBM. At one time Apple was one of the biggest PC makers on the plant, with 25% share of the market.
So if anyone was in at the start of the PC age, it was Apple, not Microsoft.
“One of the reasons it is so popular is directly related to poor quality. “
Now you are talking nonsense. If you like, I will produce a very long list of Apple mac quality problems, going back DECADES. If all it took to grab 90% share was poor quality, Apple macs would be having 98% share by now.
NT was written by Dave Cutler and his people from DEC, initially for business IT use, not so much for consumers. NT never sold much to consumers till XP, which was based on NT code.
“MP3 players had been out for years before Apple got into the market. Apple was just the first one that got it right”
That is just the point. There have always been equally good, much lower priced MP3 players from Sandisk, Creative and a host of others, but the iPod sells more than anyone else, despite selling at higher prices than Sandisk’s offerings, which are at least equally good, if not better in some cases.
Going by that analogy, Windows PC's shouldn't be vastly outselling macs, just because they are cheaper, same as Sandisk can't outsell iPods just because Sandisk is cheaper.
“Usability is a gradient, not an absolute”
Let's just look at what you said before shall we?
This is what you said, and I quote:
“Windows users have been waiting for a usable Windows successor to XP for about eight years. They’re buying because there’s finally something worth buying.”
You were in effect using an absolute. You were in fact saying that Vista and XP were not usable. There was no qualification. So I turned round, and pointed out to you, that over 90% of the work that is done using computers on this planet, is done and done very well on Windows XP and Window Vista, so they are in fact very usable.
As far as Apple fanboys are concerned, anything from Apple is better than any product from anyone else.Going by your thinking, nothing anyone ever makers is as good as Apple's products, not even the crappy Apple TV or the joke Apple Newton, or the laughable Apple Pipin.
In real life, Windows 7 is at the very least as good as Snow leopard, if not better. It's smooth, rock solid, secure, now comes with a very solid, free, user friendly Microsoft anti-virus program (Microsoft Security Essentials, which you download free from Microsoft's web site) and has excellent usability features.
Plus, you can get a Win 7 computer with i7, DDR3, 1TB Hard drive and powerful video card for as low as $800, which blows similarly priced macs out of the water in sheer power and features.
Meanwhile, if anyone is still insisting on using OSX sometimes, and they are so inclined, they can build a powerful Win 7 computer at a much lower price than a mac, then install Hackintosh on it.
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php
No thanks, I'll pass on all this hoopla and stick with my trusty Windows 3.1. It's served me pretty well over the past 17 years, thank you very much. And it runs just find on 2048KB of RAM (2 MB) - who the heck could possibly need more?
It doesn't even suck up a lot of space on my hard drive, despite all the bells and whistles, I still have over 33MB of free hard disk space for other stuff - like my Leisure Suit Larry videogame.
And if anything goes wrong, I can quickly do a clean re-install as Windows 3.1 fits easily on just seven floppies (that I keep in an old shoebox just in case).
Hell, Windows 3.1 has even outlasted my Ross Perot yard sign and my Garth Brooks audiotapes!
Apple TV is mediocre. The Newton was advanced for its day. Pipin just didn't fare well in an already saturated Market. You forgot the Apple Motorola phone, which was lame. And there's the dumb hockey-puck mouse, and coming years late to the CD-R revolution.
And you still insist on comparing a cheap "big box o'boards" computer with a well-designed and manufactured iMac.
By the way it works just fine.....
I took a dead computer of mine it and had it installed on it.
Big Difference.
We gave you Linux for free. I'm not sure why you're expecting a commercial company to follow our example. If you do not like it, do not buy it, otherwise don't whine about the cost.
Only if you value your time at US$0, a charge Microsofties often wage at us.
Details?
I found this HP beginning at $469:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=Slim+and+sleek&series_name=s5250t_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/desktops/Slim_and_sleek/s5250t_series
W7
4GB DDR3
Intel 2.5 Dual-Core
640 GB 7200 SATA
Capitalism is subject to getting gamed. Honest people will always be ripped off by the Madoffs or the Gates of the world. It's not a reason to reject capitalism, but it is a reason to reject scams. Microsoft Windows has always been a scam because superiour alternatives have always existed.
Why can I walk into a store off the street and buy a computer preloaded with Linux in Manila but not in San Jose?
It will end Global Warming. It will finally bring World Peace. It is Hope & Change just like our Beloved Leader is giving us.
Rejoice! A new computer age is at hand just like the one we have on the political front.
Amen! Brother Joe! This Microsoft stuff is great! Now pass the crack pipe back over here so I can have another hit.
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