Last week Forbes ripped into Microsoft for the delay of Vista, now the New York Times is taking its turn…
The company’s marathon effort to come up with the a new version of its desktop operating system, called Windows Vista, has repeatedly stalled.
In those five years, Apple Computer has turned out four new versions of its Macintosh operating system, beating Microsoft to market with features that will be in Vista, like desktop search, advanced 3-D graphics and “widgets,” an array of small, single-purpose programs like news tickers, traffic reports and weather maps.
And things are so bad at Microsoft that even employees are calling for Ballmer to be fired.
Microsoft employees are arguing among themselves over who is to blame for the delay in the launch of Windows Vista. One disgruntled insider named Who da’Punk voiced his feelings in a blog posting under the heading ‘Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!’.
The diatribe set off a lot of feeling amongst Microsoft employees with several demanding that Ballmer should head the list of people who should be fired from the company. One remarked: ‘Being a 10+ year vet I feel ashamed and sad. This company is a mess on so many levels’.
Looks like there is hope for Linux on the Desktop after all.
At my house we spend more time using Ubuntu 5.10 than we do Win98 on my 7 year old Dell. As much as I like games, I don’t want to buy a new PC every 2 years. But so far I have been able to give my old computer a GUI facelift 4 times since I bought it. The new software update feature works just as well as Windows Update does for my company laptop.
Maybe Linspire or Ubuntu will pick up the slack for Microsoft until they go through a transformation like Apple had to. Interesting times ahead …
First you complain about Microsoft’s plans for their new OS, and how bad it will be, then you complain when this poor software gets delayed.
My guess is when it finally ships you’ll be first in line to get it, perhaps with those illegal downloads you’re always promoting.
Is Vista being delayed a bad thing? Those of us that have to manage hundreds of Windows installations are THANKING Microsoft.
We can sit around for hours talking about how Apple innovates and Microsoft never releases anything. What does it matter when Microsoft is the only one with tools that business users need? (Group Policy, IntelliMirror, AD, etc..) Until Apple has an alternative to these BUSINESS needs, the whole discussion is moot. When it comes to business needs, Mac OS X is ten years behind Microsoft.
–Monty
At one time, M$ had two separate OS. Remember Windows and NT? Because people wanted compatibility with programs they ended up mixed.
I see the only savior for MS is to come out with some killer applications that will totally blow the others away. An example would be Movie Maker that could render a movie into DVD format in a fraction the time required by other Video Authoring programs. A Photo Editor that a grade three student as well as his 50 year old grandfather can excel at. A music playback which is more interested in playing the music then in searching out digital rights.
I think the delay has more to do with all those Indian computer experts Gates said he needed. First they are showing how good they are and second they all have to be brought up to speed for the call centers in India.
Im old enough to remember when an OS fit on a 32k Chip.
Old enough when Progs didnt have to be over 2k.
the drivers were sent by the makers of the product and FIT.
windows is trying to DO to much…LET the makers make the drivers.
LET the makers ADD the bells and whistles… But Ms wants ALL the control over the product, and how it works… CUt the extra “STUFF”..
Start over and make a SOLID OS, ONLY. Let us ADD the bells and whistles….
Who cares?
Vista ends up being nothing more than eye-candy, since they have removed everything of real value. The only things that I was looking for were the new file system and real color management… the file system is a non starter, and color management is still a question mark.
So it has a ‘pretty desktop’ with some neato widgets. Who cares???? I don’t spend any time using the desktop, I use the ‘Start’ button and real applications. If I need to switch to a different app, just alt-tab till you get to it.
There is NO compelling reason to move from XP to Vista. None. Zero. Nothing. Voila! Nada!
To any thinking person it seems that Vista will be one of those ‘skip-it’ OS generations, where you get it only if it is included with your new computer, but you don’t intentionally upgrade. And unless you are a one of those nut-job gamers, upgrading any hardware made within the last 3 years is getting to be pretty darn silly also, specially just to get ‘pretty transparent windows’.
Vista will sell, but mainly to those same fools that spend money buying ring-tones for their phones because they are cool. But actually those silly people will probably use a Mac real soon anyway, to make it easier to sync their iPods so they can watch King-Kong on a 2 inch screen.
Last time I looked MS had about 90% of market share with apple and linex dragin way behind. I donot know many companys that whould not like to fall and or fail this way. Money talks and BS walks
ECA ,
was reffering to the Direct X departments “X Box” role as innovative. The 360 is a nicely done interface and decent hardware for the price.
Is it possible that the operating system has reached its zenith.
WHAT market??
BEFORE, win 95, and NT (?) whatever…servers were running about 6 other OS’s, that were STABLE…
Unix and Linux have held on, and STILL take about 20-30% of THAT market.
I think 6 COUNTRIES, have DROPPED Windows, Germany, india, among them, becuase it keeps COSTING more and more and more, to keep it SAFE and updated.
Compare FREe with $10,000 corp rate…
As a GAme machine, Windows has DUMPED making a port so that Linux based games can run under DX sence version 8.1..
As an Office machine, there are BETTER, was BETTER, and will ALWAYS be better software out on the market for OTHER OS’s.. And most groups dont need anything better then a C64 to write letters or make spread sheets(mutiplan was great)..
Why do we or companies need MORE then we use on a system.. Most home systems are used for gaming and the internet, and business systems have LITTLE need for high res graphics for GAMES. typing, spreadsheets, a calendar, and few other programs are really needed and maybe a small presentation software..
PS, you REALLy like games? Go to Europe or Japan, with their 10 times more releases in those areas.
ECA – first, learn to type. Please. Second, learn to think – Europe does NOT have 10x more releases game-wise, and that’s common knowledge. Third, writing words ALL IN CAPS for NO apparent REASON other than TO be a TWAT is ANnoyING sO pLeAsE STOP doing IT.
Basically, to sum up:
Stop.