Acer’s President Says That Vista Sucks!

Published on July 24th, 2007

With the prospect of having to acquire a new laptop, the fact that it will come with Windows Vista just sours my thoughts on the matter. All that DRM infection just turns me off about getting the OS. I guess I will have to ‘upgrade‘ to XP SP2 once I buy my new unit.

Acer: PC Industry ‘Disappointed’ with Vista – PC World: Acer’s president Gianfranco Lanci today became the first major PC manufacturer to openly attack Microsoft over the Windows Vista operating system.

Lanci said the operating system was riddled with problems and gave users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC, according to the report. Taiwan-based Acer is the world’s fourth-largest PC manufacturer, after HP, Dell and Lenovo.

Due to Acer’s relevant position as a worldwide PC manufacturer, a statement of this kind carries a lot of weight. With Dell now selling PCs in the U.S. with Ubuntu Linux, things are not looking up for the OS. I wonder if their shift in focus, with M$ wanting to become a service company, their OS business is starting to become less significant. IBM’s success in the service segment must be making M$ mad.

Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in the history of PC manufacturing. He added the situation didn’t look likely to change in the next six months.
Many business customers have specifically asked for Windows XP to be installed on their new machines, Lanci noted.

35 users responded in " Acer’s President Says That Vista Sucks! "

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# 1 Zach said, on July 24th, 2007 at 4:48 am

Ugh. I’ll never understand how those who insist on calling Microsoft M$ expect to be taken seriously.

I fail to see how Vista is any more bloated DRM infected than OSX. Ubuntu is a cleaner OS, for sure, but once you get drivers that actually work and add on the pretty 3d interface, you’ve mucked it up all the same. And it may be DRM-free, but it won’t handle any DRM’d media. The whole thing is really a non-issue. Big bloated OS’s sell new fast hardware, just like they did 15 years ago and just like they’ll keep on doing 15 years from now.

# 2 bobbo said, on July 24th, 2007 at 4:53 am

Well, it would be “nice” if the article would give one specific example of why Acer doesn’t like Vista?

I’ve tried it and the system slowed way down when copying a video file from one drive to another—something I do alot. I chalked it up to having a “slow system” but I’ve read of this complaint on fast computers too. Slow copy is a real bummer for me.

I thought $MS pretty well summed this up months ago when it said that the OS was designed for the “next” generation of machines, not for inplace upgrades. That would make sense if it was not for the file copy slow down and other similar issues.

I have ordered firewire card for my computer. If it handles High Definition recording from my Comcast DVR, I won’t be upgrading for years. If I need Vista to record, edit, and watch HDTV, then I will upgrade. FUNCTIONALITY is the key – - the ability to run programs.

# 3 Gary said, on July 24th, 2007 at 4:55 am

I’ve yet to find a positive review that makes me feel good about ordering my new desktop with Vista. Glad Dell allows new boxes with XP, although eventually I want to believe MS will fix the Vista complaints in SP1. Until then, at least the new machine is “Vista ready ” in case they come to their senses.

# 4 JimJammer said, on July 24th, 2007 at 5:04 am

How come everytime i upgrade to a new version of OSX on my 3 year old mac, it keeps getting faster, and all i hear about Vista is it takes a perfectly fine machine and makes it slower?

That’s a fact, i’m not taking sides on this, i run XP on my other home machine and one thing i know about windows, “if it ain’t broke, don’t upgrade it”.

# 5 Mister Justin said, on July 24th, 2007 at 5:20 am

Because OSX was a piece of crap until 10.3. And if you don’t believe that, you’re a fool. I’ve used OSX since it first was released, and unusable was the only word to describe it. sure, it was functional, but what a piece of crap when it came to performance and consistency. 10.3 was the first usable OSX. And, since each version came out one year after another, I considered them more service packs than full blown OS’s.. Kinda like XP SP2 was a huge difference, but it was just a service pack.

And, to the highly revered member of the Dvorak Uncensored crew, Vista has one major problem that I’ve encountered; comment 1, you may be interested in this… File copy is HORRIBLY BROKEN! Network File copy is HORRIBLY BROKEN! There is a fix, but MS is not releasing it to the general plebs, but is available if you contact them directly for the hotfix. While it’s generally not a problem for my home use, it renders it unusable in my day job as an admin. I still use vista as a second box in the office, but I don’t do my technical work with it.

Vista will get better. We heard the same comments about XP when it first came out, and now XP properly securing and installed is rock solid. Vista will get there soon. So, Gasparrini, if file copy is not a deal breaker for you, go for it. there are enough nice to haves in Vista to make it worthwhile, namely shadow copy! As for DRM, only Ubuntu will free you from that yoke. But, there are enough resources out there to tweak vista to make it as unfriendly to the corps and feds as possible.

# 6 JohnnyL said, on July 24th, 2007 at 5:45 am

Any president of a company that actually expected Vista to spur PC sales doesn’t really belong in his position. Businesses are not going to request new PC’s with Vista until the driver situation gets sorted out. There is also the training issue. I doubt that they will take on anything that will increase their IT costs anytime soon until they absolutely have to. As to home users, unless they actually have to get a new PC, why go out and get a new one just to run Vista. Chances are their XP PC is just fine.

One thing that manufacturers can do to make things easier is make sure that they are offering Vista PC’s that meet more than just the minimum standards for running Vista. This means fast hard drives, at least 2 gigs memory and a decent video setup, whether integrated or as a separate card. I still remember the first time I sat down with my girl friends HP PC with XP on it. Stickers all over it promoting is as an XP machine and it came with just 128megs of memory. She always thought that XP was the reason her machine was dead slow and it was just because it was inadequately equipped.

# 7 Terry said, on July 24th, 2007 at 6:00 am

Anyone who says each new version of OS X is a service pack obviously has no idea what they are talking about and has zero credibility.

# 8 Michael said, on July 24th, 2007 at 6:11 am

How is Mac OS X riddled with DRM? The only DRM I can think of would be the FairPlay used on iTunes purchases. This being the case, I don’t see how anyone can really bitch about FairPlay unless they are, in fact, trying to use their purchases in an illegal manner. There’s absolutely nothing restrictive about FairPlay to the everyday user. I can authorize up to five machines to play my entire iTunes library, I can burn my tracks to CD as often as I like and I can stream my library to other machines on my local network. What is everyone bitching about? And really, don’t even begin to compare Ubuntu to Mac OS X. If I wanted generic software on a generic operating system, I would be using Ubuntu right now. A few 3D desktop effects aren’t enough to make a serious user consider switching to Ubuntu. Ubuntu doesn’t have 1/4 the functionality of Mac OS X, not to mention I can use pretty much all of Ubuntu’s relevant software packages right in Mac OS X. That’s right, I can run OpenOffice, VLC, The GIMP and many other mainstream Linux applications. This leaves Ubuntu with nothing, not a thing, to attract me to using it.

I’m not even going to get into what a piece of garbage I think Vista is.

# 9 Noam Sane said, on July 24th, 2007 at 6:17 am

“Stickers all over it promoting is as an XP machine and it came with just 128megs of memory”.

I just flashed back to buying my first Win95 PC. I came loaded with – ready? – 8MB of RAM. Thanks, Circuit City!

I didn’t know squat at the time, but eventually I wised up and put in enough memory so that Netscape didn’t crash every other time I tried to open it.

# 10 Mister Justin said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:02 am

No, I have cred… Street cred as well. And yes, they added features, but if you’re telling me that 10.3 was not just a refined version of 10.2, which was a refined version of 10.1, which was a refined version of 10.0, you have no cred. Of COURSE they added features. They have to charge you for something. bug fixes are free, but cleaning the crap that was pre 10.3 was a charge. And don’t get all defensive. I don’t care which OS I use so long as it provided me with the ability to perform my requirements.

And, can you honestly say that 10.0 was teh best OSX release and when you used it you thought it was feature complete and refined totally? Vista just came out. Every piece of software needs real-world impact before you can make it better.

# 11 Mister Justin said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:06 am

Yes, you can burn as many CD’s as you want, but you do have a restriction… It’s lame, but it’s there..

How many times can I burn my purchased music?

Songs purchased from the iTunes Store can be burned to audio CDs and data CDs an unlimited number of times. However, each unique playlist can only be burned to an audio CD 7 times.

Apple has done a great job of melding form and function. I don’t think there is a better holistic solution out there. Personally, I’m not a fan of their hardware, but they do offer a product that consumers can just buy and use. Afterall, they make all the software the average consumer needs to look at picture and burn CD’s/DVD’s and make crappy home pr0n… I mean movies. Since there are no quality third party apps, someone has to do it

# 12 Mister Justin said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:08 am

Adjustment to point 11

For this line “Since there are no quality third party apps, someone has to do it” it should read as flame war on.

# 13 Randall Lind said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:10 am

M$ is used cause that is all Microsoft cares about $$$ they don’t care how their products work until after they are on the market.

Look at the $1-1.2 Billion Microsoft has to fork over to fix the Xbox 360.

# 14 Milo said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:38 am

“This leaves Ubuntu with nothing, not a thing, to attract me to using it.”

It’s free?

# 15 qsabe said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:51 am

Have you noticed after each new patch release from Microsoft, something your using in XP fails to function as well? Could it be they will never stop selling XP, just slowly degrade it to useless.

# 16 XYZ said, on July 24th, 2007 at 7:55 am

That’s why I buy Lenovo ThinkPads, they still come with XP if you request it.

# 17 pedro said, on July 24th, 2007 at 8:13 am

#6 that statement is a direct hit to MS becuase that’s one of the points they use to convince OEM’s about vista, so think a little before saying such things as he doesn’t belong as a ceo. Although, I must admit, before this statement, I thought little about Acer. Now, they’re a full point up.

#7 and here comes the apologist to the “pay for service pack as if was a new version” scheme. Only macfans can rationalize something like this. Grow up! You ARE paying for service packs, deal with it. Wether you like that scheme or not is another matter entirely, but YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING FOR SERVICE PACKS.

# 18 Mike Voice said, on July 24th, 2007 at 8:19 am

#1 I fail to see how Vista is any more bloated DRM infected than OSX.

Have you seen this article?

http://tinyurl.com/3xunek

Whether most users would call DRM a feature, however, is questionable. A close cousin to DRM technology, known as Windows Rights Management Services (which in turn is part of a larger category of technologies called Enterprise Digital Rights Management, or ERM), can help business users password-protect key documents and files, or assign the ability to open them only to trusted co-workers.

“It’s like when you batten down the hatches on a ship in a storm,” said Aram Sinnreich, an analyst at Radar Research in Los Angeles. “Vista wants to batten down every software or multimedia bit so that they don’t go somewhere the creator doesn’t want it to go.”

# 19 Brian said, on July 24th, 2007 at 8:28 am

10,
you have NO CRED. OS X 10.0 was BETA. 10.1 was a free upgrade for everyone who tried the BETA.

If you don’t know what BETA means try wikipedia.

Its fun to watch the M$ fanboys go into denial about Vista.

I like comment #6 – what it really says is that anyone who believed M$ about Vista does not belong in an executive position in the industry.

# 20 Al Cole said, on July 24th, 2007 at 8:31 am

I would suggest anyone that does NOT want Vista on their laptop to contact someone like me, a small independent Computer builder. I am more than happy to install XP home, MCE or Pro on a new laptop custom built for you. If you go to one of “the big boys” with outsourced everything, what do you expect? Support the local guy – I can give you a better system and the profit goes to the local economy for little things like food

# 21 Ryan said, on July 24th, 2007 at 8:39 am

Hasn’t it occurred to anyone the source of this… Acer. Who cares if Acer thinks it sucks- they haven’t had a good computer product in over 5 years. Maybe they should look at their own stock of crap and say the same. Time for a change?

To clarify, I am a Mac geek now- Acer turned me into such.

~Ryan

# 22 Matthew said, on July 24th, 2007 at 9:33 am

XP was a huge success. Why they didn’t just build on that success baffles me.

# 23 pedro said, on July 24th, 2007 at 10:17 am

#19 said: “I like comment #6 – what it really says is that anyone who believed M$ about Vista does not belong in an executive position in the industry.”

On the contrary, I see it as a very liberating statement from that exec, knowing how much MS use to stronghold the OEM’s. He should be feeling like someone who just got a whole lotta steam outta his chest.

#21 I guess Dell is in that same lame category you refer to.

# 24 JimR said, on July 24th, 2007 at 10:37 am

MSFT domination is a curse. I’m sure Acer would prefer OSX if they could get it.

Vista is to OSX 10.4.10, as a Chinese knockoff is to a quality American product.

# 25 Angel H. Wong said, on July 24th, 2007 at 10:46 am

Hmmm.. It makes me think that Apple is seizing the moment recoding the “new” OSX so it could run not only in Macs.

# 26 jz said, on July 24th, 2007 at 11:48 am

bobbo, I own a HP z556 and record HD programming all the time using Windows 2005 XP media center. They are going on Ebay for $500 to $600. See the link: http://tinyurl.com/2mdpaz

Don’t say I didn’t ever do anything nice for you.

# 27 pedro said, on July 24th, 2007 at 11:56 am

#24 stop kidding yourself, they are the same darned thing. vista=macosx

# 28 jz said, on July 24th, 2007 at 11:58 am

#21 I own an Acer Ferrari laptop. I get compliments on how it looks all the time and functionally it is the best laptop I have ever owned.

And yes, tradtionally, a new Windows OS has spurred computer sales. There was always a reason given to upgrade: Windows 98 was faster and less buggy. Windows 2000 was more secure. Windows XP was crash proof.

I am not saying the operating systems lived up to the hype but with Vista, the reason to upgrade is … Can someone fill in the blank? Because I can’t.

# 29 ECA said, on July 24th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

I recently saw a Note about Vista, and that in 3 years there will be anohter Windows OS released…

So what then??

# 30 ECA said, on July 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

http://tinyurl.com/29wzja

NO COMMENT…

# 31 Mister Justin said, on July 24th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

19. What’s it like being an idiot? Just cause you can read Wikipedia doesn’t mean it’s fact.
QUOTE. Mac OS X was released on March 24th, 2001, with a suggested retail price of $129 and a version number of 10.0. Don’t let the version number confuse you; this is the first official release of Apple’s new OS. It was preceded by many developer releases and one public beta release. ENDQUOTE
You were saying about beta? I still got cred. You gots none.

And why am I an apologist for vista? Because I said it would get better? You’re a fool if you think that it won’t. OSX did, and it started off worse than Redhat 5.2!

# 32 cooldht said, on August 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 am

Hey,

Listen, I’m out $1000 bucks for getting a machine that microsoft “requires” to have vista in it (maybe hardware, but vista sucks, so it just must be vista). The problem here is that they require you to have it. I know the hardware failed “now”, but their very flaky system has made me buy the powerhouse of the XP world, which is $500 more than I would have originally paid, and I swear to god, I will not buy another one for at least 15 years based on the performance of vista. On the bright side, I was paying for 27 new laptops ever quarter, and am now only paying for 27 every 6 years. Ok, I’ll buy another vista and test it in 2 years, but we’ll see….

# 33 larry said, on August 15th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

my new Acer Aspire 5570Z laptop is turning my hands black like a lead pencil. Is it painted with China silver lead paint?. I’m going to check it. Imagine if I’m in contact with lead paint all day long? The Vista will be the least of my worries.

I’d ask Acer, but theres no way to get in touch with them.

Will report beck

# 34 Jamison said, on November 16th, 2007 at 6:33 am

I tried VERY hard to give it a chance, but littered with issues. I am buying 300 desktops this summer for my company… Thankfully, Dell will let me have XP loaded on them still… see my latest article on XP vs Vista on my site.

# 35 brdavies said, on July 18th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

I ran Vista on my Dell XPS M2010 for 14 months. I managed to get everything to work. I spent hours trying to share a drive. I put up with extremely poor graphics performance on my favorite game, World of Warcraft.

Finally I gave up, bought a 2nd hard drive for my ‘laptop’, and installed Windows XP Pro SP2.

It was like being let out of jail!

I was able to crank my video settings all the way up on WoW, it boots in under 2 minutes, my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse consistently work, and I managed to share a hard drive in under 5 seconds.

I do not understand what MS is doing here. Vista is such a complete downgrade that I am now spending my time writing on every blog how much it sucks.

I’ve long held to the tenet to not install any MS operating system until it is in release 3 (since Windows 3.1), and it still holds. Don’t buy Vista. It’s a bare-faced attempt to just relieve you of your money. Wait until Vista 3.

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