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MS Upgrades To Be Smaller And More Frequent
duplicantk8 writes "Following the numerous delays to the Vista launch, MS is planning to have more frequent and smaller incremental upgrades, according to the Financial Times." From the article: "Those delays are set to end late next year with the simultaneous launch of new versions of Windows and the Office suite of PC applications in the company's most significant new product cycle since Windows 95. The new versions of the company's key PC software are likely to rekindle higher growth after a period that saw its growth rate slip below 10 per cent for the first time last year, according to Wall Street analysts. Mr Ballmer's comments are the most public sign yet of the dent to Microsoft's confidence in its core development process that resulted from the Vista delays."
No, this is an attempt to make you *pay* for Service Packs.
2008: Upgrade to Windows Vista version 2.0 for only $200!
2009: Upgrade to Windows Vista version 3.0 for only $225!
2010: Upgrade to Windows Vista version 4.0 for only $275!
2011: Upgrade to Windows Vista version 4.0 for only $350!
2012: Upgrade to Windows Vista version 5.0 for only $1000!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You know, as long as they use things like DRM to manage updates, they're going to have trouble. It's the dubious copies of Windows that need the updates the most, and it would be a shame if MS excluded them to spite them, and in turn, spited every other computer on the same network.
FanFictionRecs.net
Remember the 1997 buzzword "beleaguered"?
Does anyone else remember in the mid 1990s when Apple announced the same thing? It was around 1996, and Apple was finding it impossible to get its next generation Copland/Mac OS 8 operating system out the door. I think it was then-CEO Gil Amelio who announced after several years of delays that Apple wasn't going to do monolithic releases any longer. They would do little ones to be more manageable. Eventually, they came out with Mac OS 7.6, Mac OS 8 (what many considered to be 7.7), and Mac OS 9. That's also when they started shopping around, looking at Be and NeXT.
As Apple discovered--and now, I guess Microsoft is discovering the same thing-- it's really hard to keep backwards compatibility, drive new features, and do it within a reasonable budget when you have a big installed base. Apple's installed base was never more than a small fraction of Microsoft's, but Microsoft's resources were also proportionately more extensive.
Microsoft is having as many (or more) delays with Longhorn/Vista as Apple had with Copland/Mac OS 8. In the mean time, Apple bit the bullet with NeXT/Mac OS X back in 1997, and now they're seeing some pretty good returns on their investment. Releases have been fairly rapid, and they've introduced lots of innovative features.
So as far as coming up with their next OS, Microsoft, you can use the word now. Apple doesn't need it any more.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
It has yet to hurt Apple. I don't see the difference between the proposed schedule and what OSX has doing for years.
It's not as if that's a new idea though. Mac OS 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 ...
Incremental upgrades: another Apple idea Microsoft likes and plans to borrow?
On a serious note, I think this is the reason so many features were taken out of Vista. I've already read about things like the hallowed WinFS to be available as a downloadable patch to Windows 2000 and XP machines as well as Vista.
Something tells me that with the increasing popularity of broadband internet in the home, Microsoft can hold back features and release them as 'special' or 'premium' updates to make up for an otherwise sub-standard OS upon its launch. As long as enough people can reasonably download it, they'll feel like they're getting the royal treatment, but in reality, that patch is a company using faster downloads to make up for thier own inadequacies.
It may be backhanded to deliver a $200 product over the span of a year or so, but at least now, it can finally be delivered.
That's just my thoughts, though.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
It is like Microsoft is really have woken up finally and started to do something. Last few years I have had that expression that all what Microsoft wants to do is bullying it's customers. Now they are trying to impress everyone with PR shock, flooding in massive with lots of info about new products.
o f-the-comics-book".
Yeah, they feel competition, and I thank any single Linux/BSD/Solaris distro, Firefox, Apple for that. Because it is all what we need to get IT really work for common crowd - to be useful, productive, etc.
If I am honest, I have seen new screenshots and well - they don't impress me. So far I have seen a habbit to even KDE guys admit that less is more, don't even talk about GNOME and OS X guys. And here comes Windows Vista with what can I call - detail overblown. Yeah, nothing in the stone yet and I hope they will get rid of that "so-much-details-that-my-destkop-looks-like-page-
p.s. I'm not Windows user, I'm Linux/OS X advocate, but still I can't ignore what happens to
Windows world as lot of my colegues and friends uses it.
p.s.s. and yes, I think GNOME/KDE guys can create
much better and more functional eye candy than that.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
That's not funny.
...
I think the folks who suffer with Windows are used to rebooting for all sorts of reasons. E.g. IE runs too slow, my app just crashed, I need to install a new program, something is not working,
Due to their inability to admin their own machine, some resort to throwing it out and trying again, with new hardware.
I think it is the Unix admins who have the fetish for the no-reboot. Or perhaps a single, precisely done reboot, to remotely bring up a machine with an entirely new OS.
Similary, folks who use windows think they need anti-spyware, anti-virus, extra-special firewall crap --- because they think there's no way a computer can withstand the tide of crap without extra-special help. It is just impossible to imagine that an OS could withstand it all.
Lately it seems that hardware companies are in the game -- e.g. Intel processors with features designed to make up for the deficiencies of Ballmer's bunch in Redmond.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Your right, they should still install updates. In fact, they need to install an update that inadvertently opens up about 50 nasty eat-your-machine exploits on "dubious" copies of Windows. Then after the viruses kill 'em off, we no longer need to worry about those computers.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Or "Instead of delaying it even longer, we'll fix it as we go along and hope no one notices we are releasing patches for stuff we should have fixed before roll-out".
Seems to me they are still using the "update" line on the public where they should be using "oops, we f***ed up", it will just be more frequent.
Maybe Microsoft has come to the realization that the rest of the world has - that every new version of Windows isn't as "revolutionary" as Windows 95 was. Ever since the end of the .com era when computers really just became commodity items, Microsoft has been trying to convince us that their next new OS will also be the next greatest thing in computing. Much of what I've read about Vista isn't all that interesting, and it's good to see the computer industry give Vista the coverage that it deserves. If Microsoft hopes to avoid going down in flames altogether, it has to adopt the incremental strategy that everyone else uses. What will be interesting to see is if Microsoft can manage this well. With 7 new flavors of Vista alone, throwing more versions of the OS into the mix at a rapid rate is just going to confuse the market even further. To be at all successful, the first thing that they'll have to do it switch back to a numbering system like Mac or their old year-based system (95/98/2000) so that people can keep tabs on their OS. This is good not only from a marketing standpoint where people feel like they've got an old copy of the OS that they want to upgrade, but it's also good from a patch standpoint. How are people to know whether ending the life cycle of a named OS is going to impact their version?
Personally, I think that Microsoft will continue to implode under the weight of Windows. The testing alone on all the various current and future versions of Windows will suck up a significant amount of their resources. I'd be willing to bet that just a few years after Vista is released that Microsoft starts talking about end-of-life for XP because they can't sustain all those different releases. Of course so few people will have paid to upgrade their machines from the last release that there will still be a huge number of people running old code. Then they'll need to have a discounted upgrade program, which further erodes earnings, leading to even less support, and the cycle goes on...
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
I updated several of my devices without a reboot. Those sort of patches seem rare, and likely for good reason.
The catch is that if you need to patch a critical system file, it's orders of magnitude more simple to just replace it upon reboot (since nothing's running). Otherwise you need to close down any applications and services that are using that file. Some system files are used by the GUI interface itself, at which point you're crossing your fingers and hoping it pops back to reality during the patch process.
It's probably technically possible to do certain patches without rebooting, but you'd have to have a savvy enough user to shut down and bring back dependent services. Linux admins are used to that sort of thing. For home users, it's far easier to simply reboot.
There's something you said that explain exactly why people will pay $200 for something they download: perceive
Vista's big marketing is about security (which most users wouldn't care about if they weren't told that they should) and how pretty it is. The fact that it looks so shiney and new is what makes people think it's a bold new product with all new...things that they can't explain, but they're in there! People are mostly going to pay for it because it looks like it's something new and then the 'updates' will give the illusion that they bought a whole OS with benefits. If you want people to pay for downloads, you don't tell them them that. This is where marketing comes in.
For Jill and Joe Sixpack, they won't know the major changes in the codebase and most of them and have never even heard of Longhorn. So they (in most probability) won't even know what they were supposed to get in the first place.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
2005: with the simultaneous launch of new versions of Windows and the Office suite of PC applications in the company's most significant new product cycle since Windows 95
IIRC, wasn't almost the very same sentence used in 2001 prior to the launch of Windows XP?
I assume that you're using a corporate workstation? Talk to your sys admin. The Windows Update options are configured via a group policy object. IIRC, the default option is not force a reboot if someone's logged in, so they may have changed it for some reason.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
on the phone:
Geek: Ok Grandma there is a security vulnerability in GNU/Linux you need to update.
Nanna: Oh dear, maybe I should just turn off the computer until the vulnerablity is over.
Geek: It doesn't work that way you have to update it yourself.
Nanna: OK sweetie, you made me switch to leenucks and even though I can't see pictures that people email me anymore you said that's better.
Geek: Yes it is better becuase is open source.
Nanna: Yes sweetie. In my day we were concerned about having enough food to eat, but your concern about your computer thingie is just as important.
Geek: Open a terminal,
Nanna: What?
Geek: Just click everything at the top of your Gnome desktop until you get black window that you can type in.
Nanna: My desktop has my tea on it.
Geek: No, your computer screen.
Nanna: Oh, yes dear, you are so smart.
Geek: now type in soodo apt dash get...
Nanna: what is soodo?
Geek: no its ess you dee oh space a pee tee dash the word get space then the word update.
Nanna: Ok I put all that in and now it's asking for a password
Geek: Yes, that's the root password
Nanna: (after about 20 minutes) the password you gave me z23sDRT8sPdU32 doesn't work. I know security is so important for some reason so I typed the password just as it is on the sticky note on my monitor.
Geek: No, not your password the root password.
Nanna: Oh, I've kept the computer inside, do I need to keep it outide with my plants so the roots will grow?
Geek: Ok, just boot into windows like I showed you for now on, it will update for you automatically.
Nanna: pwned!
Lately it seems that hardware companies are in the game -- e.g. Intel processors with features designed to make up for the deficiencies of Ballmer's bunch in Redmond.
Back scratching at it's finest. Microsoft bloats it's OS and applications, so people have to purchase a new computer and pay the Intel and Microsoft tax.
*DrugCheese rants*
Smaller and more frequent also means less expensive and yearly. Which basically means that Microsoft is moving to the subscription model it always wanted. Windows users will pay a "small amount" e.g., 20 bucks, every year for minor and insignificant updates. In other words, we'll be paying for what we now get for free.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm much more interested what I can do with it as a developer
What difference does it make? You're either going to have to keep doing it the old way, or Microsoft is going to have to make the new way work on Windows 2000 anyway otherwise you'll cut yourself off from 60% of your market.
Yeah, right. Besides, ever wonder how many IT folks would be out of a job if everything Just Works?
Say hello to my little sig.
Even with things that 'just work' like refridgerators and the like -- there are always going to be repair people because of the sheer stupidity of end-users.
Besides, those that are lost probably weren't meant to be there in the first place. The helpdesk support guys either bone up their skills and become full blown developers or network admins, or they get the fuck out of IT. Either way, I call it progress.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Where I work we're only now getting Office 2003 because the IT department tested thoroughly and was waiting for the worst of the (numerous) bugs to be patched by MS.
No large company is going to install any update or software without some testing first. Short-cycle incremental releases are just more to test, and most companies will probably only bother to test/roll-out when a new feature set looks compelling.
This sort of release schedule works for Apple because they do not have the huge corporate installed base that MS does--most of their customers are individuals and small businesses.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Criminy imaging the support nightmare this is going to trigger at any third party software developer, not to mention hardware compatability, testing, you name it.
I can see why MS wants to churn their user base to increase profits, but all this is going to do is piss people off.
Not only that, but software quality will go down - with SP2 Windows XP is just starting to become good. Now with flavor du jour the OS will never become old enough to be stable.
Aren't quantum changes detected by cat?
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.