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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 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_
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.
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?
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.
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.