$100 Million Marketing Push For Vista

GecKo213 writes "Microsoft is touting a $100 million marketing campaign promoting Windows Vista and encouraging software developers to build new programs. With the longest gap ever between major releases of Windows operating systems -- the current version, Windows XP, was launched in late 2001 -- Microsoft is facing pressure from its partners and developers to deliver technology that will convince users to upgrade. If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"

Comments

Nothing, really

[autopr0n]

I'm still running win2k as my prefered OS. I'll switch to linux rather then buying a new windows, why get stuck in M$s' upgrade cycle? If I ever get a new computer, it'll probably come with vista, so if I ever get it, it'll be that way.

Re:Nothing, really

[vought]

They're pretty damn affordable now, but to get all the extra memory and such will be a huge price hike, not to mention the OS itself.

No offense, but aren't you forgetting that memory, MIPs/$, and storage all drop in price over time?

While I'm certain that Vista will entice a few folks to lay out cash for upgrades (and I won't be one, since I'll still be running 10.4.whatever on this 550MHz/768MB PowerBook G4) you can't compare today's prices for those commodity parts to understand the total cost of upgrading to Vista.

It's worth noting that this PowerBook was purchased before Windows XP shipped, and aside from the initial RAM bump from 256 to 768MB and a side-grade to a 60GB disk from the original 40GB, it's only gotten faster as subsequent versions of OS X have been released.

I think the question to be asking about VIsta is: "How will it perform on currently shipping hardware when it is released...and will it get any faster on the same hardware through service packs?"

Re:vista beta1

[vcv]

- New Audio Stack
- New Network Stack
- Updated native apps (outlook express, sndrec32, games, much more)
- LUA
- Better IO cancellation
- New communications architecture/api
- New graphics architecture/api
- Better task scheduler (based on events instead of just time)
- New WinPE environment (preinstallation env), can run from usb key or ram drive
- Hardware failure diagnostics, will warn you when hardware is failing (such as hard drives, through SMART, which already works in Beta1)
- Transactional File tranfers and registry
- Better stealth modding (updating hardware without reinstalling)
- Application Resource Management in the kernel. Apps can request what kind of memory and cpu time it needs to run efficiently
- TCP/IP offloading to the NIC instead of the CPU
- WinSAT (for gamers)
- Auxiliary display support
- Windows filtering platform for networking (more fine tune controls of networking at a lower level for fireware and other networking developers)
- Much much more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

All while maintaining backward compatibility (a small number of apps will break, but it's the same with every major release).

Tell me what they AREN'T changing.

Re:Judging from the posts so far...

[Bent Mind]

Maybe Slashdot posters are NOT the target audience?

Of course Slashdot posters are not the target audience. We know enough about computers to know Window's Vista is of the garbage dump. It does make you wonder though; Who is the target? Concidering most people will have to buy a new computer just to support the minimum specs, why advertise? It's been a long time since I've seen an Apple computer ad. I've never seen a Linux ad. I'd say they are competing with themselves (Windows XP), but as I said, you need a new computer to run it. All new computers will come with it. So, what's the point?