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$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?"
If MS will buy me 2gb of RAM and a 256mb video card I might consider.
"If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
give me hookers and beer for 200$, alex
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Last I checked they had $40 billion in cash sitting around and are minting a billion in profit free and clear every month. That's just an insane amount of money.
Lower the price.
That about, 1 maybe 2 laser satellites to take the world hostage
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?
Actually, $100 Million would be enough to convince me to switch to Vista.
Unfortunately, I presume that the whole $100 Million won't be available to just me.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I won't buy another pair of shoes untill they get a hole or don't fit any more.
My OS is just fine and still does it's job. Why would I buy another no matter how much marketing they throw at me?
Plus this is MS marketing. Every geek who ever saw a TV advert from MS thought "LIES!" within seconds of a word being spoken.
I like muppets.
You'd think that with $100 Million they could have come up with a better code name!
They don't to spend $100,000,000 to get me on board.... I've already disabled all my antivirus and antispyware, and my computer is still too fast for my software.
Leave it to MS to give me an excuse to upgrade... they've succeeded where countless other viruses and worms have not!
/dev/random
As soon as games require it I'll be switching, I held off on Windows 95 until I got Diablo. I'm personally quite happy with XP and until I'm required to change so I can play my games I'll be sticking with it.
The Sad Part is how much of that 100 million they'll spend on licensing some lame ass theme song from somebody Bill and/or Steve thinks are still "cool" (I predict something c'mon c'mon-ish).
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
No DRM, no trying to control my computer, faster reboots and fewer reasons to need to. More control with less complications. Interoperability. Open standards. The ability to use software my way.
Shit, I just described Linux. Never mind.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
How long do you normally keep a computer before you get a new one?
What OS do you think will be on a computer that you buy two years from now?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Let's see:
And that's just off the top of my head.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I agree, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising when you are cutting salaries is stupid. They have their reasons, however and you will get your wish. Vista will be promoted as much or more than XP, which was hyped bigger than 98, which was hyped bigger ... you get the picture.
Microsoft traditionally spends as much money as needed to keep the Wintel rags running and good press in general. The Wintel rags are where the clueless decide what crappy form or M$ junk to buy next. Occasionally, they branch out into stuff like National Geographic, PBS etc. It keeps them from noticing how crappy a product Microsoft actually has. They spent more than a billion promoting XP. XP is five years old, so you can see that more than 200,000,000 was spent each year floating that crappy software. Oh, did I mention the purchase of NBC?
Microsoft will spend what they think it will take but it's not going to work. People notice and you always have other options.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, Balmer is the last man standing - all his chairs are broken...
- 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.
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?
How about a OS that isn't a big steaming pile of dog crap packaged in an optical disc format?
I must agree with our anonymous friend in one respect; Windows with IE will most certainly outdo anything else in mangling the web pages I design, requiring me to have a Windows machine just to make sure my hacks and workarounds in CSS for IE/Windows work. And I suppose I'll have to upgrade my Windows to be able to make sure IE 7 also works, since it is also going to be lacking in standards compliance. Except the old P-166 box I've got running Win98 with IE 6 won't even install XP or Vista. So now I'll have to buy a whole new computer...just to check on workarounds for a badly designed web browser. Yep, Microsoft really outdoes everything else. We shall just not say exactly in what.
That's about enough to print up twenty million marketing CD's with a powerpoint presentation on it and send it to the millions of possible developers. They should save the money and just give us each 5 bucks. Of course that would only buy me a cup of coffee but in the countries where most software development is going on you might buy the coffee plus still have enough left over to buy a pirated copy of XP.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
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?
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
First of all I am neither a Microsoft Troll or a Linux Zealot. I like both OS:es. That said, I am a windows developer, that is I create end user applications for Windows. I used to be very proud of this because lots of people enjoy my programs including non-technical users. Combined with windows being a pretty thoroughly documented OS (in the "how do I do"-sense, not in the "how does it work"-sense) and Visual Studio being a very good IDE and compiler, creating user mode apps for Windows was pretty fun and motivating.
That said, I have abandoned M$ forever and installed Ubuntu. I hate Vista as much as the other guy, but the DRM and all that was not the reason I changed platform (I used Windows 2000, and when Vista was released I would probably have changed to XP). The reason... is because Microsoft obviously don't care a thing about individual developers not working for huge corporations. This only becomes obvious when you have developed Windows applications for a while, unfortunately.
Windows is a very defined OS. Microsoft have thought about pretty much every possible way a developer can screw up the OS or use it in ways "not intended", and tucked away anything remotely advanced in kernel mode. This is partially good because all the sucky shareware you can download on FREE (as in punch-the-monkey) websites can not destroy your system completely. This is a typical large corporation, no hackers, everyone is equally bad-mentality (both Paul Graham and Joel on Software have essays about this).
A "safe" userland is a good idea you may think. The trick is... If you want to develop windows drivers / applications in kernel mode... You have to _pay_ Microsoft for the documentation. The Driver Development Kit costs about $100. It's true.
Microsoft want me to pay them to write applications to their OS.
Yet another unacceptable thing from M$. If anything, they should pay me (yeah, this is stupid, but not as stupid). I will now concentrate on userland applications for Linux instead. No one can screw me over now!
"If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
A job.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
You sound like my sister-in-law who didn't know how to take care of her new car, and after more than a year of heavy driving bitched about what a piece of junk it was; she's never changed the oil or did a tune-up or anything at all except put cheap gas in it, and then she wondered why it broke down. Even a toaster needs to get the crumbs cleaned out of it occasionally. I suppose you would just complain about it and buy a new one instead. I've lost count of the number of friends whose sewing machines I've "fixed" by oiling and cleaning the lint out of the feed dogs!
Kind of dumb to blame a machine for your own ignorance.
If Vista can turn my PC into an appliance and get it to power-up and come to life as fast as the television then I might be tempted. If Vista could increase the speed of my Internet connection or possibly reduce the price of ink for my photoprinter. If Vista could help me communicate with the computer faster, possibly not require a keyboard or mouse. If Vista could keep my dad from getting every known virus and worm on his computer and reduce my tech support calls. If Vista could make my PC run quieter, use less electricity and produce less heat.
:)
Unfortunately, all Vista is going to do is slooooow everything down to a crawl (yet again) to try and push new HW sales. Once everything is slooowed down, I am sure Vista will then try to lock the PC down by secretly encrypting all MP3's and disabling iTunes. Right now, Win2K and Linux are fine with me. Both run great on old HW with lots of RAM. I wonder how many developers will flock to Vista? Maybe MS should just write checks payable directly to application developers instead of spending it on advertising.
I wonder if Vista will help with the dupe posts on Slashdot? That might be worth it!
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2005 05:22:11 +0200
From: STEVEB [steveb@microsoft.com]
Subject: DEAR FREIND I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE
Dear Freind,
I am a personal assitant to Bill Gates the Richest man in World and owner of the following companies: Chairman CEO:MICROSOFT (The Largest Software Company)
SOURCE OF FUNDS:
I have a profiling amount in an excess of US$100.5M, which I seek your Partnership in accommodating for me. You will be rewarded with 4% of The total sum for your partnership. Can you be my partner on this?
INTRODUCTION OF MY SELF As a personal consultant to him, authority Was handed over to me in transfer of money of an American politician For his last deal with my boss Bill Gates.
Already the funds have left the shore of Redmon to an European private Bank where the final crediting is expected to be carried out.While I was on the process, My Boss....
Just switch operating systems on computer and monies will be yours.
PLEASE REACH ME THROUGH MY ALTERNATIVE EMAIL BOX:(balmerbaby@gmail.com) Thank you very much Regards Steve B.
Developers! Developers! Developers....!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
This appears to be 1/10th the marketing budget on windows XP: http://amo.net/NT/06-27-01WinXP.html $1 Billion but actually it looks like Microsoft itself only put up $200 Million... so thats puts windows vista at half the marketing budget of XP...
-blar
Tell me what they AREN'T changing.
The unpleasant nature of their licensing policies?
What would Lemmy do?
Yeah...well I'm gonna build my own Vista, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the Vista.
-- How many sigs are as useless as this one?
A new vista out your window?
Yes, I'd like that. Could mine over look the ocean? Some pine trees near by would be nice as well.
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
Less than half of that. 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 - each about $100
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
Tell me what they AREN'T changing.
A corporate philosophy that computer owners will not be allowed to control their own hardware and information.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Timing is going to be a huge problem for Microsoft, and it's why they're frantically cutting features in order to make their 2006 date. The big computer makers (Dell, HP, etc.) are today selling dirt cheap PCs (~$299) that are perfectly adequate for the home users. They may completely saturate the home market with these cheap XP machines before Vista hits the shelves. Anyone willing to settle for one of these today is not the type of customer who upgrades every two years. And they are indeed "good enough" -- they surf the web, write their school reports, and send email pictures of Junior to Grandma. And they'll have no reason to upgrade for a long time. They're not power gamers; fact is nobody's developed a killer app for the home that requires major CPU.
Once the market is full of these home machines that are "good enough", there will be another PC slump. And if Microsoft can't beat the home users' slump, they're going to have to rely on corporate sales.
The problem here is that Microsoft is their own biggest competitor. Businesses who have XP are "mostly satisfied." Their corporate drones can type up Word documents, create PowerPoint presentations, and read their email right now, and I don't know if Microsoft can convince them to spend major $$$ to migrate to Vista. I believe the business world already sees XP as "good enough," and most of them would question the wisdom of pumping millions of dollars into an "upgrade" that buys them no tangible advantage.
Another problem for Microsoft is that corporations will demand that XP remain under ongoing maintenance for several years after the arrival of Vista. Hell, they just cut support for NT only in the last year or two, and XP is far more popular than NT ever was.
I'm sure their current strategy is to convince the corporate "infrastructure architects" that Vista is way better than XP. Not sure how they're going to do it, but try they will. They'll probably start by offering better management tools than SMS and/or MOM. Then they'll throw out some stability numbers, tell a few worm-proof and virus-proof lies, and start replacing a few corporate servers (first one's always free ;-). But with the DRM in place, very few of the corporate Windows fanbois I know are going to leap to Vista personally, and these are the absolute most critical people for Microsoft to sell to. There simply is no incentive. I'm imagining Vista may end up being a free upgrade to a few corporate giants, just to get visibility out there.
John
You got me wondering what the Vista them song is going to be.
I'm assuming it'll be some kind of classic rock tune with a not-so-subtle connection to the OS name, with a chorus like "I can see for miles and miles", "I can see clearly now" or maybe even a cameo of some kind, like Arnie saying "Hasta La Vista Baby" while deleting porno off his Dell.
For me, it just works fine!
You do not like Windows Media Player? I beleive it's much better that crappy real player or damn Jetaudio or
Have you ever used XP? Device drivers are simply removable, you've also got other options like Rollback in case of a problem with new installation. In Vista the device driver model has changed a bit so that drivers are written in a way that theoretically they can NOT crash the whole system should they have some problem, MS says they will have limited access to the core of the OS.
Depricate DirectX?!! OMG! So many of pre-Vista stuff won't work, so many software/game developers will have to make a big big switch and the most important of all, I will lose NASA Worldwind. This is not only impossible but also unfair
I definitely agree w/ this one
WinFS is about the only thing I would have liked to see in Vista. I've been waiting for that probably almost as long as Bill himself has.
Very little else that I've heard has excited me, though. The 3d additions to the user interface haven't sounded like much more than an excuse to force hardware upgrades.
As someone else said, a decent CLI and scripting language would have been really good, but it's probably true that those of us who want such things are a minority; from Microsoft's perspective, they wouldn't have to care about us.
It's a shame they feel like that, though...because although it might seem to them as though they'll make more money from the home users, the corporate trench coders are probably the people who'll spend the most time using it...so you'd think that they should get some sort of input as to its features.
Why not just give out the first million copies for free instead. That will at least build a user base.