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Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again
UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."
"Microsoft still wants to get it out as soon as possible, but slipping from January to March is nowhere near as bad as slipping from shipping before the holidays to after the holidays," a group of Gartner analysts wrote in the report.
What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season? If anyone gets a computer for Christmas, they're still likely to get it with Microsoft products. If not (i.e. they buy an Apple), I don't see that having Vista out will help that much.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Now if MS actually can meet its launch date, the industry media will praise them, rather than saying, "uh, wasn't this supposed to be released three years ago? And where's all the good features, like Nomad and WinFS?"
If this is actually the case, I think Microsoft deserves what's coming to them. The only reason they still have so much market share is because of inertia, but if they can't actually ship a product (even at the already delayed date) they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming. They've dropped a ton of features, they can't ship on time, even Joe six pack will at some point realize that this isn't the company that should be in control of his computer. Like it or not, people aren't going to switch to Linux or OSS because it might be better or because open source is a better sofware development model. They're going to switch because they're having a problem. Nobody's going to go out of their way to fix a problem they don't have. Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
It's like announcing that a herd of turtles is reaching the finish line. It's big, it's bulky and everyone knows it's coming. The question is anyone will give a hare's tail once it finally arrives - or will the rabbit (or penguin) finally win the race?
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers
Insane specs? The Specs for Vista are the same as last release of OSX. Actually less when you consider Vista will run on 800mhz machines with 512mb of RAM quite well. (Yes we test it on this configuration.)
So what are insane specs to you?
512MB of RAM for 'optimal' performance? Ok, $40
DirectX 9.0 Card for 'high end glass' (PS in Hardware)? Ok, GeforceFX 5200 $50
Also as a side note, if you are running Vista on legacy hardware. Like a PII 400Mhz with 128mb of RAM, there are several high end monitoring services that turn off, and can be turned off to run at the same performance as WinXP, which is still faster than Win9X and even Win2k on the same hardware.
Trying to truly find your point here, what do you consider 'insane' specs? Am I missing something?
For everyone here that is dogging Vista, you sure are pissed when it gets delayed even more. I would figure that you would be loving the fact that Microsoft is pushing it farther and farther back. It sure seems like you guys can't wait for it to be here. I say when it gets here, it gets here.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
than ridiculously full of bugs. If they rush a product that isn't ready it would generate even worse publicity than constantly delaying it. It's done when it's done (tm). Inevitably (for those of you who don't like MS), it's still going to have a heaping pile of flaws, but hopefully not as many. No one wants another Windows ME.
No, really, who cares? Are there people clamoring to get their hands on this new OS ASAP (WTF BBQ) and who will be extremely put out if it is not available until later on in the future? My question for these people is: what will this new OS do for you that isn't true right now?
And as a side note, I am really bloody tired of reading stories about things that "analysts" think. "Joe Analyst issues a note to Judy Analyst, under the table, in the back of the classroom. Investors giggled to themselves and rubbed their index fingers together..."
-b
myselfmusic
The headline is kinda sensationalist...Gartner is projecting that MS won't ship Vista based on the released data of beta2...pure speculation on thier part based on how Win2k's cyle worked...
sorry, but nothing to see here...
Is there anyone left who does not think that Windows Vista is a big long drawn out trainwreck. A project that has to be delayed over and over and over and over. Compare this to the development of the OS they copy. Apple has shipped product over and over.
If you can't manage to ship one of the two products you make all your money on, what does that say about the management of Microsoft?
This is gartner reporting; This is the same group that in 1999 reported that Linux/OSS would penetrate into the server market at most 1% and into the web server market at only 5% by 2004 (5 years). Sadly, Linux was already beating those numbers at that time.
Generally, Gartner ( and IDC and a few others ) are some of the worse are guessing what the future holds. In fact, I would suggest that their incompetence is so bad, that I would guess that they get at most 25% correct; which means, that most companies would be better off betting against them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't think most people really care. I for one have no intention of rushing out and getting it. What will it have that is such an improvement over XP? They can just keep on delaying for all I care.
Personally I don't understand why anyone would even consider touching this before its been out for at least a few months if not a year. It's quite apparent they are trying to rush this thing out the door. I'll be highly surprised if it isn't one huge bug infested mess. I certainly wouldn't want to depend on it for anything.
This is the real reason for the delay.
So long as Vista is still-in-the-future it will slow companies transitioning to Linux or Mac. As soon as it comes out and the deficiencies are known, organizations will have little reason not to move to Apples which are now superior in all ways except video games.
This has long been their strategy, as evidenced by this federal judge in 1995
And now, as always, the idea that companies should evaluate Vista before switching to mac or linux is a very compelling reason why Microsoft should keep the Vista launch 6-months-away forever.
I'm a bit of a Microsoft fanboy but personally I think they should just give up on Vista. It's a trainwreck of a project and I can see another Windows ME in the making. I can't see many compelling reasons to deploy this in an existing environment. It's (for the most part) just a Windows XP clone with a few new features with a pretty UI and steep hardware requirements.
Microsoft should take all the half decent features out of Vista, back port them to Windows XP and call it Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows XP R2 then site down and have a good long think before they try this again.
It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up. If we can get Windows applications running under Linux with WINE, then surely Microsoft can get Windows applications running under some new operating system thus satisfying the backwards compatibility requirements. There are far too many issues with Windows appearing that are grounded in its architecture such as reduced privileges which is difficult to make work because Windows is not truly multi-user etc. etc. etc.
Give it up, start again and do it properly.
Am I the only one that remembers that "Longhorn" was supposed to follow XP about three years? I went a Googling and found plenty of chatter back in 2002 about how pissy customers would be if their new, expensive Software Assurance didn't include an upgrade to the new OS within three years. One of Microsoft's VPs even suggested MS would "do something" if the date slipped that far. It seems that the reporters don't remember anything preceding the original, official release date of 2005.
What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season?
All sorts of juicy Software Assurance Program subscriptions expire this year. Years ago, Microsoft managed to sucker companies into paying a large lump sum for all the Windows updates over the next six years - including Vista!
If companies get nothing at all for the duration of the contract, I think you'll see a lot of lawsuits and I know you'll see a lot of dropped "assurance" subscriptions.
Microsoft is delivering vista to companies even if it has to come in a box with crayon on the disc in place of a label.
Now you also know why the consumer release is later, because this release is just to meet obligations and in no way will be ready for primetime for you or I.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And a lot of Slashdotters care, because a lot of us work for software companies whose products have to run on Vista.
It could be that they wait for the outcome of what the European court will say. It is said that it could take up to a year before a decision is made.
Having then an OS out that goes against those rules might not be a wise choice. Prosponing it a bit might give them enough space to follow the law.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Not to mention that this is the same Gartner that always recommend holding off the adoption of the latest software when it's about to come out. Duh! Anyone works in IT can tell you about this. And this time, their claim about Vista being delayed again seems to be based on, welling, pretty much nothing; in other word, a wild guess. You have to wonder how their so called analyst earned their trade. I pity those that listen to Gartner instead of their local IT people.
Make a reasonable release goal based on the amount of work that needs to be done, and stop stating release dates to appese the market.
That what most people want, a reasonable estimate. I doubt the delays are because of any extra bug fixes. More like bad management of an overly large and complex project.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In any case, an OPERATING SYSTEM shouldn't require that kind of power! An OS is meant to act as an interpretation layer between software and hardware, that's all. If it takes that much power to do such a "simple" task, one should wonder what the hell else is going on under the hood.
that's great. so ship it.
Aww, Heck. You have *got* to be fucking kidding.
I've been in
I mean, if this isn't safe, but is the best way to do it:WTF? C# (and by extension,
VS pisses me off way too much to be a good dev environment, and
Personally, the Vista delay means nothing to me, other than proof that Microsoft is quickly losing relevence. Sure, their market domination will help them survive, but where I was once disturbed that they might be able to completely fuck up computing, I think they've merely succeeded in setting us back a decade.
Oh, well, YMMV.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Could we get them to delay it a little longer, say perhaps another 20 years or so?
I'm still trying to get over WfW 3.11.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
No it is not getting old.
There is a architectural problem here with Windows software in that Redmond keeps making versions of the software to sell more software to lock everyone stupid enough to buy it, in.
It is insane to use 512MB on a server that doesn't need it just to run the OS on it.
Let alone a stupid GUI, which doesn't belong on servers anyway.
More and more software piled ontop of machines to do simple functions make machines easier to break into, not harder to break into. So what do we do? We add more software ontop of that to fix it, which of course doesn't fix it. (i.e. Virus scanners, spam blockers...etc)
My Mantra: Increasing the process working set size of a server makes it less secure, not more secure.
Windows already runs WAY too much crap that screws itself every 7 days on my Windows 2000 servers which I have to reboot on a weekly basis or they tank running terminal services. We must have paid Microsoft, I don't know, maybe 3GRAND last year to try and fix the problem and they can't.
They told us to buy Win2003 to fix the problem. After spending about 3 Grand.
Up YOURS Balmer, my solution to this problem was to convert everything to Linux. Problem solved.
Meanwhile, NONE of my UNIX boxes (Linux, BSD) have these issues and run far more complex programs on them like PostGRES FreeNX and OpenOffice and have uptimes on them well over 200 days.
I do Kernel updates once a year if I must.
You just don't get it. It is not OLD it is a well know software engineering problem: More instructions to execute means MORE BUGS and there is a direct correlation between the two with tons of research from the military on the topic when ADA was developed.
Repeat after me:
Desktops and Servers with smaller working executable code sets run better than Desktops and Servers with bigger working executable code sets. By better I mean, they crash less, run faster and are CHEAPER to run. Yes, thats right, CHEAPER. You can ACTUALLY affect your electricity bill if you have that XEO doing more idle time than work time. If your a guy like me with 20 or so big honkin X64 systems, you can cut your electric bill by 8% by running LINUX instead of windows. This is due to the simple fact that UNIX or Linux does exactly what I want to it too and if it doesn't I can make it because I can tell it what processes to run and even have the source code should I want to get all Richard Stallman on my servers behind.
But in anycase, You heard it hear first folks: Run Linux save electricity.
I use to have to get up at 2AM or some other freakin hour 3 times a week at least to kick a Windows machine's arse because it would simply get "tired" and stop working.
Guess what? I moved 90% of my network and application services to Linux and since then haven't got a page yet from NAGIOS at 2AM in the morning. (Still get some though as the Thunderstorms tend to knock out my network in the summer, which sucks but I can't do anything about it.)
So this isn't old, or an idle complaint. Microsoft is doing this not to solve your business problem, because the software industry already knows how to make reliable software systems than Microsoft puts out. Microsoft is doing this too sell you more software and to HELL with your business requirements! (i.e. Mine where still are a business computing system that operates 24x7, nonstop and MUST be available at all times.)
Screw Microsoft, and if you buy servers with Vista loaded on them with half a gig of memory to run a NTP server you GET what you DESERVE.
CRAP!
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Seriously, I'd like Microsoft more if they just shut up about what they were "going" to do, and would just DO it. If I was MS, I'd write, test, debug, test and debug some more, and have a fully operational OS before I even announced what i had. Kind of like Apple, when Steve Jobs walks out with a new toy: It's a real product and it works well enough to show off its cool features. Only then would I open a beta to public parties and tell them to hack at it for a while. Once the bugs that the coders missed are caught (like referenced here: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/02/ 2216235) then I would begin selling it. Also if I was MS...I'd have a bigger house. Seriously.
/. look like Richard Stallman. (You know, he's the type of fanatic who converts his mp3's into .wmv files "so they play better on a Windows machine...") He told me that he heard there was another delay announced, etc. and that it was because they were "making Windows better." While I can't argue with that logic, I asked him why he was so against trying Linux. His answer was that "it's open source". When I asked him what was wrong with that, he told me that open source meant that anyone could rewrite the code in the OS files on his machine!
I first caught wind of Longhorn in early 2004, and I'm by no means on the cutting edge of tech news. We (meaning average Joe Shmoe's) thought "Ooh, a new Windows OS...XP was such a great step from ME, maybe this Longhorn will be even better!!" At that time XP was still fairly recent, I upgraded to XP in 2001. I had no choice...I was running Windows ME and I needed something better. Like most folks in my shoes at that time, Linux wasn't an option. 5 years ago, the GUI options for a Linux noob/Windows user weren't very appealing. Plus I thought chmod was something you did to mod your ch...whatever that was... Flash forward 5 years: Longhorn is now Vista, but its still vaporware for the mass market. Linux is making HUGE strides in user interfaces for the desktop. My girlfriend, who is rather computer illiterate, runs Ubuntu or Damn Small Linux depending on the machine.
I had an interesting discussion tonight with a co-worker of mine who makes all the MS fanboys on
*sigh*
I don't know if he's just that dumb...or if there is some MS propaganda going around regarding OSS. Neither would surprise me much.
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.