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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."
Okay, I am getting tired of these delays. If I hadn't seen a beta, I would claim that Vista is vaporware. How many times does this make that it has been delayed? Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
...clearly you aren't familiar with their history of being a pain in the ass. As soon as Leopard comes out, I'm going Mac.
It's a girl!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Wind
they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming.
Defections because why, exactly...? Do you know anybody who NEEDS Vista? I certainly don't. Windows 2000 and XP are pretty damn good products, and I know that we're not upgrading because there's no reason to. Vista will be just a "gee whiz, this is neat" thing if/when we ever buy new computers again.
Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.
What problems, exactly?
But there are people who are waiting for it to come out before buying a new computer with a soon-to-be obsolete operating system.
There are? Really? Really? In all honesty, I don't think that I've ever heard any non-OSS zealots complain about Windows XP. It's essentially a finished product. There aren't really any major problems left to hammer out, or functionality to add, as far as I'm concerned. What, specifically, are "people" waiting for in Vista? I consider myself a geek, and I don't even know or care what Vista is going to do. Windows 2000/XP work just fine for us.
OK, first of all, this is Gartner, not MS making the claims. From the article:
said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release... [emphasis added]
Yes, this is the same Gartner that said that Linux was too complex to have been written by Linus Torvalds...
But, it gets better:
Once production starts, it usually takes between six- to eight-weeks for PC manufacturers to load the operating system onto new computers, Gartner said.Six weeks! - and I thought I had a slow hard drive when it took two hours to install Linux.
Perhaps that should have been "six to eight weeks to begin shipping..."?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Windows 95 brought TCP/IP and a web browser. Windows 98 brought USB and FAT32. Windows 2K/XP brought multi-user and NTFS. Quick, in 30 seconds or less, what is Vista is going to have that's interesting? I predict it will a draconian DRM thingy to go with some product activation scheme even more onerous that WinXP. Yeah, that's got me excited...not.
In reponse to this news, Apple stock was up 3% today.
This is a dangerous game Microsoft's playing.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Well just to throw this out there, I sort of care. Not really about the next version of windows, but where my support is going to sit. Right now company I admin is all win2k. It's stable with no problems. Didn't really see a reason to go with XP and I still don't. But driver support is starting to lag. I have until 2010 until extended support runs out, but the bigger issue is what happens if machines burn out and I can't get 2000 to load because of lack of drivers. Skipping the XP upgrade saved us a LOT of money. So did sticking with office 2000. But at some point we're going to have to upgrade, and the current MS schedule is going to determine if we upgrade to Vista - which may be a bomb, or wait until the version after that, assuming it can come out before 2010.
What, specifically, are "people" waiting for in Vista?
One specific thing would be DirectX 10 which will be a "Vista-only" feature. Further, anyone considering buying a new computer could be waiting for Vista boxes to ship, both for the pre-installed OS discounts and to ensure that they get compatible hardware.
Then again, I'm a gamer looking at buying a new computer and Vista doesn't even enter into my thinking since there will probably be at least a year or two where games will be compatible with both OSes. And, even if a Vista-only game is released I'm comfortable enough to upgrade my own hardware and software if necessary.
My question for these people is: what will this new OS do for you that isn't true right now?
Apply this question to any OS release, be it from Microsoft, Linux, Apple, or someone else. Generally there are things that people come to expect in the new release. Sometimes it's better security. Sometimes it's better stability. Sometimes it's improved networking, better utilization of CPU resources, or something else.
For a long time now, Microsoft has been billing Vista as The Next Big Thing. As they promised in their March 21 road map update, "Windows Vista will deliver great value to businesses by seamlessly connecting people to information, enabling increased mobile and remote productivity, significantly reducing deployment and support costs, and providing a more secure and compliant desktop platform. For consumers, Windows Vista will bring clarity to the world of personal computing, enabling people to more safely and easily accomplish everyday tasks, instantly find what they want, enjoy the latest in entertainment, and stay connected at home or on the go."
Microsoft's credibility has been sliding for years now. Regular everyday people are starting to realize that Microsoft isn't the only game in town. Apple is coming on strong and getting increasingly aggressive in its marketing of the Mac. The Linux user base continues to grow.
Microsoft advocates used to be able to claim that no matter what the technical limitations of the company's products, it was always run very well. Products shipped on time. You could usually figure that even if it was mediocre now, whatever Microsoft product you were using would probably be better in a year, and markedly improved in two or three years. That's certainly not the case now, and continued inability to deliver makes Microsoft a less reliable vendor.
If you always figured Vista wouldn't amount to much, the delay obviously won't matter to you personally. You could probably measure the slide in Microsoft's influence by the increase in lack of concern over Vista delays.
As for analysts, it sure would be great to get paid to engage in the same sort of random speculation we all do on Slashdot anyway. Hell, for reliable predictions about the technology market, I'd pick any ten Slashdot readers over any ten analysts any day.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
rant
/rant
Speak for yourself(and your version). I was fool enough to buy the 64-bit version of XP. Boy, was that a mistake. It doesn't come with drivers for half of my devices, and few companies make drivers for it(not really a MS fault). To boot, most firewalls and anti-virus programs don't work on it! While the 32-bit version may be fine and dandy, I'm pretty disappointed with the 64-bit. In fact, I'm considering telling MS that, and demanding that they let me trade it in for a downgrade to 32-bit.
* All the links to MSN are being removed. Probably for business or regulatory reasons. No links means you're (in theory) not pushing MSN, and you're being Web Homepage neutral. Or, it could be they're giving up on MSN? That would be very hard to believe.
* Unix tools are now optional? Considering the growth of Linux, this is surprising since more and more businesses actually are using these tools (especially "rsh" and "ssh". You'd think they'd want more compatibility than less. Wonder if "optional installation" means that you have to select it when you install it, or whether you have to pay for it. My take: Dell will probably include them anyway since so many people need them.
* FrontPage is a major component for many web pages and is a major feature for ISPs. How will this affect all those FrontPage webpages? Will FrontPage still be an optional component in the Server version? If not, how will this affect the ISPs?
* Lack of email support for HTTP via WebDAV: Is this a security concern? How will this affect people? Do a lot of Webmails still do this?
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Cringely has a whole theory that Apple (using MS own source code) will include the Windows XP API in their next release of OS X. (See http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060420
I find it hard to believe that Apple would actually be able to do this. However, people I know who work in these places tell me that Apple actually does have licensing rights to the Windows 2000 API (and therefore to most of Windows XP API). Rumors have it that MS gave Apple the licensing rights in exchange for the licensing rights for Mac OS 9 and the NeXTstep code. If that's true, Steve certainly got Bill to drink quite a bit of Koolaid.