Microsoft Hoping for Vista in January

WebHostingGuy writes "Bill Gates said Tuesday there was an 80 percent chance the company's next-generation operating system, Vista, would be ready in January. He is also hopeful that the next version of Office will ship in December. The holdup, he says, is due to constant revisions due to beta tester feedback." From the article: "'We've got to get this absolutely right,' Gates said. 'If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I'd be glad to delay it.' He said Microsoft was investing $8 billion to $9 billion in developing Vista and the company's next version of Office, its key cash-generator. He said the company's software partners, in developing and adapting their own products for the two launches, would invest 20 times as much as Microsoft."

Comments

Will there be

[remembertomorrow]

a reason to actually upgrade to it by then?

Last I heard, all the features were being removed, and that it required an insane machine to run.

Re:couple of observations

[Explodo]

Any time a widely used OS is significantly changed, everyone will have to invest some amount of time with testing, and possibly refreshing, their software. Since there are so many companies that might have to do so, there's a significant software expense in doing so. If there's a large shift in KDE, to make it more future-oriented, then a very large amount of time will be spent by a large number of developers to update software. While they may not be getting paid to do it, their time still has value. Ol' Bill apparently realizes that software development is done by lots of people in lots of ways, unlike you.

Re:couple of observations

[gravyface]

Once again, Microsoft leaves the heavy lifting to others. What a crock. What exactly is Microsoft supposed to do, reverse-engineer everyone's applications for them so it will run under Vista? I'm no Windows programmer, but clearly the partners are going to have to make changes if their software is incompatible with Vista.

Doesn't matter

[eebra82]

There is no real need for a Vista release anytime soon, really. Judging from what we've heard so far, people complain about the hardware requirements. Microsoft should not have had a public release date on this product and it seems people are upset only because they missed it. Well, guess what, Windows XP is still here and I doubt anyone in here can actually give me a good reason why we HAVE TO get Vista right away. I wouldn't mind waiting another year.

Re:Doesn't matter

[ZachPruckowski]

Well, guess what, Windows XP is still here and I doubt anyone in here can actually give me a good reason why we HAVE TO get Vista right away. I wouldn't mind waiting another year.

Every month that goes by without Vista is another month for Linux to improve, and is another month for Apple to work on Leopard (and maybe beat Vista out with it). Point is, MS has competition, which is picking up speed. MS wants to cut that off as soon as possible, and regulate them back to 1-2 percent each.

Re:Doesn't matter

[SpaceLifeForm]

I'm still wondering why anyone had to upgrade to XP from 2000.

Sneer if you like

[DysenteryInTheRanks]

He said the company's software partners, in developing and adapting their own products for the two launches, would invest 20 times as much as Microsoft

Right there is why Microsoft is the most successful software company in the world -- respect for developers.

It's all well and good to laugh at Steve Ballmer sweating like an ape on a stage and shouting about developers. It's fine to feel smug and superior using Mac OS or Linux (I'm using both write now myself).

But Microsoft has always respected the work of developers coding to their platform. Backward compatibility is a religion at Microsoft, by all accountts. Which is good because they're, um, a platform vendor.

Sounds simple, but it is amazing how often this is screwed up. Apple is notorious for breaking old programs that didn't interpret the Mac API just right -- or that relied on a technology fad Apple pumped and abandoned (OpenDoc, QuickDraw GX, Publish + Subscribe, etc etc).

Apache Foundation did the same thing moving from httpd v1 to v2 -- PHP took quite a long time to move over and at one point was telling people not to even try using it with v2.

Firefox seems to do it on every release with its extensions.

Backward compatibility might not give warm fuzzies to the systems programmers -- it is hard, inelegant work. But it is a boon to users and application programmers.

I only use Linux on the server, where I don't run into backward compatibility issues, but from what I understand the drivers often have to be rewritten from release to release.

I'm not in love with Windows or Microsoft, but I will continue using their OS becase of the sheer range of CHOICES in terms of software and hardware, and the fact that all my old stuff can migrate to a new machine.

So go ahead, laugh at Microsoft, har dee har, "u r d3layed AG@1N!" For your purposes -- programming, running a server -- Linux may be the best. Or Mac OS X for that plus video editing, publishing, and other tasks and price points that don't require the full diversity of Wintel.

  But for most computer users, Windows offers wins because of its compatibility with an incredibly array of cheap hardware and an incredible back (and forward) catalog of software. Microsoft knows this, and THAT'S why they are going to wait until Vista is just right. Yes they screwed the pooch, but they are attempting something that neither Linux nor OS X can touch.

Re:Sneer if you like

[Soko]

Your statement is inherently true - Microsoft takes care of it's devs (The VS product line is normally stellar in quality and ease of use) unless, of course, you're a dev in competition with them. Then you get to deal with closed formats, random API changes and, in the case of GPL software devs, licensing that benefits them at your expense. Oh, you can become a compeditor of thiers at any time - as soon as they see you're making some serious money and/or stratecically covet your market segment.

OK, Microsoft can do ths if they want, but it hurts the industry when Microsoft can tell devs what, for whom and how to develop software, or suffer destruction at thier hands. (Unlees you're IBM or Oracle sized, and have enough resources to fight back.)

Soko

Re:Credible odds?

[mrchaotica]

which he deserves some credit for, regardless as to how people feel about this company

It depends. Do you think his charity is enough to make up for all the harm Microsoft has done to the economy over the years, between the predatory business practices, viruses, stifling non-Microsoft technologies, etc.? I'd say it's entirely possible that, if Microsoft had never existed, we might be so much more prosperous today that all that money would still be going to charity, and more.

Re:If Apple is really smart ... (was:Doesn't matte

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

Release OSX for generic PC. It'll kill their (perceived) "hardware business" (in practice is just expensive dongles for their OS and software suite) but it would pretty much nail M$ to the wall.

Now I admit I'm a huge Mac fanboi and would be just fine never touching another Windows box in my life, but Apple would take many tears and years to integrate the hardware support that Windows has. One of the reasons I love Apple, "Don't do it all, just do what you do damn well."

As a self-proclaimed Linux fanboi . . .

[mmell]

I have to say "Yes" - it does make up for all the times Mr. Gates has used the American free-enterprise system exactly as intended to serve his own best interests.

You want corporate evil? Look at fellows like Carnagie and Rockefeller. There's a couple of great examples of the "robber baron", and we still name civic centers and auditoriums after them. Gates isn't even a blip on the radar next to those two. Granted, he's beyond obscenely rich, and there's no mistaking his business practices for anything resembling fair, but he really is quite tame by comparison to some of America's more revered/despised business leaders of the past.

American history is replete with such men. It's the inevitable result of the free-enterprise system.

Re:Credible odds?

[tomstdenis]

No no no no no.

The linux driver situation is not a mess. You just bought a product where the developer doesn't care about you, the customer.

There is no technical reason why the camera doesn't work in Linux. It's not the job of OSS developers to be on the leading edge of every device on the planet. If your device manufacturer doesn't want to write drivers and doesn't want to document the interface how is this a failing of Linux?

btw with libgphoto a lot of USB cams work just fine in Linux [including the Canon Powershot series].

Tom

That was old Microsoft

[SuperKendall]

The new Microsoft is more than happy to ship .Net upgrades that break older code.

As for Apple not having respect for developers, which companies ships every OS with a copy of the development tools? Just because they are a little more agressive API wise does not mean they do not support developers.

And Linux of course is the original "I liked the product so much I wrote it myself" kind of system that is by developers, for developers. If Linux has a problem it's that it only truly respects developers and other people are allowed to tag along for the ride!