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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."
What he really meant was that it would be 80% DONE by January. That means, if they release it in January, it will be the most complete and stable OS ever released by Microsoft.
At this point, even Debian has a more reliable release schedule!
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
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.
Bud Light presents ... Real Men Of Genius.
[Real Men Of Genius.]
Today, we salute you, Mr Impatient For Windows Vista Guy.
[Mr Impatient For Windows Vista Guy.]
While others marvel at an operating system whose primary repair
tradition is a complete wipe, you just can't wait for more of the
same.
[I just love my Long Horn!]
Yes, it lacks security, efficiency, speed, heck, just about
everything. But ever since 1985, when you first jammed your floppies
into that curvaceous 186, you've been enraptured with Windows.
[It was five and a quarter inches!]
Despite the fact that it requires an array of Crays to run already
invented technologies at sub-optimum speeds, you will beat the rush
and see Notepad and Clock run in CPU-crippling GPU-hogging
translucency.
[It turns on all my pixels!]
So crack open an ice cold Bud Lite, oh Chevalier of the Control Panel,
because whilst the rest of us wonder what Vista will bring, you
already know.
[Mr Impatient For Windows Vista Guy!]
Bud Light beer. Anheuser Busch, St. Louis, Missouri.
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.
"He is also hopeful that the next version of Office will ship in December."
Oh man, now he's resorting to asking Santa...
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.
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."
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
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.
I have a little experience with Linux (RHCE) but I have to say that using it day to day for other than server purposes is like dating a crazy chick. It's a lot of fun and she let's you do stuff with her that other chicks don't, but you often wonder, "Is it worth all the hassle?"
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.