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Possible Delays for Vista in Europe
tttonyyy writes "After Microsoft was hit with fines for anti-competitive behaviour in 2004 and 2006, it seems that the launch of Vista may be delayed in Europe. Microsoft is blaming this delay on a lack of guidelines from the European Commission. The Commission denies causing any delay, declaring that the impetus is not on them but on Microsoft to produce a product that conforms to the EU competition rules." Further,
The New York Times reports "Delaying the introduction in Europe, [members of the European Parliament] said in a letter made public by Microsoft on Thursday, 'would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage with every other company around the world who does have access to these new technologies.'"
Nice business ya got there... would be a shame if anything 'happened' to it...
Is it me, or is this just yet another example of MS abusing their monopoly? I see the logic, but can't understand the justification for this argument -- MS shouldn't have to comply with anti-monopoly regulations because any delay will hurt European businesses due to MS's monopoly?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It seems that Microsoft is at least making a superficial attempt to get things right this time around. A quick Google search shows how many delays there have already been. I doubt that having to wait a little longer will negatively impact anyone. After all, how many companies rush out and buy the latest OS in the month that it is released? I see potential problems for OEMs, but the average company waits for patches and better stability before adoption.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
"would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage with every other company around the world who does have access to these new technologies."
What Dribble. Does that mean all those companies still using Windows 2000 / NT are at a competitive disadvantage with companies who got conned into upgrading to the virtually identical Windows XP?
I fail to see what competitive advantage Vista will give businesses who upgrade to it immediatly. Maybe companies could run into problems in 5 years time when compatability issues arise, but not in the short/medium term.
I can understand wanting to spin the situation to make it appear as though it's not their fault that there will be a delay, but are they really so naive as to believe the crap they're spouting about how not having Vista "would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage with every other company around the world who does have access to these new technologies"?
I'm sure that there are a few businesses out there that still run Windows 2000 on their machines, and that even after Vista comes out, some companies will take several years before migrating away from XP. About the only way I could consider Microsoft's statement valid is if you consider the new technologies found in the new boxes that will be needed to run Vista, because the current hardware used might not be up to snuff.
Sounds familiar to European PS3 Launch Delayed to 2007
Microsoft really seem to be shooting themselves in the foot lately, even if this isn't their fault.
Consequently, the European Vista will be be bundled with Microsoft's new killer app, Duke Nukem Forever.
One of Microsoft's biggest problems (along with their seemingly insane devotion to their own proprietary formats and obsession with control) is something they've always done: early overhype. The same thing happened with the Windows XP. They put out so much overblown hype early on in their product announcements (making ridiculous claims like "this will be more powerful than a supercomputer" and other such bunk) that later, inevitably, when they have to pull back and announce REAL specs and features, it comes off as a disappointment.
They are nothing less than the victims of their own unrealistic promises.
-Eric
Sony for Microsoft
Vista for PS3
And so on...
My city: Barcelona.
On the one hand, yes, Microsoft evil. We know. Monopoly bad.
But I can see their point. If the EU commission can go and levy arbitrary fines if it doesn't like what Microsoft does then I can see Microsoft wanting guidance before releasing a new product. I don't think the EU Commission has treated Microsoft fairly - their dealings seem to be tinged with a bit of anti-Americanism that seems to be all the rage in Europe of late.
So I say go ahead, Microsoft, take your ball and go home (or at least don't let them play with it a little while) so that these power-tripping politicians can understand the consquences on their actions.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Is it me, or is this just yet another example of MS abusing their monopoly? I see the logic, but can't understand the justification for this argument -- MS shouldn't have to comply with anti-monopoly regulations because any delay will hurt European businesses due to MS's monopoly?
Yes, the ultimate harm of monopoly is exclusion. Competitors are not allowed to offer better goods and services and the monopolist is able to deny service to any they please.
This time, it's pure bullshit and won't work. No business that waits for Vista will be at a competitive disavantage. It's the businesses that adopt yet another secret format for communications that will have problems. It is incredible that M$ tries to spin abuse of formats into some kind of advantage. It took years for XP to gain any significant business presence and to this day, many if not most businesses use w2k. Sensible companies store their publications in PDF that can come from any source. We've all been through this song and dance before and most are sick of it. The massive inefficiency of the M$ upgrade train is the motivator for mass migration. Vista is going to flop when people see that it's only feature is buggy access to ancient non free music and movies. Superior alternatives exist and have been adopted by many, such as Lowes, IBM, Chrysler and countless small businesses and individuals. The Microsoft monopoly is cracked and will soon shatter.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Europeans are so lucky. They have a built-in excuse to skip the initital wave of problems and go right to SP1.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Oh boy, these guys in Redmond...do they actually believe their flagship product is providing competitive advantages? Someone needs a reality check. Clearly no version of Windows since, shall we say, 2k have given companies any form for cost savings, productivity improvements or the like. The only European companies in competitive disadvantage is the IT implementors, who might have to wait a bit in getting hold of their upgrade service fees. But then again, show me a successful corporation who installs OS'es imediately after releases. Way too big a risk! At least for the banks it's a cycle of easily 1-2 years delay before they are going to install it company wide. And who knows, by then we might even be able to install OS X on non-Apple boxes. As a European, I feel rather relieved!
put European companies at a competitive disadvantage with every other company around the world who does have access to these new technologies.
It could also put them at a competitive advantage by using stable technologies while their foreign competitors play with new thingies.
By the time it gets introduced in Europe, the others have already found the first bugs and Microsoft may have fixed some of them.
...is the same as Microsofts:
if you don't start immediately, after 5 years you'd be only at 50% completed instead of 80 or 90% like your competitors?
And your point is...? I know of no busines in existence in the world today that states in its mission statement that "we shall strive to complete a softweare upgrade rollout faster than any of our competitors"--there is no point to have a goal of getting all employees upgraded to the latest OS before everyone else. Businesses strive to offer the best quality of product or service, or to be the lowest-cost supplier, or be among the best employers, or be first to market with a new invention. These goals have little to do with what OS a company runs on their computers.
I know, it certainly could put a company at a disadvantage if it was still running ancient VAX machinesand had DEC VT green-screen termials and '386 PCs running Windows 3.1 for Workgroups on people's desks. However there has to be a balance--a company that hastily rolls out a new release of software just so it can get there first is at an equal disadvantage as the company that limps alog on ancient unsupported software and hardware. In fact, upgrading too quickly can be MORE costly to a business than waiting too long. This is especially the case with closed, commercial software because of added licensing costs.
Here is what I found was the case with nearly ALL the companies who upgraded their Windows boxes to XP before SP1, or 2003 before it was ready: the licensing costs were at their highest at initial release, proper drivers were not available for all their hardware resulting in unanticipated hardware upgrade costs, they got smacked by extra vulnerabilities or bugs not present in older software, and important applications broke upon upgrade (in particular, custom applications, ERP/EAM/other enterprise apps, industrial software like HMIs PLC programming software and communications drivers and so on).
I'd have to say MS has it backwards--the EU is helping enforce responsible behavior on its industries by delaying early adoption of unproven software, so it has the ADVANTAGE over the rest of the world. The best way to upgrade is to phase in new software gradually, for example as hardware is replaced, and periodically evaluate the benefits of upgrading. Quite often, there are no compelling benefits at all until the vendor starts dropping support. For example, only within the last year has it been justifiable to upgrade Win2k machines to XP just for the sake of upgrading--reason being is that some important new software and hardware support will not be available (things like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media, and IE7, and limited support for SQL 2005 on win2k servers). For most companies I've dealt with, XP was not at all considered until SP1 was released, and even then the upgrade strategy was to phase it in as new machines came online.
I think MS is just showing a bit of desperation in trying to get the Windows upgrade cycle back on track, as well as frustration at being reigned in by anti-trust regulations. I don't even think members of EU parliament are stupid enough to swallow such tripe.
No company worth anything would be putting Vista into production use until at least SP1 arrives. So who gives a toss if it is delayed a bit. If a company really, really wants Vista then they can buy it over the internet. If for some reason M$ stops resellers sending it to Europe then there would be many law suits heading their way. If this were the case, then any company who legally wanted to get their hands on a copy only has to send someone over the pond and walk into any Best Buy and purchase one for hard cash.
In this day and age of the Internet ( after all, it was created by BillyG wasn't it?) they can't stop people getting their hands on it if they want it.
Personally,
I'm not going to even look at it until at least SP1 comes out and even then we may wait longer. XP + Server 2003 are doing thier jobs and frankly, we don't feel any need to spend lots of Euros at this time going over to Vista.
Finally,
I wonder what fantastic technology is in Vista that companies will be missing out on by the delay? I Imagine with all the H/W requirements, Aero won't be high on that list. DRM? Pah FUD.
The whole schebang is marketing FUD.
Ignore them.
First:
/American
"Delaying the introduction in Europe [...] would put European companies at a competitive disadvantage with every other company around the world who does have access to these new technologies.'"
Awww. Cry, Baby, Cryyyy! Look, whether it was justified or not, the fact remains that they did everything possible to make life difficult for MS. I know some will say that it was a slap on the wrist, others will say that what the EU commission did was unjustified. The fact remains that MS was singled out and (very) publicly sanctioned. I think this is MS's way of poking back, and reminding the EU that they aren't, in fact, required to sell their software in Europe. Maybe now the EU understands that MS can bite back, too.
Second, maybe the EU will recognize the importance of shifting away from MS software, and possibly even offer incentives of some sort. If a single foreign company can put every EU company at a competitive disadvantage, willfully or otherwise, maybe it's time to seriously re-evaluate your dependencies. Linux may be behind in some specific areas, but if the EU were to fund serious development to bring it up to speed, that gap would close in a hurry, and soon those using MS products would be the ones at a "competitive disadvantage" for every checkbox on the scorecard.
So, I repeat: Cry, Baby, Cryyyy! When you're done, get off your asses and fund development of a viable alternative. Solve your own problems, and stop your frikkin whining. It's not like you're strapped for cash on the scale of a moderate corporate IT development project.
The problem is that MS Visual Studio is just so well integrated. Things like GUI design, code completion, compiling converting to and from web applications is just so easy.
Windows Forms are just at hand.
Then I build programs on Linux on the other hand (or whit Dev C++) I'm missing a lot. With the exception of Eclipse (witch I admire) there are just something missing. If I'm designing a GUI in GTK Designer I can't just double click on a button and write the code for it. No. I have to first make the GUI remember all the names and make callback functions to them!
Since the release of ASP.net 2.0 I just don't see the point of PHP anymore (Ruby on rails might be an option but it is early)
In Visual Studio everything is integrated. Everywhere else the philosophy seems to be: "Keep everything separate". This might work well with the Unix Philosophy about small and reusable but for most developers it is a hell starting by looking for the right library in the current situation.
Then newcomers ask me that the PHP alternative to Visual Studio Web Express Edition is, I simply don't have an answer. That program allows me to drag and drop a login view and a GridView into a site and afterwards expect it to run on all PHP servers? (if anyone knows the answer please say so)
the people who have seen the light refers to the new programmers as just not good enough. But new programmers will most likely need to start with Visual Studio and then they first have started they just stay there