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.'"

Comments

Possible Delays for Vista in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky bastards!

competitive disadvantage

[dretay]

without Aero how will we visualize/optimize our corporate paradigms?

Re:competitive disadvantage

[ifrag]

You won't even be able to compete at all! I'd estimate a 230% increase in productivity with the transparent window feature. It's like working with superman x-ray vision. Wait, nevermind, typical corporate workstation doesn't meet the specs for Aero mode.

Re:competitive disadvantage

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. You just need to proactively synergize and globalize your corporate structures by empowering them with client-focused tools that Vista enables. With a little team building training in adaptive schedule compressing and knowledge base, you won't need Aero to envision strategically fit scenarios to really push the envelope of the quality vector in the company morale, mindset and credibility, not to mention revenue.

Circuitous logic?

[Red Flayer]

"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?

Re:Circuitous logic?

[tomstdenis]

I know you're trolling but for the benefit of others...

The argument against MSFT isn't that they have technologies others don't have.

The argument is that they purposefully swindle their customers into using software that is designed to lock them into using a sole vendor [without otherwise good justification]. That they are abusing their POSITION as a large market share holder to FURTHER their lock in.

Arguing for MSFT is akin to saying "Yes MFST, release another product that I can't use as I choose, on the platform of my choosing with the tools of my choosing. I like being forced to use your tools, through out security and inefficiency problems because choice is bad."

There are no technical reasons why [for instance] the Office file formats are not well documented in the public. The *value* of Office is the connectivity and interface of the software. Not the file format. [hint: that's a big reason why people hate OpenOffice]. Releasing the file formats means that you can use third party tools to do things to your documents that you can't with Office [like edit them in GNU/Linux].

Similarly, their stance on DX and the Win32API is not founded in a technological superiority. It's just "different."

Tom

Re:Circuitous logic?

[ceoyoyo]

Microsoft themselves say that Office documents are not appropriate for sharing. Office documents are for printing or saving to PDF for e-mailing. In my experience they're right.

Re:Circuitous logic?

[EggyToast]

If there's no advantage to Vista, why bother releasing it anywhere?

Re:Circuitous logic?

[tomstdenis]

"help out other developers" ...

Um, how about doing the customers a service?

And I think you're forgetting how engrained MSFT truly is. Yeah, sure it's nice to say "just stop using it." that's something I bring up often with my fellow co-workers. Doesn't seem to change anything. Even when we sneak a OSS OS on our workstations we still have to scramble to read the latest PPT from our PHBes.

If MSFT were truly about marketting various products you'd see things like Visual Studio or Office for GNU/Linux. I mean can't the Office business unit of MSFT only win by selling to both windows and GNU/Linux audiences?

oh wait, Office exists to sell Windows. That's about it.

Tom

Re:Circuitous logic?

[Red Flayer]

The disadvantage is to those companies developing for Vista, because the market for their products will be delayed; I don't think the letter-writers meant that all USERS of XP/Vista will be harmed.

Re:Circuitous logic?

[Red Flayer]

I wasn't trolling at all. I was just commenting on the absurdity of the logic used by MS to persuade the EU courts that any delay in release (due to compliance with anti-monopoly laws) will harm the EU economically. This is especially absurd because the only reason it could harm the EU economically is because of MS's monopoly status. Let's examine this in a little more detail:

Assumption 1 (FTA/S): Having to wait for Vista will harm EU businesses. This may be true for businesses that develop for Vista, since their market will be delayed even further. This may also be true for businesses that depend on newly implemented technology to be included in Vista (like the DRM).

Assumption 2 (mine): If there were real competition to MS, EU businesses would not be dependent on Vista for new tech deployment for them to take advantage of. For example, a competitive media player could also have the requisite DRM necessary to the media companies desire for profits based on restricting media access.

Assumption 3 (the EU courts): MS has abused its monopoly status to maintain that status and to limit competition in products other than OS.

It seems clear to me is that what MS is arguing is that since they have a monopoly, hurting them hurts the consumer of their product. It's my contention (and I'm not the only one) that this is a perfect example to show that monopolies are bad -- lack of an alternative means that some businesses will lose out should there be any interruption of supply by the monopoly. There are other reasons why monopolies are bad, IMO, but MS is using a downside of monopoly existence to justify not having to comply with measures intended to prevent abuse of a monopoly.

Your explanation of how they are violating the anti-monopoly laws is useful, but has nothing at all to do with my point. Are you just hopping onto an early post since those threads get more attention (regrettably)?

Re:Circuitous logic?

[1u3hr]

. So now M$ will want to know *very* clearly where the line is so they do not even get near it.

Thay knew very clearly where the line was. They were told over and opver. They thought they could ignore it, as they did in the US.

Re:Circuitous logic?

[Al Dimond]

I haven't read Microsoft's statement that Word docs aren't for sharing, but I do know they put a lot of effort into creating and marketing their collaboration features. I think that Word docs are absolutely meant for sharing and collaboration within an organization that's standardized around MS-Office; in fact, if you have people within an organization collaborating on office-type documents there's probably no better way to do it than MS-Office's collaboration features. Are there other office suites that offer these features? I mean, I love using TeX+CVS for that kind of thing, but how many office workers are going to understand CVS (I think most could be trained to, they're not idiots, but MS-Office uses language that typical office workers are more familiar with while CVS uses terms that geeks like me are more familiar with... )?

What Word docs are bad for is trying to share a document with people outside of your organization that aren't going to collaborate on it. For one thing, traditionally you could easily wind up with metadata that you don't want getting out, such as revision history, stored in the documents. I don't know if recent versions of MS-Office have easy ways to clean all the invisible stuff out, but it's always a risk when you have revision control info stored in the documents themselves. For another, MS-Office docs aren't designed to render the same way every time the way Postscript and PDF files are. These aren't so much flaws in office as design decisions, and for the market that Microsoft is trying to sell to they seem like the right decisions to me. It's just a shame that Microsoft doesn't beat the "don't email people .docs" drum a bit harder. It's easy for me to see the proper place for Word docs, but I don't need Microsoft to tell me that. They've gotta get this message clearly across to their users.

Oddly enough, once when I was in college some dude sent me a promotional poster for some event in MS-Publisher format. He clearly hadn't thought about document formats for even a second before sending it out, so I didn't want to hit him with the full RMS-style rant... but I did let him know that not only could unwashed GNU/hippies like myself not open the file, but that even many MS Office-using knowledge-worker types would have a hard time with it as well. And that for pixel-perfect final posters he should be using Postscript or PDF. And a URL where he could find a Windows PDF print driver. I also made sure to include as many sweeping generalizations about the userbases of the various software packages as possible... or maybe that was just this /. post, I can't remember. If Microsoft's not going to educate the masses I guess it's up to all the people that get burned by 'em.

Now that's what i call..

[rizole]

Windows Genuine Advantage.

EU delay on Vista

[Anonymous Monkey]

...So they won't see it until 2025? But the rest of the world will see it in 2023?

One of many

[andrewman327]

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.

Delay of Windows is good

[Theovon]

Personally, I think companies that rely exclusively on Windows are shooting themselves in the foot. These days, there are numerous technologies people can use to make portable applications, including Java, C# (yes), Python, Perl, Tcl/Tk, WxWidgets, Qt, GTK, PHP and other web technologies, etc.

Portability isn't everything, but relying on a single, unreliable vendor is lunacy.

It's amazing how many IT people I've met who have "heard" or Linux. All they've ever known is Windows. Perhaps Microsoft's failures will encourage developers to investigate alternative platforms. Windows is important, and you should support that platform, but when Windows fails you, you really need to have a backup plan.

Re:Delay of Windows is good

[Skuld-Chan]

Anyone who has had to support applications written in Java would probably disagree with you. I had to support a java based server application. Getting it to run on the app server (jboss, websphere, etc) for clients often meant doing it for them either remotely or onsite and even then it was a huge pain in the arse.

After so many delays...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Microsoft is considering renaming Windows Vista to Windows Atlantis.

competitive disadvantage??

[malsdavis]

"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.

Re:competitive disadvantage??

[Moby Cock]

There would be a disadvantage to PC OEMs. Should a European actually want Vista (God knows why, though) he could buy one as an American export. Thus isadvantaging European companies

Overall though, I think you are right. There is hardly going to be a tangible disadvantage by the vast majority of companies. Most probably still use Windows 2000 and Office 2000. The upgrades from MS are never 'must-have's.

Re:competitive disadvantage??

[Red Flayer]

I fail to see what competitive advantage Vista will give businesses who upgrade to it immediatly

Any business that depends upon it customers having Vista. Like, say, media companies who want to take advantage of the DRM in Vista. Or, say, software developers who develop for Vista, who will be behind in taking advantage of the new market. Or, say, developers who make a living writing enhancements/extensions for other software.

Oh please

[alvinrod]

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.

Re:Oh please

[cyber-vandal]

It's not MS who've said that but four British MEPs, sadly unnamed, who show that they have the same grasp of technological issues as the average amoeba. I'd like to know who they are so I can set them straight, pointing out that if Microsoft would just obey the law this would be a non-issue.

Sounds familiar

[Uukrul]

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...

Re:Emphasis?

[LearnToSpell]

Editors?

[crickets chirping]

Re:Emphasis?

[alienmole]

Who knows, maybe he meant onus. They all end in a similar "iss" sound after all, what kind of genius could possibly tell them apart?

Re:Emphasis?

[DragonWriter]

I actually think that it is neither emphasis nor impetus, but burden, or onus, that is intended here.

Re:Fair is as fair does....

[Tim C]

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.

And what exactly would those consequences be, other than MS locking itself out of a huge and growing market? Were this to happen, we'd just keep on using XP. If MS went all the way and refused to sell any copies of any of their software, there's a real chance that affected EU member states would simply (temporarily) revoke MS's copyrights - remember that these are granted by the government for the good of society as a whole. If society is better served by ignoring a particular copyright, then it should be ignored.

More loudmout advertising from M$.

[twitter]

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.

Re:More loudmout advertising from M$.

[AeroIllini]

The Microsoft monopoly is cracked...

Don't worry; they'll release a patch in a few days.

Re:More loudmout advertising from M$.

[ultranova]

I used to have 2 GB of RAM, but am temporarily forced to only use 512 MB, and I've noticed a huge difference in responsiveness. With 2 GB I could run tens of programs, some light games and compile simultaneously with no loss of responsiveness, now with 512 MB I can barely minimize Visual Studio to view my desktop without everything slowing to a crawl while I'm compiling, so I'd say the problem isn't necessarily in the scheduler.

No, it's in the scheduler allright. An XP machine with a gigabyte of RAM rendering a Poser scene in the background, and not swapping (verified by watching the HD light, besides, it's a simple scene) with nothing else significant running takes a lot longer to respond to clicks than the same machine once the scene has finished rendering.

Based on that, and on what I've heard from other sources, I'd say that Windows scheduler doesn't differentiate IO bound programs and CPU bound programs, like modern Linux kernels do. In other words, there are no dynamic priorities; instead, everything in the same static priority gets an equal share of CPU time, propably without pre-empting them if an IO bound program becomes runnable (to reduce latency), since Windows can't tell the two types apart.

Re:Fair is as fair does....

[d_jedi]

The EU commission has the attitude of an angry girlfriend/wife - "if you don't know why I'm mad at you, I'm not going to tell you". Damn.. I HATE it when I get that line. Sure MS does too..

the play by plays

[Ozwald]

Slashdot sounds like those hockey commentary people...

"Ballmer's got the CD and he's headed for the RTM... he shoots, OHH! A bug shuts him down!!! Oh that crowd is really upset"

"Well Tim, that was a close one, he's oh for 10 now, he really needs a break"

"Now Gentoo has control, passes it to Fedora, passes it to SuSE, passes it to Ubuntu, passes it back to SuSE... they seem to have their passing game working really well"

"Well Tim, they have heart but only a small group of the audience seems to be cheering for them"

Sorry.

Oz

Just in time for SP 1

[boyfaceddog]

Europeans are so lucky. They have a built-in excuse to skip the initital wave of problems and go right to SP1.

Quick...sell, sell! :-)

[duden]

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!

Re:Fair is as fair does....

[VitaminB52]

levy arbitrary fines

Bullshit. There's nothing arbitraty about a fine that can (and should) be given to any compagny that violates a specific law. Other compagnies got this fine for violating the law, Microsoft violated the same law and should therefore pay the same fine (which the law defines as a certain maximum percentage of the companies income).

There is nothing arbitrary at "violate the same law ==> pay the same fine".

disadvantage?

[pe1chl]

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.

Re:Fair is as fair does....

[bloodredsun]

I can see Microsoft wanting guidance before releasing a new product.

Those guidelines already exist. They are the guidelines that every other manufacturer of software has to obey when they sell software in the EU. All the EU is saying is that MS aren't a special case, but must obey the rules just like everyone else.

As an aside, why do you think that the EU treated them unfairly? What in particular bother you? And as for the "anti-Americanism that seems to be all the rage", what are you talking about? All I see are the arrows and slingshots that any market leader should expect. Yes I'm european (actually I'm British but that's another story), but that comment sounds like a persecution complex.

EU Guidelines are on public display.

[Kenja]

But I sure cant find em...

MS: I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.
EU: Thats the Display Department.
MS: With a torch.
EU: The lights had probably gone.
MS: So had the stairs.
EU: But you found the plans, didnt you?
MS: Oh yes, they were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the leopard.

It seems your idea of competition...

[WebCowboy]

...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.

Pure lies by Microsoft

[Alphager]

These are pure lies by Microsoft to gain some PR-advantage against the European Union. The EU has issued a statement that the release-date of Vista is 100% in the hands of Microsoft and that it does not intend to interfere(see http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/77945 for a german news-post about it). The EU had issued in january a questionaire to MS about the conformity of Vista to the several sentences MS got because of it's monopoly. MS answered LAST WEEK. This is not different to the US-market: MS has to conform to certain rules because of several past lawsuits. MS knew this from the start. If it does not conform, it is 100% MS's fault.

This is pure unadulteratred FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Trying ...

[lorg]

Trying to care, trying to care, trying to care ... Sorry it ain't happenin'. Come back when there is something that actually matters.

The MEPs named

[SpaceLifeForm]

Link.

How the hell?

[Mateo_LeFou]

How the hell did you do this without using the word "solutions"? Me, I'm waiting for biz types to start saying "solutionize".

Two thoughts on this...

[CrazedWalrus]

First:

"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.

/American

Re:Fair is as fair does....

[frank_adrian314159]

And I'm sure if the US did that, the EU would respond tit-for-tat. Do you really think the US will go to the mat for one company's IP rights given the potential loss of all American IP rights in the EU? Do you think that the EU would lose more from the loss of their IP protection in the US than the US would lose if it lost IP protection in the EU? Think of all the movies, music, etc. that we export. Do you think that the US government would risk that because Bill Gates was a whiny bitch?

Portability

[sago007]

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