Analysts Split Over Vista Launch Date

An anonymous reader writes "A ZDNet report details comments by analysts on the upcoming release of Microsoft's newest operating system. Vista is currently scheduled to be released to businesses next month, and to consumers in January of next year. Not everyone on the sidelines agrees that the company will make that deadline, though. Reservations seem mostly to center around legal and political issues, rather than any concrete technical problems." From the article: " A delay for Vista now would be convenient for Microsoft, Gartner analyst David Mitchell-Smith argued, because 'when people start complaining about the delay, Microsoft can reasonably say 'don't blame us' and point the finger at the EC.' ... Mitchell-Smith also noted that Microsoft wants to avoid further litigation, as it is already facing legal action by Symantec and Adobe Systems."

Comments

Oh, get real

[overshoot]

It's on rails. Whatever MS has when the date comes, goes.

Vista

[TheRecklessWanderer]

Vista is nice. It certainly (IMHO) not worth an upgrade, and I'm not buying a new PC. I don't see any benefits. I see it breaking my music, or making it harder for me to play it. I see it making things less easy to configure (at the low level). It does look cool, but so what. There is no way my office is upgrading to Vista (Luckily, I make that choice). All these analysts saying this and that and the other about Vista. Why don't they do something useful instead of shooting off a bunch of useless positions.

Re:Vista

[slackmaster2000]

I also make software decisions for my organization, and like you, I will not be upgrading any machines to Windows Vista.

However, I realize that we are bound to Windows for the long term. Previous plans to switch to competitive (preferably OSS) software have always concluded that the initial bump is too high and too wide to overcome without dedicating considerable resources throughout the company. We wouldn't see a positive return for a long time, although eventually there will be a (relatively speaking) small one. In other words, the hassle is a tangent that is not in line with the goals of the company, and the payoff is minor enough that the effort is not considered to be worthwhile. Inevitable poor analogy: I have to mow a large lawn with a crappy little lawn mower. My time is valuable to me, and a new lawn mower would save time and over the long term pay off. However, a nice lawnmower is so immediately expensive that I really don't want to afford it now, and can't afford the effort of saving for it. The end goal is that the lawn look nice, which will occur whether it takes me an hour with a nice mower or four hours with a crappy mower. Thus I'll just continue mowing the lawn with my crappy lawn mower and not worry about it.

Ok, so I've taken the long road to get to my point: you're in a Windows shop, as am I. Neither of us will be upgrading to Vista, but it is inevitable that we will begin running Vista on new machines. It is inevitable that we will eventually have a majority of our machines running Vista. I don't know about you, but I've been installing the release candidates to get an idea of what I'll be seeing in the future. (and trying to optomistic about the obvious flaws in these beta releases..."what do you mean you can't find a driver for my CDROM drive? It's a CDROM drive, just fucking read it!")

It's also interesting to me to think back on my initial impressions of past MS operating systems. The only one that I actually *liked* and *upgraded to* was Windows 2000. A Windows OS that was hardware, software, and support friendly in terms of business use. When I first experienced Windows XP I hated it. I hated it for years. However, now I would much rather support our majority of XP machines than our minority of Win2K machines. Is XP a better operating system? Well, now that I've gotten over the realization that it isn't the best thing since sliced bread, I can say "yeah, it's a bit better."

Nowadays I don't pay much attention to hype and analyst bullshit, other than for personal amusement. I look at the features that I'll eventually be supporting and try to plan on how they'll affect me both negatively and positively.

Re:Obsession

[HappySqurriel]

"For a site where no one claims to be using Microsoft products, there sure is an obsession over Vista!" I rarely talk to someone who claims that they do not use any Microsoft products, but I know of a ton of people who use Unix/Linux/BSD or MacOS if they can. The fact is that whether people choose to or not, most people here will be using (or at least evaluating) Windows Vista within 18 months of its release. Personally, I'm going to hold out as long as I can but I'm willing to bet that I'll start dealing with a company who wants a product developed that is ready to run on Windows Vista and I'll be forced to use it.

Who is unreasonable?

[Teun]

Microsoft is "probably getting a bit tired" of the European Union's stance, suggested Mitchell-Smith. "It's not unreasonable to think so."

And Europe is getting a bit tired of Microsoft's attitude.
These guys in Redmond know damn well what is required to get a smooth introduction of their software in Europe, and unlike at home it can't be bought in a court or congress.

Of course Europe has it's own shortcomings, for one they should have demanded a noticeable price difference between XP and XP-N, surely the development of MS Media Player was not for free.
For another Europe should have insisted on more interoperability like full access to the specs of NTFS.

Just to name a few issues with the de-facto monopoly.

REASONABLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft can reasonably say 'don't blame us' and point the finger at the EC.

Complete crap. The commission's position is that Microsoft must obey the law. That means no anti-competitive conduct. Microsoft want some presciptive agreement that they can work around instead.

It's like someone being told it's illegal to murder someone and then coming back time after time saying "well, suppose I shoot her?", "well suppose I hit her with an icepick, is that okay?", "I just want you to give me an exact list of the things I mustn't do so I can stay within the law. Food supplements are okay, right, suppose I just put some 'supplements' in her food, can you say that's okay?", "just tell me every way I mustn't kill her so I'm in the clear for anything else". Nobody is stupid enough to fall for this. It's insultingly absurd.

There is nothing remotely reasonable about Mcirosoft's behaviour on this. Instead of obeying the law they want to "negotiate" with the legal process. Seriously; they use that word themselves. Then they say they show "goodwill" by complying with parts of what they are legally REQUIRED to do. Seriously, who the fuck do they think they are?

Apologies for the tone but their conduct in this really gets to me. And no, I'm not a generic Microsoft basher, I use a lot of their software but it's about time for someone to teach them that laws apply to them too. Hopefully the EC can do that.