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John Dvorak On Vista's Launch
An anonymous reader writes "John is at it again, this time with his take on the launch of Microsoft's Vista operating system. John covers the reality from a market perspective, looking at whether the release will affect PC sales, peripherals ... or even Microsoft." From the article: "While there is no way that Vista will be a flop, since all new computers will come with Vista pre-installed, there seems to be no excitement level at all. And there does not seem to be any compelling reason for people to upgrade to Vista. In fact, the observers I chat with who follow corporate licensing do not see any large installations of Windows-based computers upgrading anytime soon. The word I keep hearing is 'stagnation.' Industry manufacturers are not too thrilled either. One CEO who supplies a critical component for all computers says he sees a normal fourth quarter then nothing special in the first quarter for the segment. Dullsville."
Is this the same Dvorak we've all come to know and love? Who thinks Microsoft should buy Opera, that CSS doesn't work because he couldn't figure out what "cascading" meant, and admits to trolling Mac users?
Oh, wait, he's making disparaging remarks about Microsoft! I'm sorry I ever doubted you, John!
Blatant Shill. Stop linking him. Stop completely. Please
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
* They just get a new computer
* They just (like me) are willing to upgrade (I'll get Vista the day it gets out)
* They will have the need to upgrade to run new specific stuff
* Or just because.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Firefox prevented this site from opening 3 popup windows.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
When you have an entire industry where pretty much only one company supplies a critical part, the entire industry is dependent on that one company. It would be nice to get away from the single-supplier issue, much like there are two major suppliers for processors, a half-dozen dozen chipset makers and so on.
Windows Vista Premium with a free high-end computer to run it on.
I've seen and worked with vista already. Here were my impressions.
It is really hard to lose your work. It is really easy to find your files.
It is a lot prettier.
The GUI for the system has been re-engineered and it is easier to use. Other applications have been rewritten to have the same look and feel so that the system as a whole will be easier to use.
It was not stable when I used it.
I think Microsoft made a big mistake by releasing Vista to businesses first. I think consumers are somewhat excited about Vista or will be when the majority of them actually see Aero in action. In general, businesses don't need Vista or care about the new thing because however you want to package it, its going to cost them more money. The only thing accurate about this article is that Vista will not be a flop because it won't be long before you can only buy a new computer with Vista on it. As that happens, and as more computers get into the hands of consumers, business will have to catch up.
Seriously Zonk, if you're never going to accept stories from me while you're on duty, at least have the guts to email me and tell me. It will save us both time and effort. This nonsense is just childish.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The lack of "buzz" around Vista and apathy towards upgrading - despite its myriad improvements - are a tacit acknowledgement of just how good Windows 2000 and XP were(/are)...
All the pointy hair types I meet seem to know all about it. Was there a massive golf and martini day I wasn't told about somewhere in the UK? Has there been one day recently when *all* of your senior management - and everyone else's - went missing?
;)
I'd call it brainwashing but that isn't very plausible considering the target audience
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
A lot of corporate entities didn't upgrade to XP from 200 for a few years either. Some places STILL run a significant number of 2000 workstations and some servers.
Last week Dvorak was an idiot, but today he's the best tech columnist in the world.Even a broken watch is right twice a day.
Ok They are not hyping the launch They are not trying to stuff it down your throat They are making an OS that takes advantage of next gen hardware to improve performance further Why is all this a bad thing that deserves to be berated like Dvorak does?? I am writing this on Vista, and as far as I have seen and read - this seems like a pretty solid release (where things are done right albeit the microsoft way) with lots and lots of potential.
At the end of the day, the operating system's purpose is really to give me access to my programs. On Windows, that means a lot, but I'm fairly happy with the way XP does it. The people who should care about major OS changes ought to be the developers; a new OS changes the rules of the game they play. In general, I don't want to shell out $200 for another OS, as long as the one I have is doing its job.
I've talked to a couple of my friends, and they are not very impressed by what they see in Vista in terms of new tools for the developers. Major changes, yes, but few of them practically interesting, in the sense that they either serve such a small subset of programs that they won't be used by the average developer or there already exists a perfectly reasonable way to do the job in Windows XP. Just as I don't want to buy a new interface if my current one is acceptable, they don't want to have to re-invent wheels just because all the 'fooX' functions are now 'barX' functions.
GNU/Linux is a little different; since the operating system is available cost-free, there's no disincentive to immediately adopting upgrades (except for instability, which is probably the biggest issue with new developments and is also shared by the must-be-purchased OS's). But with Windows, they need to really convince me that there's some truly profound new way of talking to my applications that I just gotta try.
I feel like we've reached a design plateau with both Windows XP and MacOSX these days. They both do what they do extremely well, and most of the other needs can be satisfied by the applications themselves without changing the OS. Until I'm given a very good reason to pay money to learn a new way of talking to my programs, I'll hold off, thanks.
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
Since Windows XP doesn't suck as much as the previous versions of Windows that users were dying to get rid of there will not be that much excitement about it.
Dvorak's take on public interest in the Vista release seems about right, but I don't understand why he thinks this is a problem. Does he look forward to OS releases because he enjoys the buzz, talk, and excitement? He seems to be of the opinion that every major OS launch needs the marketing and fanfare of Windows 95.
There have been some major Windows revolutions - new versions that significantly added value since previous versions. Windows 95 was one. Windows 2000 was another, although the excitement of that was split between Windows 2000 and XP - XP wouldn't have been big at all if 2000 had been meant for home users. Windows 98 was not exciting. Windows ME was not exciting.
Perhaps the Vista launch would have been a big deal if the team had accomplished more of their original goals. But as it stands, even though a good deal of it was rewritten, Vista is not that much of a jump from XP. I guess Dvorak is sad that there's no revolution and fanfare. Boo hoo. Every release can't be a major step forward and a huge party.
He's an idiot every week. Some less than others. Slashdot needs to stop promoting every article he writes, though.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Looks like MS will have to rely on their monopoly alone to sell Vista. Their marketing can't help them this time.
Corporations don't see any benefit to upgrade either. They've been burned by SA and security issues. They've gotten their Windows environments stable and they are not going to mess with them.
There's not much for them to sell to the consumers either. "Look a new Start menu!" isn't getting much interest.
Simplicity sells better to the average joe. That's why the iPod has the click-wheel. That's why auto makers have only one model in each category.
The public doesn't know (and MS probably does want them to know) that to really see the benefits of Vista, they can't use the basic $500 computer. They need the $2000+ model.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
know our company will not be upgrading soon.
First of all, we wait for at least a year of patching before trusting a MS product. Second, Vista is a huge resource hog. We see no reason to waste that much RAM, CPU cycles for prettier windows that don't do more. Third, price. The costs to upgrade company wide a effing astronomical. For what, a bug-filled (I'll call it a safe assumption) resource hog?
This is also coming from someone who is generally likes Windows XP. XP has become a pretty stable OS that is familiar and works well. So far Vista has offered nothing that makes us want to even know more about it. Heck, you could figure out how to display the desktop in 5D or shut it down 42 different ways for all I care, I want my RAM back!
Vista, to the average consumer, is just a visual upgrade from XP and with large performance hits to boot.
This is just like Windows ME was comparatively to Windows 98; a few extra features with nothing noteworthy, and performance hits.
If history repeats itself then a new server edition of windows will come out in about 2 years and then 2 years following that we will have another version of Windows whose features and stability will be welcome by all (except the obligatory anti-windows folk)
Most of the new features in Windows Vista that (I would argue) make it worth upgrading to, are not aimed at enterprise users, but at the average home PC user. Although most of the really interesting new stuff in the user interface was ripped straight out of OS X 10.4, these changes alone do mark a major improvement over XP. Quartz's ability to offload to the GPU much of the processing needed for window management was a major factor in my switch to the Mac a few years ago, and it's nice that Windows users will finally have something similar (albeit apparently more resource-hungry) on their machines.
While the new security features of Vista (especially the 64-bit version) are a good thing all-around, they're more of a factor for home users of the operating system than they are for large companies with corresponding IT departments to carefully secure and administer their computers. Microsoft's built-in malware scanner and improved firewall are a big step forward for Mr. PC Owner, but any decent enterprise deployment of Windows should already be behind a firewall and an anti-virus system. And in fact, insofar as most corporate Vista deployments will require a licensing server to keep Microsoft placated (bringing with it the looming possibility of a WGA malfunction), Vista is in some ways a step backward for enterprise users.
I think the general public reception of Vista will be positive - partially due to the "Oh, it's so shiny!" factor, and partially due to some real improvements under the hood - but I agree that enterprise adoption of the operating system will probably start slow.
But considering they've yet again linked to useless Dvorak drivel, I guess I'll comment on the topic.
John is treading in pretty "safe" territory with these comments. Vista really isn't exciting very many people. But at this point in the game, does it make any difference? Microsoft could release practically anything as a new OS update, and within 2-3 years, the majority of computer users will be running it - even if absolutely *none* of them voluntarily purchased it as an upgrade. As long as it comes preloaded on the vast majority of new computers purchased (and it does), they're keeping users on their migration path.
I just got out of a technical meeting at my workplace this morning, and one of our discussions topics was the I.T. budget for 2007. It was universally agreed (with very little debate) that there's nothing compelling about spending money to upgrade our computer hardware (all Pentium 4 class systems with between 512MB and 1GB of RAM). We also agreed that it would be wasteful to spend money upgrading to Vista in 2007, since we're currently on XP Pro and it does everything we need. In the case of Office 2007, the only reason we'd upgrade to it is in response to receiving too many documents from our customers that were created in Office '07. Until that happens, it's a total waste of money for us to move to it.
I can't see how many businesses out there would conclude otherwise? With the migration from Windows 2000 to XP, there were a few "drivers" that compelled people. One big one was better, more user-friendly wireless networking support. That, alone, made my laptop upgrade from 2000 to XP a big improvement. (You still can't even use WPA type wireless encryption in Win2K without 3rd. party software add-ons.)
But with Vista, you've got new toolbars and eye-candy (some of which costs extra in terms of higher-end gaphics hardware to make use of it), and apparently a more complicated and restrictive EULA to boot. The things that would have cost-justified the product, at least in the eyes of corporate customers, were largely canned (such as the initially promised "revolutionary new file system"), and instead, we get things like more restrictive DRM for digital music. This makes it an upgrade you're forced to accept, rather than one you *want*.
Crysis also has a DirectX 9 rendering path.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
He's an asshat who used to make up wild predictions for Byte magazine in order to help sell copies. Now he makes up wild predictions for lots of people in order to help get ad impressions. I really like the title of this column, though: "JOHN DVORAK'S SECOND OPINION" I wonder what his first opinion was?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I work in a school, and as such we have an MS Schools License Agreement, which entitles us to all the latest Microsoft software for a reletively cheap price (I think £30ish a workstation).
We're expecting delivery of our Office 2007 and Vista discs in either the December or January licensing packs. While we may test them around the office, a network-wide deployment (about 350 machines total) of Vista won't even be considered till after SP1 is released. Not to mention all the poorly-written educational software that will need compatability testing on the new OS. Due to the training requirements of Office 2007 I probably can't see that being rolled out till 2008 at the earliest either - especially with the admin staff, since a lot of their applications tie directly into Office and they use it all day, ever day. The training requirements for that alone would cause so many headaches for us to support.
Many people I know who work at other schools in our area aren't even considering an upgrade yet or in the near future. XP works just fine for now and the forseeable future. My school is lucky in that we have a large IT budget and have mostly up-to-date PCs (enough for what they do on them anyway), other schools in my area are still running 333MHz/128MB RAM machines - not exactly the powerhouse needed to run Vista at a reasonable level.
Does this mean we'll finally get one of those nifty GUIs where the fonts are fixed at 36-point and above, all text appears one letter at a time, applications are always maximized, and the search function flashes thumbnails of every file that doesn't match as it goes through the index?
I work for Microsoft (well, nominally; I'm resigning to puruse other opportunities and today is my last day) and even I can't think of any really compelling reason to dump XP for Vista, and knowing how things usually go with a new OS release, I can think of a few compelling reasons to stand pat with XP: bugs and security flaws, in particular. XP is pretty mature and stable, whereas Vista has yet to undergo the trial by fire of being in general commercial release. I'll wait and see for a while. A good long while. Like SP1 at the earliest.
I've been using Office 2007 final since its internal release day. Outlook performance seems faster than in Office 2003. I haven't noticed a performance difference with other Office apps, but file sizes are a lot smaller thanks to the new format. The new UI takes some getting used to. My jury is still out on whether or not I prefer it to the old UI. Overall, I'd say that unless you really, really need better Outlook performance or have a tried a beta of Office 2007 somewhere and absolutely love the UI and have to have it, there's probably no compelling need for most people to get Office 2007 either.
None of my home machines have Vista or Office 2007, and I have no plans to change that in the foreseeable future, even though I can get the stuff dirt cheap through the company store.
My advice to most people is that if your current XP + Office 2003 setup is stable and meeting your needs, don't rush out to upgrade. Undoing the upgrade would be really really painful if you find yourself regretting it later.
Try telling that to my Casio. I'm still waiting for 88:88ampm to come round.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
I'm a long-time Windows fan (cue flames) but it's the honest truth. I get older and busier and have long-since dropped computers as a hobby, and use them exclusively to "get the job done" which means watching TV on my media center, burning CDs for use in my car, Word documents, and Internet browsing. I've never needed anything more than that.
I don't plan to upgrade to Windows Vista for a year or so, most likely...if ever. I'm gradually letting my "hobbiest" knowledge lapse since I am getting out of tech as a job in the near future, but remain computer literate. And my plan is: when I get a new PC, I'm going to (gasp) load a Linux distribution onto it.
People have convinced me that Linux is, at this point, reasonable enough to configure to work on common hardware without a lot of fuss. I'll dual-boot Windows XP, or use Wine, or something -- but Vista's DRM scares me just a little bit, and I am a historic *supporter* of DRM (cue flames again) for a variety of reasons.
I imagine that Vista may prompt Linux desktop adoption to a bit of a degree, as corporations and "power-users" (somewhere between Joe User and Joe Admin) decide "hey, I've heard this Linux thing works and is free" and go for it.
That's my plan, anyway.
I spend all day at work developing software, when I get home I want to play computer games. I HATE the fact that I have to load an OS filled with bloat in order to play games, and the fact that I have to use incredibly overspecd hardware to support this OS layer, Vista will be worse, I will be forced to upgrade due to Lack of DX10 support on XP, more expense, more bloat. I just hope the Vista release will help push more game developers to support open source platforms.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.