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PC Makers Say Vista Is Not a Seller
TekkaDon writes "According to computer and component manufacturers, Vista is not the hotcake that they were hoping for. Take Acer's president, Gianfranco Lanci, who has just said that 'PC makers are really not counting on Vista to drive high demands for the industry.' Or Samsung Electronics, who now says that DRAM demand has not matched anyone's predictions based on Vista's now failed projections, something that is being echoed by the industry as a whole. This seem to agree with Ars Technica article on the 20 million Vista copies sold as a 'huge success' by Microsoft, which can be accounted for by the natural growth of PC sales over the years."
XP is still a lot more stable than Win9x ever was. Vista has clear disadvantages (over zealous DRM).
The threats from Apple and Linux weren't really there when XP was released. Microsoft has to learn to deal with the fact that they have to compete and can't release any old rubbish.
No, it's nothing to do with the DRM, which the average user is totally oblivious to.
It's the fact that there is currently no compelling reason to upgrade, from a "general use" perspective. Really - other than flip3d (and very few "normal users" i know even use alt-tab) and the new start menu, it's the same old shit, only with more irritating user access control. The fact that for most people's current PCs, performance will be significantly worse, and driver support just isn't there yet doesn't help.
As an aside - a major issue at the moment is the changes to DirectSound. Unless you've got an X-fi soundblaster and run creative's "Alchemy" software which translates Directsound into OpenAL, you're not going to get any EAX support in any games, and the sound support you do get is often scratchy and clicky (eg, neverwinter nights 2)
That said, I'm buying Vista - which is a drastic change in my attitude from 3 months ago. Why? Becuase Win2k is no longer supported, XP *really* is a steaming pile of shit, and Linux just isn't there yet for me to run exclusively (though i've been a user since 1996). I spend all day at work doing admin stuff - on my home pc all i want to do is run some games (and Falcon4: Allied Force, for example, will not run under Cedega), browse the net and media related stuff. From my testing this week, Vista is "good enough" for the tasks I ask of it (nwn2 had minor issues, F4:AF runs fine), and it's a currently supported product.
Also, it's inevitable that I'll have to support it at work sooner or later, so I may as well get a head start on the issues it has.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Sure, the big vendors would love to sell Vista only. They thought that about XP, too... until several major corporate customers told them where to go. Then, suddenly, places like Dell were still selling Win2K and Microsoft was extending support for older business OSes.
Given that it tooks several years for XP to overtake Win2K, and a very significant proportion of businesses have never made the switch, I'm afraid your/Microsoft's theory that everyone will just move sooner or later may or may not hold. And that's before the big scare stories about how "your computer can be disabled remotely" and so on start really freaking out the big CIOs...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It makes my laptop run hot enough to cook hotcakes on (something XP didn't do), does that count?
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Clearly Microsoft needs to go back to their old style of promoting Windows:
9 930836239
Exhibit A: Windows 1.0
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=GL4hyATkQ74
Exhibit B: Windows 386
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=491587592
I mean it worked before....... right?
For those of us not afraid of trying something different technology-wise, I agree with what you're saying. Some people might see this as a reason to go out and try a different OS.
But Microsoft has no reason in the immediate future to look at, or care about, those numbers. Most people will be bootstrapped into Vista when their old box dies not because they really want it, but because Dell, HP, and whatever you can get at Best Buy all come with Vista pre-installed.
Sure, you can apply for the Microsoft Tax Credit from OEM vendors, or you could build your own box and throw Ubuntu on it or buy an Apple, but the simple fact is that the majority of people just plain won't.
The average consumer probably only cares about a few of the 'things' a computer can do: email, word processing, web, pr0n (and other basic multimedia) and printing. Their current machines can do all that stuff, so why buy a new one or upgrade just the OS? They'll wait until their current box craps out (or gets so loaded with viruses/spyware that they'd just as soon ditch it as fix it) and then get whatever is sold en masse by Dell, HP, Gateway and Best Buy. Hell, if Dell sold the majority of computers with BeOS installed, BeOS would be 'the next big thing'.
Corporate IT departments care about compatibility, stability, security and ease-of-support among other things. Mom and Pop end-users likely don't know enough about computers in general to even assess IF the new OS really is an advantage over the old one.
For ~95% of the desktops sold, Windows is the only easy option. Even beyond that, the big PC vendors will offer $399 desktops with free printers, monitors and even digital cameras and laptops for $599. Those are not price points that Apple seems to even care about, especially on the laptop side. All of those cheap-ass, kid's-going-back-to-school-and-I-need-a-cheap-comp uter boxes will ensure that Microsoft stays on top with Vista for at least one more OS iteration, regardless of how good or bad the OS actually is.
On the business side, I know very few places that upgrade to anything new immediately. The costs are too high, and the risks too great. In fact, many, many businesses can get by with older hardware and Win2000 or XP for a number of years to come. What does the AVERAGE employee do on a computer? Browse the web, type emails and type memos with the occasional PowerPoint presentation thrown in there. 6-year-old hardware with 2k or XP is perfectly capable of all that. Again, Vista will only permeate the business world on a large scale when it's been out for a while, is completely (as close as it ever gets) stable and, most importantly, is really the only OS available.
Microsoft doesn't really have to worry about making leaps and bounds with its new OSes. They will make money if only because of Microsoft's distribution deals with the big computer vendors.
I'm not saying Microsoft will be around forever, but they can ride the tide for a long time before they have to worry. If WinMe sold, so too will Vista.
But the article is right. In and of itself, Vista itself is not a seller.
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That's bullshit. In that article Phil Taylor states that the reason that DirectX 10 would not be made available to Windows XP and was exclusive to Vista was that XP was released on 2001 and the design of DirectX 10 was only solidified on late 2003. That is a very retarded statement to make.
According to the same article, Windows Vista, as we know it, was rebuilt from the ground up in 2004. That means that if DirectX 10 needed any special functionality to work then the Vista people had to rewrite Vista from the ground up with that in mind, which doesn't say much on it's own. On the other hand, XP's service pack 2 was released in 2004, which means that if XP really needed any special features to handle DirectX 10 that, since DirectX is being worked on from the time XP was first launched and the supposed target platform for which DirectX was built was scrapped, that there was absolutely no reason for Microsoft to not support DirectX on XP.
So, as it is easy to see, the only reason that DirectX is not supported in Windows XP is simply due to Microsoft's decision of not doing it. Microsoft does not want to support DirectX 10 on other OS besides Vista. Period. For crying out loud, it's a fucking API. A fucking interface to handle hardware. Who in their right mind claims that certain pieces of hardware can only work on Windows Vista and not on Windows XP?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.