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MS Offers Vista Upgrade Pricing To All
SlinkySausage writes "With a vague whiff of desperation, Microsoft is offering anyone who downloaded one of the betas or release candidates of Vista upgrade pricing for the full version. The 'special' deal is a sweetener for the fact that the betas will start expiring and becoming non-functional from May 31st. APC Magazine in Australia writes: 'Windows Vista is starting to look like those Persian rug stores which are always having a "closing down" sale... All stock has been slashed, save $$$, why pay more?'" Perhaps Microsoft is cognizant of straws in the wind such as a recent InformationWeek survey indicating that 30% of business have no intention of moving to Vista, ever.
Same old, same old. But with a few extra hassles.
Mmmmm, compelling proposition there. Course, what they should have done is made sure that MS Office was subtly broken on XP. Well, you never know, now I've made that particular suggestion on this highly read web site we might well see that feature in future windows updates.
Deleted
"Extended Support" for XP will be until April 2014. So that is seven years. But long before that seven years, some hardware (some with XP from 2001) will start to die. The replacement hardware will be sold with Vista. Even if the replacement is 'naked' or wiped and installed with XP, some of the devices may not have XP drivers. Also some of the user software that runs on XP will probably become unsupported or abandon-ware before 2014.
I think the talk of holdouts 'never' installing Vista is bravado. Sooner or later they will be compelled to start supporting Vista or its successor (Blackcomb/Vienna). Maybe they will skip Vista and go to straight to Vienna (provided Vienna gets out the door before 2014, IIRC it is currently scheduled for 2009), but they can't stay with XP forever. The hardware and software won't allow it.
People: it's time for a bit of intellectual honesty.
Either:
A. Microsoft is a giant evil behemoth that has created for itself a permanent and insurmountable monopoly that needs to be curtailed through government intervention and snide slashdot comments. Microsoft could shiat on a brick and most IT departments would have to buy it. The agreements that it makes with computer manufacturers to pre-install its product, which typically costs about 10% of the actual cost of the PC, is fundamentally wrong.
OR
B. Microsoft is a company that, despite the existence of free-as-in-beer alternatives, has nevertheless managed for many years to become fabulously wealthy by delivering products that seem to be what the market wants. However, as this episode shows, they are neither invincible nor infallible - like all of the software giants that have come before them, despite at one point building an enviable market position, they will erode through some combination of changing technology, bad marketing / product decisions, and so forth. Furthermore, as we see from Dell's (among others') recent actions, computer manufacturers can and will tailor their operating system offerings as they feel the market warrants - Microsoft can no more afford to lose dell than vice versa.
The same things were said about Windows XP. And look where we are today...
It might surprise the Slashdot crowd to know that *some* people like Vista. I do. I'm no MS fanboy, and I've cursed Bill Gates so many times its become a household cliche -- but the reality is, Vista is just fine. I use it every day, 10-12 hours a day, and my only complaint is the annoying slowness of file copies. Vista has a number of nice features that improve on XP.
Will I upgrade the other four machines in my office? Heck no. The Linux machines will remain with Gentoo; the Windows XP and MCE systems will not be upgraded any time soon. That doesn't mean I hate Vista, or nor did it fail because 80% of my computers are staying with their current OS.
Just like 2000 and XP, Vista works best on a new system; upgrading is always a mess, because vendors want to sell you today's tech instead of supporting what you bought last month. So the older systems stay with what works, and the new computer runs Vista (very well, I might add).
It's popular and trendy to hate Microsoft and Vista; heaven forbid you should think for yourselves.
All about me
... and, of course, XP was terrifying until SP2.
As an average user, I really don't see what the complaints are about Vista. Average consumers really don't care that much about the operating system to begin with. As you said, they care about programs.
I recently built a new computer and went ahead with Vista because I could get OEM pricing now but maybe not in the future, and I already had copy of XP that I could dual boot. For routine everyday stuff Vista has been fine; I have XP set up in case I play around with any programming, but I find myself always using Vista. One of the main advantages I noticed with Vista is that for some reason the fonts are more readable on my 22" wide-screen in native resolution than they are in XP. It also doesn't seem to have the weird window re-draw problems. In general the display just seems to work better for me.
Like all versions of Windows, there is no reason for the average consumer to upgrade an existing computer - just wait until you get a new computer. The new computer will likely be equipped to better run Vista too. Vista will eventually take over because of this, like XP did. I have never understood why people would think a majority of average consumers will want to go out and spend money to replace their operating system that is working fine without going ahead and getting a faster, newer computer with all the latest hardware. Instead, it seems to be big news that people are showing some since and waiting.
Oh goody! Can we start with the false dichotomies, please?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
When XP came out, I looked at it, considered it shiny, didn't care about shiny, looked again, saw that it was essentially as good as 2k and that I can turn off the shiny and still can get a few additional features out of it. It did not remove anything essential that I was used to in 2k, and it ran as fast as 2k, so I eventually switched.
When Vista came out, I looked at it, considered it bloated, cared about bloated, looked again, saw that it was worse than XP and that even with the shiny and bloated turned off, it's no better than XP and still slower. It did take away a few liberties that I came to enjoy in XP, and so I will never switch.
If XP doesn't work anymore, I will move on to another OS. Wine is hopefully ready to run at XP level by the time I have to go, so I know where my next home will be built.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Geek quotes retail list, for the ultimate boxed set, in whatever currency makes the numbers look most dramatic. Everyone else buys the OEM install, the academic version, etc.
$751? You can get a retail version of Vista Ultimate on NewEgg for $380. Besides, you'd have to be a complete moron to buy the retail version when for the majority of people there are likely to be essentially three scenarios:
1) You're buying entirely new hardware and moving to Vista. Get an OEM version at $199
2) You're just upgrading the OS from XP with perhaps a memory and/or GPU upgrade to boot. Get an upgrade version at $250
3) You are buying an OEM PC in which case you'll pay the Vistatax, paying no more than you would have for XP.
So yes, Vista is expensive, but quit spreading fudd.
It's a hardware bug, driver bug, or something like it. I'm not saying people haven't had the problem, but I sure haven't seen it on our Vista systems at work. I've copied a ton of data too, shuffling around VMs and such. No appreciable speed difference between Vista and XP that I can see. Well when a problem happens for some people, but not for me, that tells me that it isn't something universally broken in the OS, but rather in their setup.
But then, isn't that Bill Gates' vision of the future? Hardware will be free and people will only pay for software.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Before you go overboard with your conspiracy theory, consider this:
This is Slashdot. Home to the world's IT experts, with access to the world's computers. IT experts that work for big businesses, and are responsible for hundreds (if not thousands) of potential Vista licences. They realise that there is no good reason to introduce delay (intentionally or unintentionally), especially when used in a business context, and the business would be paying a couple of hundred dollars per computer to upgrade. Such a move would be sheer stupidity, and Microsoft is not stupid (I gotta give them credit for that, at least). If, perhaps, you could have demonstrated that it only affected home editions of Vista, I might have believed that, but as it stands, it just seems an unfortunate symptom of some other problem.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
financially, this means nothing to Microsoft and the press given to this is worth more than anything. OEM pre-installations of ANY version of Microsoft Windows is what continues Microsofts massive profit gravy train. The fact that OEMs are forced to put MS Windows Vista on most, if not all, shipped units is all that matters and any discussions(press, PR, etc) otherwise is just a peripheral expense to make it seem like it really matters. It took over 2 years before businesses 'accepted' MS Windows XP even though there was a huge hardware upgrade expense and the EULA changes gave Microsoft 'legal' rights to extract information from every MS Windows XP system.
So it is a waste of time/effort discussing if MS Windows Vista will fail or not and if there's any financial impact on MSFT as a result. They will keep extracting profits from OEMs for Windows Vista immediately and for Windows XP for the next few years. Only when OEMs and/or businesses start pre-installing Mozilla products and/or OpenOffice can there be any worthwhile discussions of Microsoft Windows productlines. IMO. Nothing else effects the monopoly control and gravy train as much.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus