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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.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
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
I wonder how much MS really makes off Windows, particularly at the consumer level, in terms of profit per unit. It's easy to see in some business lines where the profit really is (ink jet printers versus cartridge refills, concessions versus ticket prices at theaters, etc.), but it's a little blurry in software. It probably makes good business sense for MS to lower the price on their OS by $100 or so per unit and make it up in other lines of business. 'Course, I still won't upgrade until I get more or less forced into it because of DirectX 10 (damn you, gaming addiction!), but it might get them more actual sales.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
I remember there were a lot of naysayers regarding Windows XP, back when it was introduced, but WinXP did well, in spite of the fact that Win2K already had what companies needed. Probably because WinXP at least wasn't a huge downgrade, compared to Win2K.
Not so with Vista. My impression is that is't a downgrade. What with the stupidly slow file copy problem, the increased hardware requirements (even if you disregard the graphics card), the DRM, the need for (some) staff re-training... This time the anti-momentum is stronger than with XP.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
From what I've heard the major problem with Vista is that it was designed by committee with dozens of people involved in even the most minute aspects. The problem with that of course being that that more people = more compromise and a compromise is, from one viewpoint, simply a solution that leaves everyone equally unhappy. From my testing of Vista and reading the various feedback threads, I think that's been an excellent tagline for Vista thus far...the OS that will leave everyone equally unhappy with it.
The culture at Redmond simply looks like it's gotten so insulated from this "reality" thing that they're sliding into a world where they don't understand that most people do not like the OS. The OS is a required evil to get to what they actually want, which is the applications. The faster the OS gets to those applications and gets the hell out of the way, the better...for most users at any rate. Why this concept seems to elude OS designers is beyond me, but Microsoft needs to come to terms with the idea that when I sit down at a computer to check my email, I want to use my email program, not the OS. If I want to play a game, I want to play the game...not work with the OS. If I need to write something, I want to write...not deal with the OS. It's quite simple really, which is probably why they don't get it.
XP made a killing on the fact that consumers were fed up with the 9x line. Particularly, WinME. The disaster to end all disasters, which was still probably worse then what Vista currently is.
The question is, what will replace it?
With projects line Wine and Mono, hopefully 5 years is enough time to eliminate all MS XP/Vista dependence for their home-grown apps.
At that point they can choose a vendor-supported OS based on price and the quality of the vendor, not vendor lock-in.
Within 5 years companies will want their OSes to be portable across hardware. If a generic-box-PC fails they'll want to take their HD out of the failing generic-PC box and put it in another generic-box-PC which may have a completely different CPU and motherboard. If you try that today with XP you run all kinds of risks and it might not even boot. In 5 years companies will use OSes that can tolerate this or put them into a "thin-layer" VM environment to make all their generic-box-PCs look identical enough to eliminate this problem. Think Southwest Airlines and the way they "dumb down" their newer 737s so the entire fleet "looks identical" to their pilots.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think one of Microsoft's big problems has they have overpriced the boxed versions of Vista. It is a crazy state of affairs when my local computer shop is selling complete PCs cheaper than the boxed versions of Vista.
Are they perhaps more like apartment buildings always under the threat of demolition that sign you to nonbinding, shorter, cheaper leases because you never really know when the wrecking ball might be out front? The cheapest and, relatively, nonsketchy place we found to live in Mountain View was like this.
Microsoft is adjusting prices to meet demand? Every sane business does this.
ZOMG get the torches and lets march!
When slightly used will do? This is the mantra of a local exercise equipment dealer here. You save a lot of money that way.
In the computer world, the question is Why buy the operating system, when you can get a new capable computer?
Amazon is listing Windows Vista Home Premium for $218, slightly less than the US$239 retail. For another $300 you can get a fully capable PC with it with 1GB of RAM and a suitable video card to get a 3.0 on the performance scale.
This particular market is skewed at moving PCs, not selling operating systems.
Have you Meta Moderated t
Okay, so I'm an experienced computer user who already finds the default XP GUI tiresome, bloated and patronising and therefore always puts on the "classic" Windows view - but I found Vista was even worse. Don't get me wrong, it's very pretty and once I found the applications that I was looking for, no different to configuring XP (at least as much as I could see).
However, whilst we got the wireless working fairly easily, there were too big unforeseen problems that my relation suffered:
1. She has a legitimate 3 PC student licence for Office 2003 and has used only one of those licenses on the family desktop PC so far. Vista would not accept the license key for Office 2003 no matter what I tried and in the end I had to tell her to call Microsoft to get them to sort it out.
2. There are no drivers for her Lexmark printer and Lexmark have no plans to release any.
So, overall, I cannot say I was particularly impressed with Vista - it's got some quite nice eye-candy but not a lot else going for it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"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.
Microsoft "hasta la vista" (TM) :D
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
Just Microsoft telling people who've clung onto the beta versions that they can keep using it without paying $400. And as to the 30% figure, there are a ton of companies still using Win2000pro.
The retraining and hardware requirements were the exact excuses I used to start brining Linux into my offices, one computer at a time. We don't have any special software or anything (just Firefox and Microsoft Office, which I am gradually replacing with OOo). Instead of paying $1200 for a decent office computer that can run Vista smoothly, I can pay $600 for a computer with Linux compatible hardware and know I won't have to upgrade for a good long time. The training is going much smoother than I anticipated, actually, and thus far, I've had several employees ask if I could help them run Linux at home (pointed them at the local Linux users group, naturally).
Why buy expensive hardware and retrain everyone after paying over a thousand dollars per seat (Vista + Office) when you can buy a cheaper, more reliable computer? And the best part of the deal? All those shitty downloadable Windows "games" can't be installed!
You are absolutely right; that leapt out at me too. I thought it was much too optimistic, then I realized that whoever wrote the question was bending over backwards to make Vista sales numbers seem bigger.
My theory is that the 25% of companies who say they're currently 'using' Vista mean something like, "Brad Gladhand, VP Sales, called us the day after release and insisted he needed a new laptop with Vista installed so he could play DVD videos during sales presentations and not feel embarassed by out of date hardware... so yes, I guess we're using Vista already".
The real question that should have been asked would be something like "Is Vista currently the OS on your standard desktop build?" (i.e. that all new hires get, or that replacement machines come with). And possibly, "If it is not currently, will Vista become part of your standard desktop build within the next 12 months?". My guess is that the answer to the first question is less than 3%. Our shop is so conservative that we only went up to XPSP2 in the last 12 months; before that we just got SP1+targeted patches.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
... and, of course, XP was terrifying until SP2.
It would be interesting to see what percentage of Vista sales were for 'Vista Home Basic' (i.e. the bare minimum default MS OS that vendors put on new boxes). It would be more interesting to know what percentage of those boxes get wiped and have XP or Linux installed on them.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Consider the following...
Windows ME
That is all.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Oh goody! Can we start with the false dichotomies, please?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Microsft knows they're going to get people to upgrade. Unless there's _major_ pushback from corporate IT, XP and previous versions of Windows will go end-of-life on their scheduled dates. When that happens, you lose patch and fix support, which means your desktops are unprotected. Any IT person who runs Windows knows that's a dangerous gray area. There are still a couple of die-hard places running NT4, but it's not for general use and the admins keep tight control over the system.
So yes, Microsoft will eventually get their revenue. Dumping 17 years of Windows-based code and processes for Linux or any other OS is just too tough a sell in most large companies. I'm not a big Vista backer either, but you have to keep up with the times. I'm playing with it while supporting XP and 2003 in our environments. It would be foolish not to.
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 stupidly slow file copy problem
I am going to go out on a limb and theorize that this "bug" is a deliberate act. It reminds me of IBM in the mainframe/terminal days, where they added delays to ensure that response time was always 2 seconds. And for average users it is good to have average response times -- if you give them a fast one for some things and a slow one for others, they will notice and whine.
In this case I think something much more potentially sinister is at work. Vista has introduced a "copy lag" that can later on (once we have all accepted the lag) be used to scan files for 1) malware, 2) DRM reasons, 3) do other things we don't want Vista to do.
Saying that I wouldn't put it past them is an understatement.
I come here for the love
Don't get your hopes up.
Whether it works or not, whether it's more stable or not, no manager will jump into that cold pond. Let's look at a manager's brains (bring your microscope, kids!) and see how it ticks.
The manager will ponder what course to take. Should he buy Vista and accept the lock-in, or should he go Linux with Wine, take the road of liberty? This, dear reader, matters little to him. What matters to him is, that his superiors will never ever fire him for buying Vista. Because it's the tried way, and if it doesn't work out, hell, how should he have known? If he buys Linux and Wine, even the slightest problem that may occasionally occur will make his comfy chair shake, because he left the tried and true way of upgrading and decided that some unproven methodes are better.
Now, which path will our manager take?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
XP made a killing on the fact that consumers were fed up with the 9x line. Particularly, WinME. The disaster to end all disasters, which was still probably worse then what Vista currently is.
:)
I've heard Vista called "Windows ME v2"
Considering the speed it picked up in China, market penetration should be reached in less than a million years. Provided it keeps going as strong as it started and China gets its population growth down to zero.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually Linux users are just as forced to upgrade, if not more so, than Windows users. Linux distros tend to go out of support far quicker than Windows versions.
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.
How are Windows users forced? Is a gun held to their heads? Is it in the contract?
My mother used Windows 98 for years after XP had come out. It worked fine and did what she needed.
Except for Slackware and Debian...yes.
Package maintenance, that's another issue altogether.
The opposite of progress is congress
Well, I guess we know you're not into S&M.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them."
Marvin the Martian
Recommended Retail Pricing (RRP) is as follows:
Vista SKUs Recommended Retail Price (AU)
Windows Vista Home Basic $385
Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade $199
Window Vista Home Premium $455
Window Vista Home Premium Upgrade Academic $179
Window Vista Home Premium Upgrade $299
Windows Vista Ultimate $751
Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade $495
Windows Vista Business $565
Windows Vista Business Upgrade $379
Ain't it great to have a monopoly?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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
XP came out Dec 31, 2001. From Microsoft's website http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy:
Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream support for Business and Developer products will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Microsoft will also provide Extended support for the 5 years following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer. Finally, most Business and Developer products will receive at least 10 years of online self-help support.
Consumers get a little less time:
Microsoft will offer Mainstream support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer. Extended support is not offered for Consumer, Hardware, Multimedia, and Microsoft Dynamics products. Products that release new versions annually, such as Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, Microsoft Picture It!, and Microsoft Streets & Trips, will receive a minimum of 3 years of Mainstream support from the product's date of availability. Most products will also receive at least 8 years of online self-help support. Microsoft Xbox games are currently not included in the Support Lifecycle policy.
Ok. Minimum of 5 years. Seems kinda short, I guess. What's Ubuntu's policy?
From their announcement https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2005-October/000038.html:
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a
fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of
excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can
imagine available from the network, a commitment to security updates
for 18 months after each release and professional technical support
from many companies around the world.
18 months. Now for the price, that's exceptional, but your argument had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with version upgrades. If updates are your metric for determining whether users are "forced" to upgrade, look no further than the announced support cycle for Ubuntu 5.10.
They looked like they'd gotten better, no doubt. With 6.06, you get 5 years of upgrades--the same minimum guaranteed by Microsoft http://www.ubuntu.com/news/606released:
Ubuntu is freely available, including security updates for five years on servers, with no restrictions on usage and no requirement to purchase support contracts or subscriptions per deployment.
But wait. The 7.04 release of Ubuntu reverts back to 18 months--they say that the 6.06 series was a "long term support release" https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2007-April/000102.html.
Ubuntu 7.04 will be supported for 18 months on both desktops and servers. Note that 6.06 LTS is a long-term support release, and so users requiring a longer support lifetime may choose to continue using that version rather than upgrade to or install 7.04.
So we're back to 18 months. Microsoft's stated support minimum is more than 3 times longer than Ubuntu's, except for the aberration of Ubuntu 6.06.
So who's 'forced' to upgrade in order to keep support?
I mainly focused on Ubuntu because that's what the person you replied to was talking about. Redhat, arguably the best known Linux vendor, gives their cycle here: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ They give you 7 years of
I worked for Ericsson until the end of 2006 and all of their corporate desktops, bar a very few specific exemptions, run Windows 200 to this very day. They're not alone either, the big corps are extremely conservative about these things and frankly 2000 does everything they need just fine. This is changing, it's harder and harder to get maintained drivers for the latest hardware, but frankly what special hardware do 90% of corporate desktops need to support? Not much.
Is this a disaster for Redmond? Are they gnashing their teeth at this awful failure at Ericsson? Of course not, it's really no big deal. The corporations pay just the same for 2000 as they do for XP. MS does need to keep maintain a fresh and modern code base to stay competitive in many niches (games, multimedia apps, development tools, servers, new specialist hardware, etc) but the fact that Windows 2000 is fine for the vast majority of users is no pain for them because the revenues still keep rolling in anyway.
With Vista there is a new element and that's Microsoft's efforts to advance the API so that new compelling multimedia and advanced communications enabled applications will provide a new lock-in to Vista. This will probably work. Vista already has a vastly greater market penetration than all the Linux desktops put together, and if it doesn't already surpass the Mac (like the one I'm writing this on) it will soon, so windows developers will have no qualms about adopting the new Vista APIs.
Sorry, but it's the truth.
Vista however is different from previous Windows OSes, runs fewer applications, has tons of broken drivers, has performance issues and requires hardware upgrades, and has new features that nobody asked for. XP does the same job faster, better and requires no retraining. There are so many versions, with different feature sets and prices, it creates a Buridan's donkey problem (a customer would rather buy nothing than to decide on what to buy.) Assuming that DirectX 10 is backported to XP (as it seems to be), the first and last theoretically valid reason for moving to Vista is gone.
Well, the 2.0 branch released 2.0.40 in 2004, well after 2.6 came out. The 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 branches all have active maintainers. Given that 2.0 was released in June of '96, I'd say we don't compare too badly to the evil empire.
[FUCK BETA]
Now, I do believe MS has full *right* to do this, but just because you CAN be an asshole, does not mean you SHOULD be an asshole and does not mean people have to like it. It just goes to demonstrate the value of open source over closed.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Well then, they shouldn't have DRM'd their operating system with "activation"; they shouldn't have broken all those applications; they shouldn't have bought into consumer-unfriendly technologies, particularly in the area of media but also in hardware; they shouldn't have forbidden any of Vista's versions to run under virtualization; they shouldn't have made using Vista a nightmare of clicking away security popups; they shouldn't have insisted on proprietary, insecure solutions like ActiveX; they definitely shouldn't charge for development tools; and of course, the predatory business practices don't make them any friends, either.
Me, I jumped ship and I'm not looking back. XP's activation DRM was the last straw.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.