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Windows XP Still Outselling Windows Vista
nandemoari writes with an excerpt from an InfoPackets article that says "While Microsoft excitedly tries to sway public opinion by touting that Windows Vista License sales top 180 Million units, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was busy smacking Microsoft down — reportedly shipping PCs with a Vista Business license but with Windows XP pre-loaded in the majority of business computers sold since the June 30 Windows XP execution date established by Microsoft — casting a lot of doubt over how many copies of Vista have actually been sold."
Wow. Although quoting the statistics from "a survey reportedly conducted by a systems management appliance company" is mighty vague, I'll bet it's not far off. Add to that the rise of the netbook, and it's just looking better and better for Linux.
Caveat Utilitor
OK, I'm a zealot, but if you mostly use a computer to browse the web and get email and write an occasional document buy a Linux computer.
'cause Microsoft still gets the $$$, no matter what OS sells more...
[insert lame sig here]
Oh Balmer, give it up already...
Caveat Utilitor
Beavis from an old Beavis & Butthead episode commenting on an artist of a music video, Microsoft "Probably went to a doctor to see what's wrong and the doctor said, "You suck"."
Yep. Vista just sucks.
You're not doing it right! Look, you're not supposed to post anonymously. People will think you're a troll! No, you're supposed create an account, say some good stuff about Apple, get modded up, get good karma and THEN post our stuff! You're fired! *throws chair*
Astroturfers! Astroturfers Astroturfers!
Thanks,
Steve B
My blog
I work for a computer consulting firm, and we've known about this for months now. In fact, we've switched from selling almost all Dell systems to almost all HP systems because of it; our clients just don't want Vista, and this is a really convenient way to satisfy them. I actually thought HP was doing us a favor shipping the XP systems because we do so much business with them, but I guess it's standard policy!
I hope HP continues to offer this option, because if we're any indication, the OEMs and resellers *really* appreciate it.
They just raised it... Two weeks ago when I ordered 6 new computers for two different clients it was only a $50 upgrade to get it with XP pre-installed.
Oh well, you can always exercise your downgrade rights under the EULA and use a privious Dell OEM XP Cd if you have one laying around from previous systems, and still be legal without paying the Down/Upgrade tax.
I wonder what Microsoft's thinking. Vista does have _some_ nice features, but a very long list of things to worry about. Every one of my IT peers I've talked to (I'm a desktop systems guy) has said their large company is putting off Vista migrations and waiting for Windows 7. We are too, not because we hate it, but because it's just not necessary yet.
It's been a pretty bad combination of factors:
- Features cut from the original Vista release that might have made it worth the pain
- IT departments who just spent 6 years getting XP stable enough
- Bad economy means that IT departments are cutting back, so it's not feasable to implement Vista even if you're a volume license customer. No one has time to research it properly with a reduced staff.
- XP SP3 is out, and is looking really good.
- Just a general "Oh no, here we go with a new OS again" malaise across IT departments in general.
Small businesses, on the other hand, are perfect Vista candidates. 3-user companies who don't run anything more complex than QuickBooks are Vista's target market right now. And now that it's on every computer you buy at any retail store, there's no reason for a small business to switch back. Large companies are basically not affected by June 30th because we can just buy Vista licenses and downgrade, which explains the inflated sales numbers.
On the "big company" side, I have lots of fun stuff to deal with. Internal web-based apps that were written when ActiveX was king. Business critical software last updated in 1996 and sometimes even before that. A constant mix of brand-new and 8-year-old hardware. Plus a user population that's not necessarily the earliest adopters.
I really hope Microsoft has something big planned for the next release. Swithing to Linux or Mac is totally not feasable for us (again, when you don't have 20 years of legacy Windows code to deal with, it's definitely a consideration.) It would take another major flop on their part to even think about migrating some of our business apps away from Windows.
The quote in the summary misunderstands the slight-of-hand going on in an illustrative way. The controversy IN NO WAY casts doubt on how many copies of Vista have been SOLD. It casts doubt on how many copies of Vista are INSTALLED and being USED.
All the HP sales involve the sale of a Vista license. They're just installing XP instead of Vista (something the Vista license expressly allows). The customer's paying for a Vista license.
The clever marketing trick is MS would like you to believe the 2 numbers are similar, desipte significant evidence to the contrary. They want you to look at the big "sold Vista licenses" number and think "Wow, a lot of people are USING Vista".
There is no real advantage to upgrading to Vista or BluRay for most people
Actually, both come with a major disadvantage, DRM. Coincidence, I think not!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Who modded this insightful?
I suppose you believed Bill Clinton when he said he did not inhale (right) and that other time when it all depended on what the meaning of is *IS*...
I needed a copy of Windows XP for my Dell, but in compliance with Ebay's policy, software could only be sold with hardware.
So, I ordered a metal blank case slot cover that said Dell on it, and what do you know? It came with a free copy of Windows XP Professional SP2 for Dell OEM PC's...
Does this mean that metal case bracket sales are up? NO decidedly not.
Even if Microsoft shipped a glazed canned ham and a 6-Pack of Bawlz with a downgrade disk copy of WinXP, they still sold a copy of XP (and some other crap people did not really want). This would not entitle the canned ham department over at Microsoft to claim superior sales versus XP at this point...
-Nobody pays the premium OEM charge for their "downgrade to XP rights and media disk" unless they intend on NOT using Vista and only using XP...
Home customers feel like they just can't do anything about it. A lot of them hate Vista, I have heard people tell me that they got a new computer, and I asked them how it was and they said that it was good except it had Vista on it. And no, these weren't the people who know much about computers. They see that Vista is pathetically slow and they don't want it.
A lot would downgrade to XP if they had either A) the right drivers B) an XP CD and C) the knowledge to downgrade.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Nope, Any Dell OEM XP Cd shipped since 2000 will work on ANY Dell computer built after 2000. It looks at the BIOS codes... I routinely rebuild client computers and just use the first Dell OEM cd I grab that matches what version it has installed...
Used a Dell OEM XP Sp1 cd from like 2003 on a brand new Dell Laptop the other day after the person decided to open the box himself and go online before we installed antivirus or malware protection software...
Toshiba and HP do lock the OEM software to certain versions. And IBM and Dell lock the Server software to particular models, but not the XP home and Proversions.
You cant use an Dell cd on an HP box without having to call Microsoft and explaining and manually activating the machine.
Kindof ironic. Earlier this morning I got an e-mail from our IS people outlining the software policy of the school district (I'm currently working for a large school district).
IE7 was found to not have any compatibility issues with current software used so that is allowed but not mandated. Office 2007 seems to work ok, so they will be rolling it out or the compatibility pack updates "soon". And Vista was found to be not compatible, of little usefulness, and generally undesirable. Officially it is to be avoided and the district will look forward to upgrading to Windows 7 when it becomes available.
What this means to us, is that if a new workstation or laptop is requested by a user or their supervisor, and the district cannot procure a machine with XP, the request will be denied. Vista will only be allowed if the user submits a justification of why they need it (IE, have to run some software in the classroom as part of the curriculum that only works with Vista) and that justification is approved by their supervisor and IS.
the second link: http://apcmag.com/xp_still_killing_vista_in_sales_volume_hp.htm
the third link: http://www.infopackets.com/news/business/microsoft/2008/20080801_windows_xp_still_outselling_windows_vista.htm
these two stories are word for word, character for character, 50-70% identical. Yet authorship is claimed by two completely different sources.
This would suggest to me that _somebody_ is a shitty squat blog, plagiarising for page hits.
From the latest Valve survey (Windows only):
Windows XP ------------- 80.77 %
Windows Vista --------- 15.08 %
Windows Vista 64 bit - 2.68 %
Windows 2003 64 bit - 0.70 %
Windows 2000 ---------- 0.61 %
Other -------------------- 0.15 %
So even in Windows Gamer Country, Vista has reached only 15% market share...
C - the footgun of programming languages
Even if Microsoft shipped a glazed canned ham and a 6-Pack of Bawlz ... people did not really want).
So... if you're not going to eat the ham, can I have it?
Vista comes with huge security implications (it that it has some), IE7 as mandatory, and therefore has large compatibility implications for large companies especially.
I know of several huge Microsoft customers that, despite being 100% MS based, still are in the testing/tweaking/certification stage of all their apps before they begin global roll-out. It's in the pipelines, but no one standardises on new workstation OS's until they can guarantee 100% compatibility - which can take a long time.
There's a scarily amount of enterprise-based IE6 only apps out there which alone makes Vista a difficult upgrade (IE6 not being an option on Vista). It's worth it in the end, as frankly, it's a better OS in the long-run IMO.
Gone are the days of writing to c:\windows without repercussion. Gone are the days of dropping kernel hooks in to get better app performance. Thank god.
throw new NoSignatureException();
> Gamers stuck it out with Windows 98
Boy, that's sure not my recollection. I remember gamers coming over fast, way ahead of both corporations and casual users. XP was such a win in gaming: more stable, better task switching, great backwards compat. Sure there were driver problems, but not so bad, nor for so long. I don't suppose there's any data to really show how it went, prove either of us right.
Team Fortress 2 crashes on exit for me, every single time. Happened on XP, then on Vista 32, now on Vista 64. Meh, could be worse.
Rabid
The mininote has opened up a whole new front in the OS Wars.
Great point! I have noticed the Asus Eee and the Acer AspireOne are attracting a lot of attention. At the local Staples (the only electronics store of any note in my town) people are fascinated with them. They're small, quiet, powerful enough to play music and videos, have wireless access to the Internet and do basic office suite work for under $400. The ones on display are running Linux.
Granted, they also have the option of running a stripped-down (???) version of XP, but people I've seen playing with them seem to like the Linux interface and have no problem figuring it out.
Maybe the desktop is no longer the crucial front in the struggle to dominate home computing.
It is like asking how many tax returns did the IRS "sell" last year.
This is not really surprising. Gamers stuck it out with Windows 98 long after XP Pro became the defacto corporate standard. It took a good 3 years for XP driver support to get to the point where XP outperformed Windows 98, and I expect nothing less from Vista. The thing that should drive Vista is DX10 and future implementations of DX, and that really falls on game developers before it will drive OS sales to gamers.
By the way I am a gamer, I use Vista, and while performance is not on par to XP on this computer, in most games it isn't bad enough to be noticeable or at least not to warrant a reboot into XP.
Parent post is spot on. This is something so many people forget when comparing Vista with XP now. Many of the people complaining about Vista are home users who didn't get their first PC until after XP SP2 was out. They know nothing about XP's first few years.
And in case you're wondering, no I'm not a Vista fan. For the moment, I still hate using it. I'll probably switch to it when it's been out a few years - just like I did with XP. But facts are facts, and rose-colored glasses don't change history.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Because the real reason windows is such a bad product is that it tries to cater to people with your attitude.
The problem with that however is that computers are still fairly complex pieces of machinery. It is not so much that a computer is so complex, countless hopeless people use computers numerous times each day. I see people who have trouble opening a web page operaring unix machinery. Modern copiers for instance run on a unix system, factory machines rarely run on Windows.
The advantage with these systems is that they have one task and that task is the only thing they do and all their hardware is pre-selected and pre-configured.
Most of the trouble with PC's comes from the fact that so many people have different configurations and desires as to how they should operate. Easy of use goes out of the window when you want flexibility. Good luck programming a wizard that can deal with every network setup people have dreamed up in their homes.
At a given point, sooner or later the user when he is going to do something more then the most basic tasks on the most basic setup is going to have to get his head around more advanced concepts like IP address. So it is better if he is introduced to it gently overtime rather then having to learn it all at once when he has a task to complete.
Time for the famous car analogy. When do you teach a new driver how to break. When the car is standing still, when he first got it moving forward OR when it is approaching a concrete pillar at 120 km an hour in a snowstorm?
That is the entire idea between anti-slip courses, prepare ahead of time in a safe enviroment when the driver can take it slow and there is no real pressure so that when the time comes, he has some chance of knowing what to do. Sure, car dealers LOVE to hide the fact that their cars can slip, but a prudent driver nonetheless learns about it.
Same with OS'es that LOVE to pretend running a computer is oh so easy. Everything is automatically taken care off, you don't need to learn anything how it works. Until a virus destroys all their work, a failing drive that has been warning for months collapses with all their family photos on it, or they have to give up in dispair because they are trying to get a game to work and nobody seems willing to explain to them what IP means.
Most people have at decent enough intelligence to master any number of concepts, barring those suffering from a mental handicap, users can learn the basic concepts about computers and should do so, just as they learn the basic concepts of any number of things to help operate them efficiently.
Creating an OS that pretends you don't need to know anything about computers to use them, don't need to think is the same as producing a car that pretends it can never loose traction. Of course, that is not good marketing. But everytime you read a story about some car being wrapped around a tree when there was no reason (no alcohol, no excessive speeding) that is what caused it. A driver who thought his car would magically stick to the road when it didn't.
Same with every "my soundcard don't work in X", "I can't connect to Y" complaint. Do you realize how silly it is to just go out, pick up the first soundcard you find, plug it in and expect it to work? That would be like just buying a random piece of electrical equipment and expecting you can just plug it in, from the net (get it? Different voltages exist around the world and it is thanks to regulation and basic education that people 'know' this and can expect stores to carry the right equipment.)
Do you need to know what voltage your radio uses to listen to it? No, not directly, but those who do know are better of from not frying their equipment on holiday or buying dodgy gear.
Ubuntu is a nice version of GNU/Linux, it doesn't use GNU/Linux it IS GNU/Linux. The notion that you need less knowledge to use it then other versions is dangerous, it may work fine for a pre-installed system being used in a way someone else predicted and catered
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.