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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."
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]
this is true. they may just hit 3% market share in the uk before the end of the decade. woohoo!
Do you mean Linux, or Vista?
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 can feel it, 2009 will be the Year of the Vista Desktop.
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".
Yah, because with any luck Windows 7 will be released... Unfortunately, it will probably suck worse than Vista, thus driving up Vista adoption
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm confused--how is using ubuntu an alternative to using Linux?
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
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.
LOL. Nasty updates? I run Debian and it's easier to update Debian than it is any Windows machine I've ever run, as well as having more options to do so. I can update via a gui with auto-notification when updates are available, or I can run the very difficult to understand two commands: "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get upgrade" and all security patches are downloaded and installed, without rebooting.
If I want to switch to the next version of Debian it's simply "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get dist-upgrade". The same functionality is available through the gui too.
Now just tell my how "nasty" it is to upgrade a Linux system. I've upgraded a desktop of mine from starting with Woody, to Sarge, to Etch, to Sid and never had to do a reformat.
Now just go ahead and tell me one more time about how Windows has it all over Linux in doing updates and user-friendliness. You couldn't update directly from 98 to 2000 to XP to Vista if your life depended on it, let alone have it run smoothly and without any problems after the updates.
The depth of ignorance in this place about Linux simply amazes me at times. Geeks shouldn't ought to be that ignorant about technological issues.
Linux is the OS that propeller heads use. If a noob tries to install it, encounters a problem and asks for help, they get the standard "RTFM" response, or perhaps a lecture on why something that doesn't work for them or is difficult to use is actually what they want. Ubuntu is the free alternative to windows which is heaps easier to use and has community support which is friendly, welcoming and extremely helpful.
Yeah, yeah, I know Ubuntu uses a Linux kernel and gnu tools, but it has established a brand which is seen as friendlier to non technical users than the Linux brand. The fact that one is an essential part of the other doesn't matter to people who don't no any better or care.
I don't therefore I'm not.
I'm the AC you replied to above.
No, the learning curve is NOT harder. Most people just completely discount the thousands of hours they have spent learning Windows, but keep track of the time they spend learning Linux. Thus it's "harder" to learn Linux.
I've spent approximately the same amount of time in using both OS's, and it doesn't take any longer to learn one than it does the other.
In many ways Linux is actually easier to learn because nothing is hidden from you. You're not locked out of anything. The only reason some people have a "hard time" learning Linux is because they go into the process thinking the only way anything can be accomplished on a computer is the way MS does things. As a result they "think" Linux is "harder" because it's different.
I don't see how anyone can say it's a "difficult" to see a blinking icon, put your mouse over it and read that you have updates available, click on the icon. then click on a button in the window that pops up that tells the system to update itself. That's easier than Windows update.
And, if you're not allegic to a bash prompt/command prompt entering two very easily memorized commands is not difficult. I prefer the text-based ways to update a system myself. The text based tools will always be more powerful and flexible than any gui.
And installing software? I don't have to go downtown to the big box store or hunt around on the web for software. I open up a gui, search a wizard for software packages sorted into different sections of usage such as "Games and Amusement", "Editors", "Graphics", "Email", "World Wide Web", and so on. I get to choose from 18,000+ packages in one application, in one window. Then just click the checkbox and tell the Synaptic to Apply my choices. That's it. All dependencies are downloaded in installed as well as the choices I made. The packages are all given basic user settings, and there is some documentation for those packages installed at the same time.
Windows has nothing like in function or ease of use.