Internal Emails Released In Vista Capable Debacle

An anonymous reader writes "As previously discussed, Microsoft's attempt to shield itself from further discovery over the Windows Vista Capable debacle has failed and more internal emails have been released. Although Microsoft has successfully kept CEO Steve Ballmer away from the witness stand on grounds the he 'has no unique knowledge of the facts in this case,' emails suggest otherwise. An email was released in which Intel CEO Paul Otellini thanks Ballmer for listening and making changes to the program allowing their 915 chipset to pass the grade: 'I know you did it.'"

Comments

Witness Chair

[Shambly]

Those witness stand chairs are bolted down right?

Re:Witness Chair

[wild_quinine]

Ballmer's got nothing to fear. We all know who's responsible.

Developers.

Developers, developers, developers...

Ummm...

[morgan_greywolf]

Did anyone doubt that Microsoft and Intel are in cahoots? I mean, seriously, what cave have these people been hiding in for the last 20 years?

Re:Ummm...

[V!NCENT]

Considdering the fact that they bought a computer with Vista preloaded, they probabbly have lived in the "I need a computer, but I don't like computers"-cave.

Re:Ummm...

[UnknowingFool]

Really MS has long worked closely their customers and partners. The problem is that for most users is that MS has never really considered them their customers or partners. OEMs and Developers are their customers. Intel, IBM (now Lenovo), HP, Dell are their partners too. Your average user, not so much.

Re:Ummm...

[morgan_greywolf]

How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

Re:Ummm...

[MightyMartian]

How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.

Re:Ummm...

[Xerolooper]

If it is mutually beneficial they will get in bed with each other.
"The partnership between Intel and Microsoft has brought the benefit of using a dedicated computer software for use with Intel's technologies." - Wintel

Re:Ummm...

[aztracker1]

Microsoft writes software that runs on Intel processors. Intel likes to make enhancements to the instruction set to improve performance, and wants the biggest software vendor to leverage them. Microsoft, being the biggest software vendor likes to know what coming around the corner, it works.

Re:Ummm...

[pclminion]

What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.

Indeed -- at WinHEC this year, Intel and Seagate (along with another manufacturer I can't remember) comprised the "first class" sponsors, meaning they helped pay a huge chunk for the event. And Microsoft and Intel were obviously shmoozing throughout the conference. I wasn't surprised by it at all. What surprises me is that others are surprised.

Re:Ummm...

[servognome]

How is Intel a 'partner'? They aren't an OEM, they're a component maker. Intel should no more be a Microsoft partner than, say, Seagate or nVidia.

I would hope all those companies have some sort of partnership with Microsoft. It's in the best interest of everybody to understand what the other is doing. Microsoft should understand how Seagate handles data, what graphics capabilities are on the nVidia roadmap, and what changes to instructions and new capabilities are coming down the line for new CPUs.
One example where communication with other component suppliers is SSDs, and the changes to software needed to better handle data for performance and reliability. Microsoft better be talking to the drive manufacturers directly, not with Dell, so they come up with a total solution for both hardware and software sides.

Here's the link

[stjobe]

Link to the email conversation in question: http://media.techflash.com/documents/intelvictory.pdf (pdf)

Re:Link goes to a Google News Search

[Nachos Nakamoto]

This story contains links to the PDF's.

People want cheap computers

[RulerOf]

People want cheap computers with the latest and greatest technology, and OEM's want to maintain as high of a margin as possible. These fundamental conflicts of interest cause these kinds of problems.

Shattered expectations aren't limited to computers either. Ever bought something that you should have spent more money on? I have a snowblower at home that's so underpowered that shoveling takes less time.

My personal belief is that this problem is to blame on hardware manufacturers and OEM's trying, and horribly failing, to deliver what consumers desire (fast computers with brand new technology) and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

And what do we do about it? We bash Microsoft. In fact, we bash them so well that everyone, including people who have never used it and those who currently use it (without major issue) that Vista is not a viable choice for them.

Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7, which is almost entirely based on the now very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase. Not only will it improve perception of Windows due to its excellent compatibility and well honed kernel, it'll force me to shell out cash (unless I can get a Microsoft handout, which is how I got Vista) for the latest Microsoft OS, and prematurely outdate every single Windows License companies have bought in the meantime.

Want Windows Vista SP4...err, I mean Windows 7? $299 please.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Re:People want cheap computers

[andrewd18]

[The] hardware manufacturers and OEMs [have been] trying, and horribly failing, to deliver [fast computers with brand new technology] and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

The definition of fast can either mean a measurable metric like MIPS or clock speed, or it can mean what most consumers mean, which is "Look, Mom! Word started in less than 10 seconds!"

The problem is not that the hardware manufacturers have been unable to keep up with consumer demand for new ideas and more speed. Look at the numbers on a video card or stick of RAM today, and compare it to the same components from your computer a decade ago. They've gotten quite a bit faster and have quite a few more features, if you haven't noticed.

The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.

The reason we bash Microsoft is because we're not brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the only game in town. We've used Linux, Mac, and BSD. We know that they're all viable operating systems that do what Windows does, and in many cases, do it better. Is Vista a viable choice? Sure it is. Is Vista the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.

Re:People want cheap computers

[UnknowingFool]

My personal belief is that this problem is to blame on hardware manufacturers and OEM's trying, and horribly failing, to deliver what consumers desire (fast computers with brand new technology) and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).

Vista even the basic version requires a much beefier machine. So if you're an OEM, what do you do? Your basic machine can't handle Vista but MS is getting rid of XP. Really most consumers want a stable, secure OS. That Aero stuff looks cool, but most users can do with out it. In other words, fix XP.

And what do we do about it? We bash Microsoft. In fact, we bash them so well that everyone, including people who have never used it and those who currently use it (without major issue) that Vista is not a viable choice for them.

We bash MS because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people, isn't an upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the average user, most of the changes were cosmetic. Other changes actually were not beneficial. More DRM. Shifting security to the user by having them approve everything? And MS wasn't very honest about what the real requirements were.

Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7, which is almost entirely based on the now very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase. Not only will it improve perception of Windows due to its excellent compatibility and well honed kernel, it'll force me to shell out cash (unless I can get a Microsoft handout, which is how I got Vista) for the latest Microsoft OS, and prematurely outdate every single Windows License companies have bought in the meantime.

From what I'm seeing Windows 7 isn't that much of a difference from Vista. By 2009, most of the hardware being sold by the OEMs will be able to handle it unlike when Vista was released. Hopefully MS learns from this fiasco and won't publish ridiculous hardware requirements (1GHz to run Vista, come on).

Re:People want cheap computers

[King_TJ]

Sure people want cheap computers, just like they want anything else to be as cheap as possible. Nobody likes to spend more than they have to.

The fact remains though, a number of people will spend more as long as they believe that they "get what they pay for". That's why Apple has been so successful, really. They charge more for nicely configured systems with more expensive case designs and better support (you can still take one in to any of hundreds of retail stores for servicing, unlike any other major brand of PC I can think of).

Vista's problem is, it doesn't really make people feel like they "got what they paid for" in many cases. You generally need twice as much system memory as you did with XP to get comparable performance, and all the pretty f/x demand an actual 3D graphics card with decent capabilities. (Sure, it runs fine without that, but then you're negating one of the benefits that was supposed to make a user feel like they really had something "slick" when they used it.)

When you buy a machine that actually runs Vista well, you're not buying a low-end bargain machine -- so that means people have higher expectations for that extra money spent.

I don't think it delivers on those expectations -- and SURELY won't when you go the budget machine route.

Re:People want cheap computers

[cptdondo]

It's sort of like Home Depot and Grainger. Ever wonder why seemingly the same DeWalt drill costs twice as much at Grainger than it does at Home Depot?

Home Depot sells mostly to non-professionals, so they demand that DeWalt cut costs to meet a price point. Thus the drill gets sleeve bearings and plastic gears, and a weak motor. The Grainger version gets ball bearings, metal gears, and a motor that will break wrists. It also costs $200 more. I've smoked one of those Home Depot drills in an afternoon.

I blame the near-monopoly big box retailers and corporate greed on the part of the manufacturers, along with the general stupidity of the American consumer.

So it is with computers. You want cheap, you buy the cheapest knock off crap you can, you take out every bit of hardware you can and shove it into the software drivers, and then you stick in a high-speed CPU so you can publish big numbers. I bought some Dell SCSI drives some time ago; they wouldn't work with my RAID controller. I called up and asked why - I was told that the Dell drives only work with Dell versions of Windows, as Dell has removed a lot of the hardware from the drive controllers and put it into software. Maybe it saved them a few pennies per drive....

Re:People want cheap computers

[erroneus]

People haven't realized we have gotten past a certain point with PC hardware.

Long ago, when memory was expensive, we got as much as we could reasonably afford and dealt with optimizing swap space utilization.

Now we have more or less reached a point where processor and memory speeds are the most significant things to consider for enhancing operational speed. Memory is cheap and people are maxing their systems bringing their swap space utilization to zero or nearly that. Adding more memory will not help.

The real factor that will improve computing performance is better code optimization for the OS and less object oriented code slowing things down. In case people haven't noticed, we reached a processor speed plateau quite some time ago and Vista is slow on all of the best stuff.

Re:People want cheap computers

[Tubal-Cain]

The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.

Mac Plus vs. AMD DualCore

The reason we bash Microsoft is because we're not brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the only game in town. We've used Linux, Mac, and BSD. We know that they're all viable operating systems that do what Windows does, and in many cases, do it better. Is Vista a viable choice? Sure it is. Is Vista the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.

Another problem is that MS has a one-size-fits-all approach. Some people like the Aero interface, and others want the UI to be as slim as possible (See Ubuntu+Compiz, Gnome, KDE vs. Flux/Open/Black Box, Enlightenment, JWM) With Vista the most streamlined you can get is a Win2K-like look.

Re:People want cheap computers

[sjames]

Considering that Linux can run quite decently with 16 MB RAM and a 200MHz CPU (so long as you dump the GUI), it's outrageous that Vista can barely manage to boot with 1Gig of RAM.

As for UAC, the blame needs to be shared. MS spent over a decade effectively training Windows coders (and users) to presume they have root (admin) access all the time. Now they don't.

I agree that MS had no choice about not permitting everything as admin anymore, and that now that they don't, it's time for the developers to get with the program but the blame is shared. MS should have gone to better security a LOT sooner. They had a good opportunity when XP came out. They could have granted admin to the legacy apps only rather than to everything. Had they done that, there wouldn't be apps today that unnecessarily demand to run as admin now.

For that matter, they could do something similar now, but would take more flak for it. Perhaps apps that don't have a 'vista signature' on them would display flies buzzing around their icon to encourage developers to update quick.

Next release, installing an app without the signature requires clicking through big bold warnings and adds little heaps of dung to the icon to go with the flies. To add impact, the warning dialogs could feature pictures of an actual steaming pile.

Finally, don't allow such apps at all unless the user drills deep into configurations dialogs and checks a box to allow it.

By the time the next logical step would come around, the odds are that too many incompatible changes would have happened for the old app to run anyway.

Yeah, and?

[girlintraining]

It's common knowledge by now even amongst the general public that Vista exploded on the launch pad. At this point, the only thing this line of inquiry has to offer is to help Microsoft prevent a repeat of the last performance. If you ask me, Windows 7 will suffer many of the same problems -- namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough". Microsoft still hasn't learned that great programmers have a lot of experience outside programming, and to make the best code you need to give them the freedom to try different solutions and then listen to their feedback. From what I've seen, Microsoft is a hugely divided organization where hundreds of small teams compete to produce the most lines of code and nobody knows quite what everybody else is doing. Management constantly changes direction during the development process, to the point that a lot of work is wasted in duplication of effort and things being thrown away due to changing priorities.

Windows has reached a level of complexity that these kinds of organizational mistakes can no longer be tolerated, but Microsoft is too large and entrenched to be capable of streamlining their development process. Maybe they get rid of UAC, and the DRM, and rewrite the driver infrastructure so it sucks less; And those are all fine goals to have, but it doesn't fix the real problem -- which is that the organization made these decisions in the first place when I know their developers were screaming at them "For the love of all things good and holy in the world don't do it!"

Microsoft isn't the first to deal with this. One Mr. Richard Feynman noted similar organizational problems that led to the Challenger disaster at NASA. NASA has been trying to squelch this addendum for some time and you won't find a link to it on their main report anymore, but you can find it here http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt

Re:Yeah, and?

[Ed Avis]

namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"

Er, citation needed? Have you ever worked at Microsoft?

Re:Yeah, and?

[nitio]

...which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code...

You're right. We 3rd-world programmers suck. We tend to use something awful (C/C++/Java) and not the awesome technology in which the legacy code I received from my company, written in the 1st-world. The greatness that Microsoft Access 97 is.

Don't be a douche. There are as many awful 3rd-world programmers as there are in the 1st-world.

Re:Yeah, and?

[girlintraining]

It's a culture problem, not what tools are being used. Most of these foreign programmers are very good at following orders. The problem is that they're very bad at taking initiative; They want/need management approval to do much more than go to the bathroom. This is true for most eastern countries; People are more collectivistic by nature. Engineers in this country are taught to think critically and independently, and often clash with their managers. But the result is better engineering. As some non-engineering examples -- look at the Three Gorges Dam, which has a number of serious engineering deficiencies, arguably due to cultural differences -- nobody was willing to question their superiors. Of course, if I lived in China, I wouldn't either for obvious reasons.

Here's an article that says it far better than I do. ahref=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Companies_should_avoid_culture_shock/articleshow/2811348.cmsrel=url2html-26813http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Companies_should_avoid_culture_shock/articleshow/2811348.cms> What I'm saying is that the horde technique churns out lackluster code, not the people used... though culture contributes to the problem.

Re:Yeah, and?

[King_TJ]

I haven't worked at MS either, but I did know a guy who worked on MS Outlook for them for a while. His assessment of the organization was much like what "girlintraining" detailed.

I remember one time, he told me how they had problems with promoting people internally. Developers didn't WANT to get a promotion that meant they'd become a "project lead" - and thereby be held accountable for all the problems. (Not to mention, the raises weren't deemed worth the additional hours they'd get stuck putting in.)

Re:Yeah, and?

[nabsltd]

If you ask me, Windows 7 will suffer many of the same problems

The #1 problem of Vista was the poor performance on the average hardware available for sale at the time of the release.

All software has bugs, but Vista just needed more machine than was possible to sell at a low enough price to get a large uptake.

Microsoft will "solve" this problem with Windows 7 by doing nothing but let Moore's Law lead to the inevitable faster hardware for the same price. At this point, Windows 7 looks to be nothing more than Vista with just enough changes for people to say "ooh, shiny new", but none of those changes are significant enough to require more machine to run them.

Add in the fact that it will use the same drivers as Vista, and Windows 7 will have much better hardware support at launch, which will also help the PR.

Basically, Microsoft couldn't sell a crappy OS last year, but next year they hope to convince people to buy a service pack for that same OS just because they give it a name different from "Service Pack 3".

Re:Yeah, and?

[tlhIngan]

namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"

Er, citation needed? Have you ever worked at Microsoft?

Or the fact that Microsoft is composed of little fiefdoms and each major "team" often has a snapshot of code from other teams that doesn't get synced? E.g., Windows teams use a compiler that is older than the dev tools team is creating, Office uses DLL code that's been branched/modified/extended from the WIndows Shell, and is quite incompatible (ditto on dev tools as well). Which is why you can end up with 3 incompatible versions of the same DLL - one that ships with Windows, one that ships with Office, and another one that developers use for their projects (that ships with Visual Studio) - I believe one such DLL is common controls or common dialogs.

Or how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?

So not only is DLL hell created from different versions of a DLL with the same code lineage, there's also the troubles caused by the same DLL with different code lineages living on the same system.

Re:Yeah, and?

[girlintraining]

If you ever worked with people from other countries from serious companies you'd see that these people are not trained according to their culture but to the company's culture. First, name calling is pretty childish, and we're trying to discuss this as professionals. Second, does working for the 33rd largest company in this country qualify me? It's Target (TGT), by the way, an international retail establishment, and I worked there for two years doing (amongst other things) development work. Let me give some examples from my professional experience there: - My department was not allowed to develop a database in-house to do incident and call tracking. It was assigned to a team of 14 developers in India, and they worked on it for 16 months. When we finally got the product back it had none of the features we requested built into it, ran on .NET, and had a record limit of 64k records. Note, this was not a 64k record limit per database but for all databases that that software used. After consulting with two programmers on-site who were familiar with .NET, we concluded that we could have developed it in-house in about 2 weeks, with another 2 weeks for testing, using a team of... two programmers. But management declined our offer (again) "because it would cost too much". - I was assigned to do software deployments on the overnight shift. I worked two people from "a third world". They were highly educated, naturalized citizens of this country... And despite numerous improvements to the tools and process that I made that would have resulted in a nearly 10x increase in problem resolutions, they stuck with what they knew. Even when I sat with them to explain the new tools, they steadfastly refused to use them out of an apparent fear that someone above us would punish them. I wound up doing about 80% of the night shift work for about 6 months, mostly using custom scripts, while they slaved away at their administation tasks by hand. They were both eventually let go when we downsized. I liked them, I did, but I couldn't convince them for anything to try something new. ... I could go on, but there's a size limit to posts on slashdot.

Re:Yeah, and?

[UnknowingFool]

Unfortunately NASA only learned their lesson for a short time. When Columbia happened, initially people bashed the engineers for that failure. Why didn't they spot the damage? Why didn't they do anything about it? Well, most people didn't realize the internal power struggles and politics that were occurring. Engineers did notice the foam strike the wing. They tried to get more information.

They asked for an EVA to check the damage. Too risky.

They asked to redirect a satellite to take pictures of the wing. Too expensive.

They asked to delay the return flight for more time to study the problem. That would be bad for PR. (Yes, a NASA manager actually argued that).

NASA managers at the time were more concerned about the PR around delaying a return for safety concerns than the actual safety concerns.

Re:Yeah, and?

[shawn(at)fsu]

You might find that the reason you are not getting the same respect I do is not becuase you wear a skirt (as your profile page says) but because you start your arguments with broad generalities and blatant stereotypes. When you say it's a cultural thing that "they lack initiative" it puts people off, becuase no matter how many examples you site I can site an counter example. I've worked with plenty for people from India and all over the world for that matter and I can tell you you are making grossly wrong generalities about them. Conversely I work with Americans that couldn't make a decision to save their lives. Maybe this is becuase of your work environment. Maybe you should consider working for a different company that works to bring diversity in to the workplace, maybe Target just doesn't do it right. I don't know. No one culture is better than any other culture in our field and if you can't accept that then your going to find your professional experience getting worse and not better.

Funny enough I was just complaining that my company (a leader in national defense hardware and software) was insulting my intelligence by sending out diversity in the workplace emails and requiring us to go to lectures/sessions on why it's important. I couldn't see how my generation could be in need of seeing things from a different POV, assuming we around the same age you've proved me wrong.

Re:Yeah, and?

[the_B0fh]

H1B is not just 3rd world - 1st world programmers have to come in via H1B visas as well.

I think what you want to say is lousy sucky programmers put out lousy sucky code, and that's not something that only H1Bs do. Plenty of lousy sucky American born programmers as well.

Re:Windows 7ven?

[abigsmurf]

windows 7ven, the worlds first swedish OS?

wait until people find out

[nimbius]

about how windows certification for hardware doesnt always guarantee it works, and clippy is actually more annoying than helpful.

Re:Windows 7ven?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Windows Se7en

It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

Re:Windows 7ven?

[AndGodSed]

After that - Windows 7ven of 9 - sexy and efficient.

Sorry, your comment just gave me flashbacks of her in a tight trekkie uniform...

Anti-Trust Shits on all of us.

[Odder]

Stickers that changed from "Vista Capable" to "Designed for XP" on the day Vista shipped are sleazy, but the larger issue is worse: M$ KILLED INTEL'S GRAPHICS MARKET. What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets? E16 has been doing translucency in 2D land for a decade, so Vista should have gracefully dealt with the few missing pieces in Intel's chip sets. I know that 3D gaming works well enough on the previous generation of Intel under GNU/Linux, and suspect that's the rub. M$ killed Intel's ambitious drive to produce graphics chipsets because Intel had released the drivers as free software. HP moved away before Vista shipped, but that was not enough to keep Vista from sucking on HP anyway. For daring once to do for free software what they routinely do for M$, Intel has been driven out of the graphics market. The "favor" of letting Intel sell a bunch of hardware for an OS that would never use it should be judged in this light.

Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us.

[SanityInAnarchy]

What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets?

A lot of things.

E16 has been doing translucency in 2D land for a decade

M$ killed Intel's ambitious drive to produce graphics chipsets because Intel had released the drivers as free software.

And this is getting to the pure hyperbole.

PC gaming is not doing well. Mac and Linux are a tiny portion of that, and if anyone's taking a bite out of Windows gaming, it's the Mac -- much as I don't want to admit it, Linux isn't going to make much of a dent.

The only place where this would actually have a chance of taking a bite out of Microsoft is high-end design work -- the kind of stuff you'd buy a Quadro for, and never even consider Intel -- and the kind of stuff that a non-free driver wouldn't stop. In fact, this is probably the reason nVidia bothers to make Linux drivers in the first place.

Never ascribe to malice... Think about it. This is the same Microsoft that leaves known vulnerabilities unpatched for the better part of a decade. And this is the same Vista that, at some point, would run out of RAM trying to search-as-you-type (with the index disabled).

Is it really so implausible that they simply fucked it up? That they required so much hardware, not because they hate Intel, but because they have a bloated OS?

There are plenty of rational reasons to hate Microsoft. You don't need to dream up irrational ones.

Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us.

[Rockoon]

What the hell was wrong with Vista that it could not do translucency on Intel chip sets?

Its not like there are extensive nvidia and ati specific code paths...

Intel's chips simply dont do DX9/10 well and thats the fault of Intel, not Microsoft. Could Microsoft have decided to use something other than the well established DirectX? Sure.. but why should they have? That would have still required Intel to evolve their own solution, but would also have asked for more from nvidia and ati.

Its a no-brainer here. Intel's graphics chips dont do aero well because Intel's chips don't do DirectX well. Intel has long known that their chips suck for DX and have done nothing about it because they are unwilling to compete in that market.

Re:Anti-Trust Shits on all of us.

[Drinking Bleach]

And this has any relevance to Vista's incapability to do translucency on those chips how? The GP's whole point was that E16 has been able to do the exact same thing for about 10 years now, and even on far less capable chips (think Voodoo1) than Intel's.

Where is Intel in all of this?

[foo fighter]

The motion for summary judgement makes it pretty clear that Microsoft was in the wrong, but so was Intel.

Microsoft knew by at least August 2005 that the widely-used Intel "915" chipset "definitely won't qualify for the logo." That same month, Intel published an internet link "positioning 915 GM as optimum for Windows Vista on Mobile PCs," which Microsoft internally viewed as "misleading" and "egregious" at the time. ...

In the aftermath of the publication of the Microsoft and Intel links, Microsfot employees internally viewed Intel as "intentionally" trying to "hide the ball" on the inability of its 915 chipsets to run WDDM.

It's pretty clear that Intel couldn't get it's shit together and kept foisting its shitty 915 graphics on HP, Dell, etc., for use in high-margin notebooks. The OEMs were screwed because Intel was the source for chipsets that made the value proposition of low-end notebooks work.

Microsoft is the one getting sued, but Intel is at least as culpable and incompetent, IMHO.

Re:Where is Intel in all of this?

[foo fighter]

Shit, hit submit instead of preview.

Also from the memo, from an Email Poole sent around MS:

Basically from Intel's point of view, the longer they sell non-glass capable integrated graphics, that is an outdated (osborned part that OEMs won't want to handle as it's non glass capable. Frankly Intel should have thought of this 3 years ago.

Essentially, Intel knew for about three years that their crappy integrated graphics wouldn't be up to snuff, but did nothing because the 915 chipset was raking in billions in profit for themselves.

Intel fucked Microsoft, fucked the OEMs, and fucked consumers. Intel should be facing a massive lawsuit from all three of those parties.

If I were Microsoft and the OEMs I'd also be doing everything I could to stop doing business with Intel.

Re:Where is Intel in all of this?

[MostAwesomeDude]

To be fair, a large part of why Intel graphics suck on Windows has to do with architectural issues on the Microsoft end of things. If Intel chips were lacking the raw power for Glass, I suppose they wouldn't be able to run Compiz either, but here I am, typing this from an Eee with Compiz Fusion enabled on my Intel i915-based chipset.

At the risk of stating the obvious...

Not to say that Intel's a victim here, but perhaps the raw numbers for "Vista Capable" are just too high.

Re:Where is Intel in all of this?

[fractalus]

On the contrary, Microsoft is a business, a publicly-held one, and they're expected to make the most profit possible. Looking out for their bottom line IS their business.

The problem for any business is really whether they elect to take short-term profits or invest for the long term. Any business can make a fast buck by screwing over their customers; the downside is that over the long haul they tarnish their reputation so much that the customers don't come back, the investors don't want to be associated with them, etc. Building for long-term growth means you weigh the cost of pissing off your most likely source of recurring revenue.

In the US there seems to have been a mentality of short-term focus. I guess the assumption is once you burn through one quick money-making scheme, you just move on to the next--sell your shares and move on to the next up-and-coming business. You can make money this way, but in the long run it's very inefficient and the market will punish such behavior.

Oh look. The market did. At least as far as repackaging debt is concerned. Eventually it will catch up with Microsoft, too. (By which time Ballmer and crew will be long gone...)

Re:Where is Intel in all of this?

[ceoyoyo]

Aqua works great on Intel graphics too. The problem really does seem to be Vista.

Re:The 915 is Vista Capable?

[hplus]

I understand your desire to promote Linux, but why would you actively hope that your colleague's computer will malfunction? It's one thing to get a chuckle when the "other OS" (whatever that might be for you) acts up, but to hope that somebody you know has problems using it so that they will go back to "your" OS (which didn't work correctly either) is just mean-spirited.

went to a small tech show this week

[jollyreaper]

It was hosted by a local IT shop looking to introduce new technologies to potential clients. There was a Microsoft guy there talking about Server 08. He used one of the talking points that really annoys me: "Yeah, I used to work in open source, played with Linux and stuff. But then I decided I actually wanted to make money." Huh? Ok, that argument might have held water years and years back but it doesn't even make sense these days. Yes, Vista was a failure but Microsoft is still here and even the most pessimistic of realistic assessments doesn't have them going away anytime soon. They may be the 600lb gorilla instead of the 800lb gorilla but that's still a whole lotta gorilla. But to dismiss open source so, well, dismissively?

If watching the tech industry has taught me anything it's that nobody's indomitable and it pays not to get cocky. And the bigger a company gets, the more entrenched the bureaucracy, the more potent the kool-aid, the less likely it becomes to pull out of a tailspin. A company becomes functionally incapable of not fucking up. There's no way to turn the company around apart from firing every manager and starting over but those managers are exactly the ones who will fire everyone else in the company until they are the last ones left in the bunker. We're seeing this play out with the American automotive manufacturers right now, the Japanese are proving it's possible to make cars and make money at the same time while the Americans are busy proving it can't be done. Hell, our whole country is going through this same kind of dysfunctional malaise right now.

My prediction is that Microsoft will, over the next fifteen years, shrink in preeminence until it is a 400lb gorilla, dominant in certain niches but more comparable in size and power to the other big name IT companies rather than the world-shaker it was at its prime.

Re:went to a small tech show this week

[JCSoRocks]

I wouldn't be so sure. Look at Intel... AMD had it on the ground. The P4 was getting its ass handed to it regularly and everyone knew it. Gaming PCs were almost exclusively AMD. It got to the point where people laughed when you said you wanted to build an Intel based machine.
... fast forward a few years and Core 2 has crushed AMD. Intel has not only come back but has completely turned the table. AMD is only just now reaching 3 GHz with their top of the line chips - Intel reached that nearly a year ago. Intel's upcoming i7 chips look to be just as dominant. From what I've seen AMD isn't even going to have a prayer until the end of 2009.

I wouldn't discount Microsoft just yet. They may be be staggering now but I wouldn't be surprised if they made a come back.

Re:went to a small tech show this week

[IICV]

That was pure luck on Intel's part, though. They'd been pushing for higher and higher GHz, while AMD focused on (and was severely beating them on) the work-per-tick front. That's why AMD CPUs all have the 4800+ or whatever label; in theory, they do the equivalent work of a 4.8 GHz (Pentium) CPU, despite being clocked at only half that. The Pentium 4 series was a dead end, and Intel had no way out.

Then an Intel research group in Israel came up with a heavily modified version of the Pentium 3, the Pentium M. It drew very little power and got a lot of work done. Intel was fortunate enough to see the value of this chip, and threw more of its research budget in along those lines. That's where the Intel Core series came from, and that's what's now whipping AMD's ass.

But if it wasn't for the research group in Israel that had been exploring how far a P3 could go, Intel would still be lagging behind.

I kind of doubt Microsoft has that sort of thing going on anywhere, unless Microsoft Research decides to finally release an actual product. They're stuck on their Pentium 4 - they just keep on pushing a technology that's well beyond any reasonable point of marginal returns.

I don't think the case will work:

[ILongForDarkness]

From http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/154340.asp

It's unclear if the revelations will advance the plaintiffs' central claim in the class-action lawsuit -- that Microsoft artificially increased demand by allowing PCs that could run only the most basic versions of the Windows Vista operating system to be called Vista Capable.

That is where it will all fall apart for them IMHO. I can't see how you can argue that it increased demand. People that were looking for the Vista Capable logo were at least considering getting Vista if not planning on getting it. If you weren't planning on getting Vista than the Vista Logo wasn't a deciding factor in your purchase decision, so again MS can't be blamed.

At best people could argue that they thought that they bought a premium version of Vista and didn't find out until they were trying to install it that they wouldn't get the Aero Interface, and other candy. But they still are able to run a version of Vista so it is still Vista Capable IMHO. Also, I'm not sure if it was the same everywhere, but at least were I'm from there was always a footnote saying that it would run Vista Home Basic on any advertisements that used the Vista Capable logo.

Re:I don't think the case will work:

[ceoyoyo]

If you've got $500 to spend on a computer and the ones at that price point say they're Vista capable, you're now going to consider getting Vista. On the other hand, if only $1000 computers say they're Vista capable, you're not going to be in the market for Vista. Thus, letting lower end computers be called Vista capable increases the demand for Vista.

Now, should a computer that can technically run Vista but without all the features be allowed to be called Vista capable? At best it's purposely misleading. MS should have had their stickers say Vista Home Capable or Vista Professional Capable.

Re:The 915 is Vista Capable?

[hansamurai]

Did he try 8.10? I was having wireless issues and then I upgraded to 8.10 and they all went away and it works perfectly now.

Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap

[tomhudson]

This is not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap.

If Ballmer *didn't* know that Vista was crap, then he is incompetent. If he *did*, then he's a crook. Pick one.

On second thought, pick both - incompetent crook is SO reminiscent of the "Old Microsoft".

Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."

Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap

[erroneus]

Somehow it seems to escape Microsoft that the public resistance to to Office 2007 and rejection of Vista are more than negative reactions to those products. It is a shift in general public view of Microsoft in general. In the tech/geek sector, we have been aware of Microsoft's problems and shortcomings for a long time -- even if you are a fan-boy in denial. But the public historically been oblivious to the whole mess... Windows and the blue "e" just means computer and internet. Not so any more... Now the public is awakening. Apple is picking up a lot more interest and Microsoft has an entire IMAGE to rebuild, not just a couple of products.

Re:Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap

[shutdown -p now]

Somehow it seems to escape Microsoft that the public resistance to to Office 2007

There is public resistance to Office 2007?

Have you seen its sales figures?

Note that, unlike the case with Vista, there's no downgrade license for Office 2007, so that explanation doesn't fly. And neither it is bundled with sold PCs.

Re:Windows 7ven?

[Rik Sweeney]

Actually, I think you'll find that it'll soon be known as Windows Se7en, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Re:the M$ Astroturfs are out in force.

[Anonymous Coward]

No actually, Twitter, it looks like you're talking to yourself again.

The irony of this situation

[hey!]

is that Microsoft has, in the past, successfully navigated this kind of situation before. In fact, they were the beneficiary.

Remember OS/2? Highly regarded for its technical quality, however it required a princely amount of RAM. Ideally you needed something like 8MB of RAM, back in the day when this added over $500 in current era dollars to the price of the system. Add this to the cost of the OS itself, and you didn't have high adoption.

Microsoft did a classic market segmentation move: they had Windows 3.1, which ran in 2MB of RAM, and NT 3.x, which ran in 8MB, and provided easy upgrade paths between the two products.

What seems really ... odd to me today is the way Microsoft is trying to segment and position its markets. All this Vista Home/Professional/Ultimate business. You may think Windows 3 was a POS, but it addressed a legitimate market segment: people who didn't wanted to do basic computing tasks without dropping the better part of a thousand dollars more for a more powerful system. There may have been all kinds of good reasons for them to go with a better system, but they had other uses for the money.

I look at a box of Windows Vista Super-Duper Ultimate, festooned with bullets, sitting next to Vista Business, Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Basic, and I'm supposed to sort myself into the appropriate market segment by studying the bullets festooning each package. What in the world were they thinking? Don't they study their own history?

Going by their own history, they should release Windows Basic and Windows Advanced. Windows Basic would be XP stripped down to nothing and capable of running in 512MB of RAM on any chipset manufactured in the last five years. Windows Advanced would be Vista with all the bells and whistles and need the latest and greatest chipsets.

I'd make Windows Basic really cheap, but make network login and sharing an add-on, so that corporations who wanted to use it would pay something between the cost of Windows Basic and Windows Advanced, and feel like they're getting a deal. Even the UAC business would have been less of fiasco here. People who wanted to take their chances could go with Windows Basic. IT Departments choosing Windows Advanced could piously tell their users that they were being protected from harm.

Microsoft failed with Vista because they wanted to drag the world onto a product it wasn't ready for, and tried to segment the market in totally meaningless ways.

Re:The irony of this situation

[hey!]

In fact I do know what I'm saying. Microsoft failed to segment the market properly. The built the technology and assumed people would do as they're told and buy it at different prices in different colored boxes. Instead, the people with the most clout balked, and demanded XP.

If you remember, a lot of companies used Windows 9x for a long time after they were "supposed" to go to NT. That was fine. Microsoft still had the bases covered. The Vista roll-out was more like they had tried to discontinue non-NT windows, rather than introducing Windows 95. The result would have been the same: people would have demanded Windows 3 be continued.

I don't see any evidence that home users care about the glitz, or that anybody really cares (in economic terms) about the gloss. There are some worthwhile architectural changes to Vista, it's just too much of an all things for all people project. A narrower focus would result in a more satisfactory niche product (as NT) that could colonize various niches (as NT 4 did), and morph into a widely acceptable corporate OS (as Windows 2000 and XP did) when hardware caught up and the kinks were ironed out.

Re:Is anyone really surprised by this????

[MightyMartian]

And, for those of us who remember the whole 'Winmodem' things from the early 90's know that Microsoft has always tried to get us to buy crippled hardware on the basis that if Windows says it supports it, then it must be good. Or at least, have vendors sell something specific to Windows and let the consumer deal with the fallout.

Actually, Winmodems and other controller-less hardware represented something much more sinister than that. They largely tied you to one platform; Windows. It took a significant amount of work and sometimes bending the "rules" to get a lot of this hardware to work under open source operating systems.

Re:Windows 7ven?

[Thrakamazog]

No thanks, I prefer that Finnish OS.

Aero capable

[hey]

They should have had an Aero capable sticker.

Re:Windows 7ven?

[vigour]

Windows Se7en It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!

I finally get around to renting Se7en, avoiding any spoilers, threatening my friends if they tell me any details and then I get pwned on /.

There's a moral in the lesson somewhere.

Ah well :P

Re:The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit

[online-shopper]

If I purchase a product because it will work with X. And it does not work with X, then I have been harmed. I am out the money paid for the product. If the vendor promised me the product would work with X, and knew the product would, in fact, fail horribly with X. That's usually called fraud. In any event, I am due a full refund of the purchase price, and potentially some recompense for the time lost and aggravation caused by the vendor being a dipshit. Generally speaking, if a product fails to perform as a vendor advertises, they will refund your money *and* offer you some form of apology, be it verbal, or in the form of monetary gain.(gift cards, 10% off next purchase and the like)

Re:Is anyone really surprised by this????

[Toll_Free]

Yeah, no shit.

Maybe the term WIN in the title of the product means it's meant to run on a WINdows platform.

Kind of like purchasing a Ford transmission and wondering why it doesn't just slide into your GM.

Bitching that a product DESIGNED for Windows didn't work on a non Windows system. Man, are you for real?

--Toll_Free

Re:How Is A Slow Vista System Good For MS?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Because the poor SOB is going to go out and buy a new computer, and that new computer will come with a Vista license as well. So MS gets 2 sales.

Then Windows 7 is released ahead of schedule, and people buy an upgrade, or a new computer ahead of schedule. Its Win-Win for M$.

Re:The 915 is Vista Capable?

[Shikaku]

The reason why Ubuntu 8.10 has better wireless capabilities is because in the newer Linux kernel, it has more wireless support. This is in the kernel itself now, not external drivers.

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

This page is helpful for searching for support.

Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals

[UnknowingFool]

I've worked for many companies and most of them use a mix of Windows and *nix. For the most part, Windows servers only exist because the company had Windows desktops and Microsoft software. For things like Outlook and Windows networks, they used a Windows server. For all other functions, webservers, databases, etc, they predominantly used *nix boxes. It's funny how the OP describes *nix admins as "un-evolved engineers". For the most part the *nix admins did 9 to 5 hours and only once in a while had to deal with a crisis. Patching was routine but scheduled and most crises involved hardware failures. The MS admins were always busy, working long hours. If there was a new Worm or Virus or Vulnerability of the month, they were running around crazy trying to test emergency patches before deploying. Patch Tuesdays were rough.

Re:WTF?

[BlackSnake112]

Since when does class action == anti-trust?

There is no anti-trust (not yet anyway and I have no crystal ball for the future and my magic 8 ball keeps on giving me a blank side) Open-GL != direct 3d or direct X. For some reason microsoft went with direct X (they made it that maybe why) instead of open-gl for the 3d parts of the desktop. If open-gl would work under vista which it doesn't that I have seen. I tried it with a open-gl screen saver. The fireworks one looks like stop animation on vista with a 256MB gaming (gforce 7800GTX) video card. With xp or linux it flies. Simple test but it shows how screwed up vista is with open-gl. from what I have seen, the 3d stuff on linux is open-gl. Which is fine, it works and looks good. The newer gaming titles do not use open-gl which is why a lot of gamers bitch that linux is not good for gaming. Can open-gl do all of the shading and 3d stuff that direct X can? I would hope so, I have not seen it to know.

The intel graphics in question (915 chip set) are not a high quality 3d gaming chip set. Intel wanted vista certification. I never saw that chip set being certificated for running 3d games. Running a web browser, spreadsheet app? sure. Running the latest 3d shooter? no.