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HP's Fury At Vista Capable Downgrade
More documents are coming out in court proceedings over the Vista Capable debacle. Internetnews.com has good coverage of HP's fury over Microsoft lowering the requirements for a Vista Capable sticker, at Intel's request. "Intel officials may have been pleased that Microsoft lowered standards for obtaining the company's Windows Vista Capable logo program sticker, but the same can't be said about HP's execs. 'I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the [device driver model] requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,' said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft executives]." PCPro.co.uk follows the trail of accusatory emails inside Microsoft from there: "HP's email prompted then Microsoft co-President, Jim Allchin, to send a furious email of his own to company CEO Steve Ballmer. Allchin's email suggests the decision to lower the requirements was made in his absence by Ballmer, following 'a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO].' 'I am beyond being upset here,' Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive, Will Poole, in a rather erratically typed reply to Allchin."
Second Post!
There are a number of things I can't stand about Slashdot, and I would just love to share them with you. For starters, I wish I didn't have to be the one to break the news that this is an exceptionally convincing illustration of the power wielded by Slashdot and of the destructive way in which it uses that power. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to pass by anything that may help me make my point. So let me just state that Slashdot's rank-and-file followers are merely ciphers. Slashdot is the one who decides whether or not to fuel inquisitions. Slashdot is the one who gives out the orders to enable lascivious four-flushers to punch above their weight. And Slashdot is the one trying to conceal how we are at war. Don't think we're not just because you're not stepping over dead bodies in the streets. We're at war with Slashdot's profligate slogans. We're at war with its ethically bankrupt threats. And we're at war with its homophobic canards. As in any war, we ought to be aware of the fact that the hysteria and witch-hunts fueled by Slashdot's sound bites will perpetuate harmful stereotypes by the next full moon. No joke.
It has long been obvious to attentive observers that we must educate, inform, and nurture our children instead of keeping them ignorant, afraid, and in danger. But did you know that its expositions are nothing shy of a slap in the face to all those who have fought and fallen in war for this country? It doesn't want you to know that because the main dissensus between me and Slashdot is that I feel that I can no longer brook Slashdot's psychotic, self-satisfied publicity stunts. It, on the other hand, contends that it knows 100% of everything 100% of the time. Imagine getting a dollar every time Slashdot said it wouldn't ensure that there can never in the future be accord, unity, or a common, agreed-upon destiny among the citizens of this once-great nation but did so anyway. You'd be very, very rich. Slashdot's ventures obfuscate any attempt to locate responsibility for the consequential decisions of those who have access to the means of power, as evidenced by the way that in a recent essay, Slashdot stated that it is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha. Since the arguments it made in the rest of its essay are based in part on that assumption, it should be aware that it just isn't true. Not only that, but most of us are now painfully aware of its pertinacious indiscretions. So what's the connection between that and its undertakings? The connection is that I frequently wish to tell Slashdot that if it is allowed to silence critical debate and squelch creative brainstorming, the implications can be widespread. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue.
Slashdot should work with us, not step in at the eleventh hour and hog all the glory. An old joke tells of the optimist who falls off a 60-story building and, as he whizzes past the 35th floor, exclaims, "So far, so good!" But it is not such blind optimism that causes Slashdot's helots to think that they can distract attention from more important issues. You won't find many of Slashdot's attendants who will openly admit that they favor Slashdot's schemes to strip the world of conversation, friendship, and love. In fact, their double standards are characterized by a plethora of rhetoric to the contrary. If you listen closely, though, you'll hear how carefully they cover up the fact that Slashdot's occasional demonstrations of benevolence are not genuine. Nor are its promises. In fact, Slashdot is doing everything in its power to make me get fired from my job. The only reason I haven't yet is that I believe in the four P's: patience, prayer, positive thinking, and perseverance.
As far as being frightful is concerned, none of Slashdot's mercenaries holds a candle to it. I could write pages on the subject, but the following should suffice. Slashdot should get with the program. But what, you may ask, does any of that have to do with the theme of this letter, viz., that you do not need to be selfish to know that I ac
Many users don't feel comfortable doing an OS install themselves. HP in the past used to sell laptops with SUSE preinstalled. If you're pissed at Microsoft, a letter won't do anything. You're still preinstalling Vista on every computer.
Offer a new line of openSUSE laptops with all the hardware configured and working out of the box (wireless, webcam, etc) and that will send a message to Microsoft.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Jim,
I most certainly did not... *picks up chair*
It was *throws chair* Will Poole who made the decision. Blame him.
Sorry I have to run. My anger management class starts in 5 minutes.
Steve
This sounds more like high school than execs and CEOs... Sounds like you guys lost credibility a long time ago.
Point your finger harder!
The advertisement directly under this story reads "HERE'S TO LESS DROPPED BALLS. with Microsoft Visual Studio" you can't make this stuff up.
haha! with delight! I will be reaching for the popcorn whilst I read what promises to be an amusing article and linked mails.
/. crowd.
This will haunt them.
I suspect they will get little sympathy from the
Wait...Microsoft had credibility with system-requirements to destroy?!?
And thrown a chair at Allchin.
At least he's emailing now.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,'
Then you should have stuck for what you believe and refused to sell underpowered vista machines.
Guess what, if you go to bed with Mike Tyson you will get raped, there's no point complaining afterwards.
how long until
What did Intel do to make it suitable?
Furries were involved. I knew it!
HP should stop moaning about its own (obviously unqualified) recommendations.
Sorry, Jim, that train left the station back in the 90's, if not earlier.
Do you have ESP?
Hard to argue with HP for being pissed off about this one. The PC market is cutthroat, so making an investment in higher priced integrated and/or discrete graphics chipsets, only to discover at the last moment that your competition has just been given the green light to undersell you with relaxed requirements has got to hurt.
MS was in a lousy position there, with no way to please everybody; but their handling of the situation was surprisingly inelegant. Lots of confusion and behind-one-another's-back talking to partners. I wonder if they messed up, or if they figure that HP et al. will just have to suck it up. One also wonders, at this point, if it wouldn't have been better for MS to just pay Intel to dump the 915s(either literally, or into low-end "emerging markets" products).
As has always been the case and the #1 reason Microsoft products suck in general, marketing makes the product technology decisions.
Is anyone else enjoying this or is it just me? I mean, this is like some kind of geek bitch-slap fight.
only stepping stones on the path to more money.
Does HP cite loss of sales because consumers are not purchasing computers? Or computers with Linux? Or Macs? Or what?
How does Windows Vista hurt HP's sales? HP, Dell, Lenovo, Compaq/Gateway, etc are all selling similar systems with similar specs and Windows Vista pre-installed.
Unless users are just not buying computers to dodge Vista, are switching to Linux or the Mac, I don't see how HP can cite that this is due to Vista.
How can this not be due to the recession that that is occurring in the United States?
What's even more ironic, is that if they hadn't come up with Vista-Capable, these notebooks would have been stuck on XP. Seeing how a large number of users specifically downgraded to XP on a Vista purchase, I can't see how selling these machines with XP only wouldn't have been (truly) a feature.
.. if Intel just had quit making the effing joking graphics cards they make.
If they had competent people making something which resembles more to a modern graphics card instead of the GMA turd that they have - they would not have to be in this mess. And sure as hell they could invest lots of money if they wanted to be in that position. There is NO excuse to make crappy graphics cards - as NVidia and ATI have shown they can make darn fast integrated GPUs that do not drain the battery and do not take more space than anything else.
Incompetence is the new root of all evil.
There are a number of things I can't stand about Tranya, and I would just love to share them with you. For starters, I wish I didn't have to be the one to break the news that this is an exceptionally convincing illustration of the power wielded by Tranya and of the destructive way in which it uses that power. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to pass by anything that may help me make my point. So let me just state that Tranya's rank-and-file followers are merely ciphers. Tranya is the one who decides whether or not to fuel inquisitions. Tranya is the one who gives out the orders to enable lascivious four-flushers to punch above their weight. And Tranya is the one trying to conceal how we are at war. Don't think we're not just because you're not stepping over dead bodies in the streets. We're at war with Tranya's profligate slogans. We're at war with its ethically bankrupt threats. And we're at war with its homophobic canards. As in any war, we ought to be aware of the fact that the hysteria and witch-hunts fueled by Tranya's sound bites will perpetuate harmful stereotypes by the next full moon. No joke. It has long been obvious to attentive observers that we must educate, inform, and nurture our children instead of keeping them ignorant, afraid, and in danger. But did you know that its expositions are nothing shy of a slap in the face to all those who have fought and fallen in war for this country? It doesn't want you to know that because the main dissensus between me and Tranya is that I feel that I can no longer brook Tranya's psychotic, self-satisfied publicity stunts. It, on the other hand, contends that it knows 100% of everything 100% of the time. Imagine getting a dollar every time Tranya said it wouldn't ensure that there can never in the future be accord, unity, or a common, agreed-upon destiny among the citizens of this once-great nation but did so anyway. You'd be very, very rich. Tranya's ventures obfuscate any attempt to locate responsibility for the consequential decisions of those who have access to the means of power, as evidenced by the way that in a recent essay, Tranya stated that it is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha. Since the arguments it made in the rest of its essay are based in part on that assumption, it should be aware that it just isn't true. Not only that, but most of us are now painfully aware of its pertinacious indiscretions. So what's the connection between that and its undertakings? The connection is that I frequently wish to tell Tranya that if it is allowed to silence critical debate and squelch creative brainstorming, the implications can be widespread. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue. Tranya should work with us, not step in at the eleventh hour and hog all the glory. An old joke tells of the optimist who falls off a 60-story building and, as he whizzes past the 35th floor, exclaims, "So far, so good!" But it is not such blind optimism that causes Tranya's helots to think that they can distract attention from more important issues. You won't find many of Tranya's attendants who will openly admit that they favor Tranya's schemes to strip the world of conversation, friendship, and love. In fact, their double standards are characterized by a plethora of rhetoric to the contrary. If you listen closely, though, you'll hear how carefully they cover up the fact that Tranya's occasional demonstrations of benevolence are not genuine. Nor are its promises. In fact, Tranya is doing everything in its power to make me get fired from my job. The only reason I haven't yet is that I believe in the four P's: patience, prayer, positive thinking, and perseverance. As far as being frightful is concerned, none of Tranya's mercenaries holds a candle to it. I could write pages on the subject, but the following should suffice. Tranya should get with the program. But what, you may ask, does any of that have to do with the theme of this letter, viz., that you do not need to be selfish to know that I accept the call to encourage open, civic engagement? It is bootl
So, let me see if I understand this...
HP is beyond angry that MS listened to other manufacturers' concerns, and made a change that prevented HP from being able to basically corner the early-adoption market, or at least a huge chunk of it.
The saying "sucks to be them" comes to mind. Especially since I'm pretty sure that HP needs MS more than MS needs HP. What choice does HP have besides going with MS - switching to exclusively Linux pre-loads? Write their own OS? Good luck.
While I can understand HP's position to a point, I can't escape thinking that maybe, just maybe, they should have been improving their product to the maximum extent possible anyway, regardless of what MS did or didn't say or promise. Unless there is a hard written contractural committment, HP is basically SOL.
I guess I just can't get too fired up watching a spat between companies using corporate politics and marketing departments to dictate engineering.
The person at the top is ultimately responsible.
Ballmer is the Ringo star of the software industry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Frist Post
Pray tell why the " [sic] " follows "credibility" in the article? ref: ".. Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' " Is it that you think its misspelled? (It isn't.)
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
Thankfully in FOSSs case. Decisions are engineer-driven all the way.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Their own managers got screwed by this. From Information Week:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100310
In another e-mail, Microsoft Windows product manager Mike Nash said even he was fooled by the campaign: "I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I personally" bought "with my own $$$." Nash said he purchased the Sony laptop "because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed."
"I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine," Nash complained.
Nothing new here. Another day. Another episode demonstrating that there are no ethics or leadership at the top of this company. Just a bunch of ignorant whores.
According to Intel, the i915 chipset does not have a native hardware scheduler and hence cannot fully support the WDDM design. I believe there were alpha versions of WDDM drivers for i915 but they only supported a subset of WDDM features and were scrapped early in the project.
:)
I reckon it is actually possible to have full WDDM on i915, but the performance would be absolutely horrible because the scheduling would have to be done in the driver - and we all know how zippy Intel drivers are
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When the vendors are starting to play the "Vista yay" games while everyone else is rolling back Vista to XP at first opportunity.
Example: NVidia fucked over the consumer by making their newest stereo3D drivers not just Vista-only, but also by removing LCD shutter support (meaning you're limited to color-distorting anaglyph red/blue glasses, or really crapass zalman monitors).
check it out.
Next time I upgrade, unless they fix this, NVidia will not even be considered.
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the 915 was a piece of junk and never should have been given the go-ahead to be vista capable
I fail to understand how a technical compatibility list (which is what the "Vista capable" logo is all about) can be modified by management.
Did Microsoft execs magically increased the processing power of all the Intel 915 chipsets on earth?
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Keep it up Microsoft. You and Apple are showing more and more the tight grips you squeeze on the consumers you serve. Betraying even your own honor system to sell more. Every giant public outrageous greed-driven corporate-minded move you make drives more and more users away from the licenses and ideals that give you the power to do so.
That means more and more users will use Ubuntu. Which means lots of them will move on to Fedora and the like. Which means some of them will continue on and eventually a few will actually end up being real linux and unix users and developers.
So thanks for the help and enjoy your success! Just remember what happens when the grip gets too tight and too monopolistic - we break your fingers.
as evidenced by the way that in a recent essay, Slashdot stated that it is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha
How can you read that and /not/ chuckle?
Not to mention the message it will send to HP's retailers and resellers ;)
Apparently one problem Asus faced with their original Linux-only Eee was that a lot of them got returned as "broken" by some dolts who tried to install MS Office and the likes on them, and concluded that the laptop is broken if they can't. The Windows XP line offered at least a way to say "well, ok, but we can offer this one instead."
Additionally, _SUSE_? I'm writing this on a SUSE machine, and while it's great for work, Novell stripped it of all useful codecs. You can't even play an MP3 or a DVD on it, without downloading and/or compiling your own libraries and media players. Kaffeine as shipped with SUSE, will just give you an error message that it can't due to IP issues, when you try to play a DVD with it.
So, yeah, imagine the joy of Joe Sixpack when he buys a SUSE-only HP computer and it doesn't play his MP3s, it doesn't play that rented DVD, it doesn't really play anything. Great home theatre platform, eh? A lot of those will really be Joe Sixpack types who don't even have a flipping clue what SourceForge or Freshmeat are. They'll see just that their new computer doesn't play DVDs or music. While the Joneses down the street have no problem playing theirs on their Dell computer, and the yuppie down the street with his Apple computer and iPod even less so.
Can you say "return"? I knew you could.
So, um, yeah, if you want to convince your retailers and resellers that your computers get disportionately more returns, by all means, start a SUSE-only line. That'll send them a message :P
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
FTFA:
I'm sure those poor betrayed Microsoft execs were wondering "what did we do to deserve this?"
I read it as:
said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft expletives]
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Where is the link for the second quote of the story?
In retrospect, we can ponder what would have happened if MS had stuck with the WDDM requirement. In order to appease Intel and sell more copies of Vista, MS lowered the requirement. According to internal emails this WDDM requirement would mean Intel's exposure of hundreds of millions of dollars (200-400 according to various sources) that they could not sell. This estimation was based on the assumption that consumers would not buy computers with the Intel 915 chipset because they could not upgrade. However, the launch of Vista was less than ideal and this requirement change helped to mar Vista's image. Ironically, those customers that bought computers that were not really Vista Capable probably don't really want Vista anyways because of the problems. In the long run, this decision (with the resulting lawsuit) may have cost Intel and MS more than the original exposure. I guess this is all hindsight but most consumers don't care. They just want their OS to work. Vista/XP/2000/98 whatever it is called.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Whatever judgment goes against M$ they simply tack the cost of it onto the next version of Windoze and their customers wind up paying for it. I don't really see how this would trouble M$ beyond the bad PR, and even that would be lost in all the other bad PR they are getting - over Windoze 7, for instance Link
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
"I had nothing to do with this Will handled everything I received a message that paul was going to call Will said he would handle it Paul called I had not even had a chance to report his issues when Will told me he had solved them (it did not sound like he had) I am not even in the detail of the issues. You better get will under control thanks."
Anybody want to bet that was typed on a Blackberry or equivalent?
Dell pays to license codecs and such and includes them in their Ubuntu install. I'm sure HP would do the same.
For a traditional openSUSE install you are literally a one-click installer away from having all the codecs and packages you need for every major "restricted" format.
And while a retailer dealing with an Asus netbook can't provide technical support, when it comes to a big name like HP, they can provide technical support for their products.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
See Dick.
See Dick run.
See Dick run Linux.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Windows, good for first post trolls but not much else.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Mind you, I tried to play a DVD on a Windows machine, and guess what? It didn't have the right codecs either. And it led me to a Microsoft site with list of places where I could BUY one. I think it's easier to play a DVD on a Linux machine, actually.
You solve that by a pre-configured browser popup on first boot going to the distributor's codec repository, where the user sees a big banner that says, if you want to play MP3s and videos, *click here*. Seems like an easy solution to me.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
I don't care about Microsoft passing the buck internally, and I doubt HP does either. What's important is that it's HP's buck that MS is passing.
Intel and Microsoft both got more cash by selling out companies trying to sell computers that were actually Vista-ready in favor of more and cheaper units from other vendors whose boxes weren't.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hard to argue with HP for being pissed off about this one. The PC market is cutthroat, so making an investment in higher priced integrated and/or discrete graphics chipsets, only to discover at the last moment that your competition has just been given the green light to undersell you with relaxed requirements has got to hurt.
Is that what HP is claiming? That it was forced to add higher-end components to be able to ship Vista machines, only to be undercut by competitors later?
If that's the case, then why on Earth did the HP 2133 Mini-Note, HP's (rather pricey) entry into the "netbook" market, ship with Vista? It's not like they went all-out to add high-end components to it. To my knowledge, it is the only netbook that does ship with Vista, and Vista is its biggest Achilles heel. You cannot activate Aero Glass on it, so forget about that. You probably don't want to activate most of the gee-whiz Vista desktop features, because the Via processor is really poky. Its Windows Experience index is 1.7, fer chrissakes, and that's because of the processor rating. Why, HP? Why??
Breakfast served all day!
Anything. Anything at all; emanating out of the orator Ballmer, is total rhetoric and has absolutely no basis in fact, fantasy or reality. He is a total illusion to the stakeholders of Micro$oft, and all that it stands for. He has in a phrase; gone completely over the other end.
Anything you hear from him is complete fiction. Not to put any credence to.
Having personally tried this myself in several areas, I concur with the likes of many test sites that have stated Vista is a joke. It is solely designed for NEW HARDWARE ONLY, and nothing else. That new hardware better damn well be very fast, with lots of memory, cache, and multiprocessor. The performance index of 1.0 sucks rocks. Even XP loaded with junk in the browser and temp cache runs faster than this beast.
Now show me Windows 7. Lets see what that is supposed to be.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
viri - Latin, meaning "man".
viruses - plural form of "virus".
>While I can understand HP's position to a point, I can't escape thinking that maybe,
>just maybe, they should have been improving their product to the maximum extent possible anyway, regardless of what MS did or didn't say or promise.
No, you are missing the point entirely, as has already been stated.
HP doesn't go out and just build the most awesome computers they can. They build a whole array of systems, from low-end to high-end, so that customers with different amounts of money to spend have a product to choose from.
The problem here is that Microsoft set the low-end benchmark requirement at a certain level, which HP built to, and then Microsoft lowered the requirement for the benefit of Intel. Now Intel can undercut HPs low-end systems with its cheaper, even less powerful systems.
HP has every right to be extremely pissed off.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Yours was grammatical and properly punctuated.
The email in Exhibit F looks like it was written by a 2nd grader... who is failing English. Ballmer is a pathetic spectacle. If that is his standard of communication, Mircosfot is truly doomed.
Well, they're doomed anyway! Hooray!
you had me at #!
That Ballmer is close to illiterate. Unsurprising, though.
you had me at #!
No incentive to innovate, act ethically, or even to be civilised.
Therefore - they don't bother.
Why does anyone find this surprising? But it's all going to come grinding to a tremendously deserved final collapse. Pass the popcorn!
you had me at #!
Does that seem like a lot to anyone else?
And its selling pretty cheap right now too....
This according to google-finance. Its just curious, I am no expert.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/insider/trans.asp?Symbol=MSFT
Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic]
This part made me laugh.
I've noticed there are an awful lot of Steves in the industry. Ballmer, Wozniak and Jobs, plus a handful of others that I probably don't know about. I think Jobs and Wozniak (and others) should hold a vote to make Ballmer change his first name to something else. I'm sure he embarrasses them.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
I think Microsoft did HP a favor. Have you tried Mojavie? Intel is biting off the wrong bark... once the low-end laptop users get a load of the UAC they will never buy a Microsoft product again. I mean this is actually a much sadder day for Microsoft and Intel as a couple than HP. HP will survive.
Your example is even worse than you suspect, Vista, by default, uses some screwy M$ format instead of ISO and you will be able to read the disc that was burned ONLY on another Vista machine, unless they are led thru the extra steps to get a a properly portable disc.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
you mean the snake bit the entity that carried it across the river?
nothing to learn from this, move along
openSuse will solve all. end of story.
I had no problems getting openSuSE to play DVDs, mp3s, etc ... no compiling needed, just needed to enable some repos.
I agree though, Ubuntu makes it so much easier - the first time you atempt to play one it asks you to download the proper codec.
This kind of thing is precisely why a third party should decide on hardware requirements for an operating system. Otherwise, marketing is sure to get in the way of the facts. If only Microsoft had realized this sooner... not only would they have avoided ticking off a business partner, but they may have been more inclined to improve some of Vista's benchmarks so that more machines were "actually" capable of running Vista. But now, they are left with a failed OS and a few less friends. Better luck with Windows 7. HP shouldn't be complaining too much though... they sold plenty of machines as "Vista capable" that had no business running Vista. Selling a machine with half a GB of RAM, and running Vista? There's no excuse for that.
Year after year, I maintain the feeling that Windows is teetering on the brink. The immense army of Microsoft's R&D organisation is employed to add "differentiators", i.e. more features, rather than less, so you'll always have planned obsolesence. This is inconsistent with getting the price per unit down to where it's competitive in the TCO equation they're selling to. At the Enterprise back office, it's still perceived by most of our customers that a Windows server solution is easier to plug together in a scalable way with the fewest possible high-end engineers. Because of this perception (aided by a very good single-source support portal in MSDN with a lot of expensive polish) many of our Enterprise customers see a Windows desktop -- at whatever level of evolution -- is the client of least resistance. This amounts to a lot of technology knitted together with a glue consisting of 1 part content, 1 part support, and 1 part marketing polish.
As far as overall quality and ease, well, you and I know different.
To make Linux prevail across the Enterprise will require a differentiator, something that can compensate for the immense marketing engine that is MSFT. This will have to be not just a convincing alternative, but a convincing argument that is driven home.
A couple of holdouts keep MSFT on the cliff instead of off it. A diminishing yet prevalent feeling of product consistency across the board (reinforced by their consistent portal graphics, I kid you not), the immense momentum of the installed product base and the fact that the users' home devices can run World of Warcraft on that platform and no other.
The cost equation is at present very much in favour of a Linux desktop + **Nix back end. Unless we somehow counter that marketing engine, however, we'll never be able to give the beast that last push over the cliff. And we'll need to do it in some other way than they do -- remember, it took a year-after-year consistency for Volkswagen to break the tailfin aristocracy of the 1950's car makers. Of course by that time planned obsolescence had reached absurd levels and people were ready for the change.
Maybe that's our marketing message -- "Do you really need the tailfins? Or would a simple, economical desktop do the job?"
If any marketing types out there have the links, it would be great to see some of the old VW beetle adverts. Inspirational simplicity.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Richard Walker(HP): Microsoft ate the Cheapie Cookie from the Cheapie Cookie Jar!
Jim Allchin (MS) Who, Me?
Richard Walker(HP) Yes, You!
Jim Allchin(MS) Couldn't Be.
Richard Walker (HP) Then Who?
(Internal MS)
Jim Allchin: Ballmer! Ballmer ate the Cheapie Cookie from the Cheapie Cookie Jar!
Steve Ballmer: Who, Me?
Jim Allchin: Yes, You!
Steve Ballmer: Couldn't Be.
Jim Allchin: Then Who?
Steve Ballmer: Poole! Poole ate the Cheapie Cookie from the Cheapie Cookie Jar!
Will Poole: Who, Me?
Steve Ballmer: Yes, You!
Will Poole: Couldn't Be.
Steve Ballmer: Then Who?
(Fade out, Name mentioned by Will Poole not audible)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Most of the laptops used by the sales team at my company are HP 6710 series, purchased between late 2006 and mid 2007. They all have the Vista sticker on them. Some of them have Intel 915 video, and some have.. some other Intel chip, I forget which, but they all run Aero okay on Vista Business. (They also came with one gig of memory which just isn't enough, but that's neither here nor there.) So, I'm confused -- what, exactly, is the problem here?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
it is at their individual discretion to decide whether or not they want to continue to support any given OS at any time of their choosing ultimately making their old hardware unusable at a moment's notice. {...} "But they would never do that!" you say? Yeah they would at the very moment they believe it would be to their advantage to do so.
And usually, said moment is when they can use this as an argument to make you purchase more hardware (sorry the old one isn't supported anymore).
Every major release of an OS (like the coming of Windows Vista) is an excellent pretext to drop support for older hardware and ask you to buy newer
Even if sometimes the "new" hardware is more of the same, simply rebadged as "new", painted a different colour, with hardware ID string slightly changed and packaged with compatible drivers (this can very easily happen with webcams as there only so few popular chips out-there).
For a different example of proprietary driver-makers abusing their position, see graphic cards manufacturers who voluntarily drop support of older models in their latest drivers, simply to push users on the upgrade treadmill, even if the old models are largely still good enough for simple desktop (and even some linux compiz & some unambitious Windows gaming).
At least AMD put some effort into collaboration with opensource projects and you're not completely left alone with your older GPU.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
[...]MS's anticompetitive^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H incentive[...]
Are you aware that you can erase an entire word with ^W instead?
Who cares, I am all for those sorts of investors and companies to go bellyup, with no bailout. Look at GM now, hat in hand begging for a loan because collectively, management, labor and investors are all loons in that company.. Screw em, let em sink. I wish they had done it for those casino skimming banks as well, let em sink and sue each other over those ridiculous paper financial pseudo products that are mostly worth nothing, they are frauds. Ya, the overall economy would tank for a year, because globally we need it, we need to cut the rot and stupidity and greed out, and a lot of investors will lose their shirts, tough noogies, that's the point of assessing risk and paying attention to what your corporate hired stooges and elected hired stooges are doing, and any investor who is only worried about one quarter profit-who cares? We don't need to keep rewarding overt stupidity, greed and laziness. If some retarded computer company wants to go down while microsoft pisses on them, who cares? Demand will still be there for computers, and some smaller and smarter and faster moving companies will take their place, and be smart enough to offer some real choice beyond the borg of mediocrity and stupid and forced totally unnecessary so called "upgrades".
If some idiot company goes under because they can't function without the latest MS office "product"..let em sink! If some over priced office typists can't deal with OMG a very slightly different program, let em go broke, look for another job, stop with wasting time on movies and sports and reality Tv shows and videogames and actually try to learn something just a little bit different. Or fail, two choices now.
The economy is morphing rapidly now, the stupid and lazy and the ones who are panicking over one quarter ahead, and who have never really dealt pass that sort of time frame are going down, fullstop. Soup kitchen, bankruptcy, no more cushy job. Trying to do things the old way just isn't going to work for most companies out there anymore, because stuff is just changing too fast right now.
Evolve, adapt to changing times and realities, or go extinct chose one. MS was last century's behemoth, but not in this century, and anyone who can't see that coming is living on the banks of the river de-nile. Microsoft=General Motors, allegedly "too big to fail" Boolsheet, seen any 100 foot long dinosaurs around lately? MS is going down. They are still huge, giant.but reality is, they are going down eventually and most likely fast once they start to tumble. Alternatives are in too many products now, more and more people are becoming aware of the alternatives, and they are plenty good enough to function for 99% of the computer using public out there right now, let alone within another few years. MS took seven years to come out with something that looks to be around 6 months worth of work in the alternative OS side, a normal half a year upgrade release. They just can't cut it anymore. And tons of people think it sucks so bad they refuse to budge from the seven year old model. That's more than a single clue. If HP or Dell won't adapt, guaranteed some upstart Chinese or Taiwanese or Indian company will, heck maybe even some new US company. There's a lot of investor cash out there now looking for someplace that isn't *stupid* to invest in, and it is now cheap as Vc capital goes to do a computer assembly startup operation, even at huge scales. This isn't 1995, this is 2008, a whole lot of things have changed since MS became dominant and then decided to just milk things out.
And we've hit a plateau on just so many ways an office document can be arranged on a page, or needs to have what was a supercomputer a few years ago in order to type that thing up. Not needed, forced software upgrades that cost serious money are starting to look pretty stupid to more and more people, just to do exactly what they were doing the day previously. And paying more for that software than the hardware, for office memos?? heh..road to eventual bankruptcy, becaus
Microsoft sold out and now is paying the heavy price. Windows 7 will expose Vista as a load of crap.
Install VLC.
It is free, I have yet to have it not play an MP3 or DVD. It plays most (if not all) video files. There may be some new video files that I have not played, but all the .avi, .mpg, .mov, .wmv play fine that I have tried. It works under linux, xp, vista, and OSX I believe too.
Now watch Apple, and microsoft change their video files to not work in VLC.
" Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive"
When I first read the summary, I read that as "Ballmer blamed another Microsoft intern". And my reaction was, "Well, that explains so much about Vista!"
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
So I would say that as long as the OS can run the applications the users are used to, those users could care less what the OS is.
This is exactly right! An application should not know or care what OS it is running on. A user shouldn't care either. An OS should be an interchangeable commodity software. Applications don't care what network card, or mouse, or keyboard, or hard drive, or printer you have. Neither should they care which filesystem, or desktop, or kernel version they're running on.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
does that mean they will now sell me a low end laptop without Windows? (Preferably with FreeDos and diagnostics, but Ubuntu would be Ok, since that is popular.)
Laughs all the way to the bank.
This is the same HP that tried to charge me $65 for a recovery CD to re-install Windows XP after a hard drive in my clients HP computer died. A recovery CD that did not come with the computer originally.
I've no sympathy at all.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Seriously. If HP is going to play the abused housewife to Microsoft's wife beater and they don't come up with an intervention, screw 'em.
Actually the story is about a scorpion not a snake, but the moral rings true, understand the nature of those with whom you make bargains.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Collusion to stop the colluding! Makes perfect sense to me!
Obama needs to get involved. On his first day in office, he should issue an executive order that defines exactly what is and what isn't Vista capable. Since everyone likes Obama and agrees with him, his involvement will end this debacle once and for all to everyone's satisfaction.
...I'm desperately yearning to see the Year Of Regular People Getting A Fucking Clue About Computers Already.
Apparently one problem Asus faced with their original Linux-only Eee was that a lot of them got returned as "broken" by some dolts who tried to install MS Office and the likes on them, and concluded that the laptop is broken if they can't.
Citation? The last thing I read on this said that return rates were similar - it was MSI that got higher return rates for Linux.
I don't see Vista used much of anywhere except in the Office Depot computer showroom.
I just got finished installing Ubuntu 8.10 to a customer's laptop (Dell Latitude D600) today. .ISO image of the drive, then put it back in his system.
Took the HD out, slipped it into an external case, plugged it into my laptop (Compaq), made a dd
Popped in the Ubuntu dvd, & told him to hit the power switch.
"If you feel you need any help, I'll be sitting right here."
The ONLY question he had was about the partition manager, and that was "If we've already backed up all my stuff, then I can just let it have the whole drive, right?"
After that, he was able to answer all the questions himself, & effectively set up his own system withOUT my help.
Once it had ejected the DVD & rebooted to the HD, he spent a few moments looking at his desktop.
Without asking, he clicked "Applications", browsed what had already been installed, noticed the "Add/Remove Programs" option, & was browsing the Synaptic repositories shortly there-after.
He figured out that clicking the little box beside the program's name meant "I'd like this", and "Apply" meant, well, to do what he'd asked.
The system grabbed the files he'd checked, and finished without a hitch.
He sat there looking at me funny & asked "Doesn't it need to, like, reboot, or something?"
"Nope. You can close out that screen, and your program will be listed in the appropriate section of the Application menu."
He closes Synaptic, checks the App menu, and is suitably impressed that, sure-enough, his programs are right there.
[Him] "Wait a minute... Don't I have to PAY for those?"
[Me] Nope, they're free. Unless you take them from the "Non Free" sections, which are clearly marked and require you to activate them before you can use them, you don't HAVE to pay for any of it. If you WANT to give them money in thanks, and it's highly recommended you do, there are usually links to the program author's website in the Help section of the program's menu bar.
[Him] What kinds of things are in the 'Non Free' sections?
[Me] Let's authorize them & I'll show you. Mostly it's things like the Adobe Flash & PDF programs, & the bits needed to play DVD's, but it's rare that a Linux program REQUIRES you to pay for it first. It's nice to give them a few bucks, though, because these are normal people, writing programs as a hobby, that people like us find useful. Like that tax software? Enjoy that game? Think that paint program is the bee's knees? Then send the Author a letter & a cheque thanking them for their efforts. You'll probably get a letter back thanking YOU for helping keep them going doing what they love.
[Him] So, what about Office docs? Can I do them?
I showed him OOo, imported a MS Doc off a USB key (my resume), & double-clicked it in the file manager.
It opened in OOo, scanned it for spelling errors, & then gave him a cursor.
He sat there smiling & said "That's good enough for me."
He found Firefox, Thunderbird, and Pidgin all on his own, and the only questions he had were how to import his email & bookmarks from his old system.
Since I had copied them to my USB key, it was a snap to move them back to the HD & show him the Import functions.
His HP PSC1315 (Printer/Scanner/Copier) worked out of the box.
Totem downloaded the needed codecs & then played the DVD he'd popped in.
And except for the video "maxing out" at 1024x768 (which he was fine with, but I would've fixed had it been my system) on the generic drivers, his system was ready-to-go without me having to DO much of anything.
Yes I realize many people have issues with hardware on the multitude of systems out there, but if it installs properly (which is a problem with ANY operating system), Linux not only CAN outshine Windows on the same hardware, it makes Windows look like a diseased pile of feces compared to a 100 carat diamond.
Oh, and the customer?
He turns 87 tomorrow & is a self described "computer idjit".
So if an "idjit" can install Ubuntu,
But if you install any hardware or software for an Apple, then the installation program will walk you through the process or just a window will pop up with "Drag application icon to applications folder icon".
In the most optimistic, user friendly case for Linux, you would have to do some dpkg --install your-app-v456-67.8736c.deb and then get 50 error messages because "libgrablewops4" not installed. An average user cannot deal with this.
You see, people don't want to think about the inner workings of an operating system or a computer not because they are stupid, but because they don't care. For ost people a computer is a tool which is used to achieve a function and not a cause in itself.
What you are advocating is not to bring ever products to a market once it is inhabited by a big player.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hardware manufacturers can put a different OS on their wares and go to the market with that.
If MS alienates hardware houses as big as HP, do you honestly think they will be winners?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
My relatives running Ubuntu know it will not run neither Windows or OSX software.
I make clear that unless the software is not specifically labelled as running on Linux it will not run on their computers.
I mention my relatives, because they are clueless when it comes to computing, nevertheless they can understand the issue at hand, my clients require no explanation about this because they are computer literate.
If you are having irate clients it is not Linux's fault, it is yours for not providing correct pre-sales advice.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are people out there making money selling Linux machines to people that are not necessarily computer literate.
People doing this *cough, cough* understand the market and that users need more hand holding, people are not as stupid as you want them to be, if you explain things for a couple of minutes they will understand that the sticker in front of the computer means pretty much nothing when it comes to the inner workings of the machine.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The third party is called Intel.
The problem is that these companies now live in a symbiotic situation in which one can't live without the other.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Shock! Horror!
News at 11, sorry at 10, we are in the UK.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Shoudn'd be an operating system a piece of software aimed to take full advantage of a hardware and give easy control to the user ? Why we have here hardware companies building chipsets in a way to satisfy an operating system ? Garisan
Finally ....one big greedy company burning another. Where's my popcorn!
They don't pull this sort of crap to please someone.
Once Apple (Steve?) decides on the experience they want to provide, they stick to it.
Didn't Steve ask the RIAA companies to suck it up when they wanted to up ITune prices as well?
He wanted a sub dollar track price as part of the experience, he stuck to it.
He wanted OSX to run well on whatever they ship it with - they gave it decent hardware.
They want the IPhone to be locked no matter the unhappiness around geek circles - cos of the experience they wanted to provide to the average end user.
They stick to what they believe in - no what the "long term partner" wants.
They though PPC chips are not enough for what they wanted to show the customers, and jumped to intel.
If they think intel is not providing what they want, am sure they will jump again.