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."

Comments

SUSE laptops

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one thing - make it VISIBLE (*cough*Ubuntu*cough*)! If there isn't sufficient marketing push from %OEM%, no matter what you offer pre-installed it'll never gain sufficient foothold against Windows, not even enough to send a message to the MS execs.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If you're pissed at Microsoft, a letter won't do anything. You're still preinstalling Vista on every computer.

I totally agree. HP sells more Windows boxes than any other single vendor, and MS still fucked them they like they do all of their business partners. HP was neutered by Carly, they need to grow a pair back start getting self-sufficient again. They've clearly been fooled (at least) once now, will they let themselves be fooled twice?

Re:SUSE laptops

[zappepcs]

That won't just send a message to Microsoft, it would also send a message to the population in general. That message being: Microsoft is fucked, and we have your solution right here. No need to pay the MS tax, we have Linux pre-installed for just a few dollars more, you can sign up for our Linux class. It takes 4 hours for orientation, you get a free training CD, and 3 months support for $75.00

If they do any two or more of the things I've just hinted at, MS might have a really bad year. Redmond is blowing it. They have no back-out strategy from the strong-arm tactics they have been using on manufacturers and retailers. If those deals go sour Redmond will not be an easy place to get a job in IT.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Free the Cowards]

Bingo. The main problem with proclaiming that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is that it misses the fact that Windows isn't ready for the desktop either. The technically literate can use both, and the technically illiterate can't use either.

Re:SUSE laptops

[MasterOfMagic]

I nominate this post for the "Most Insightful Post Ever Made in an 'Is Linux Ready For the Desktop?' Topic" award.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

They've clearly been fooled (at least) once now, will they let themselves be fooled twice?

There's an old saying in Redmond - I know it's in Palo Alto, probably in Redmond - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - I can't get fooled again.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Areyoukiddingme]

The parent is referring to the people who haven't learned the system at all. A great many computer "users" are functionally illiterate. They've learned a rote sequence of clicks, and can get confused even when a window comes up in a different location, because they don't actually read the contents of the dialog box, or understand what it means even if they do read it. They just click where they learned to click by size and location. The slightest variation in the expected sequence totally throws them off. For such people, the OS truly is irrelevant. They aren't familiar with the OS. They're familiar with their 3 applications that they use. (Or 2. Or 1.) There are a LOT of such people in the world nowadays. Forced there, as you said, by their employer or educational institution.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That could just come right back to bite them on the ass, because it might just piss off Microsoft, and the thing is, Microsoft holds all the cards.

Only because companies like HP voluntarily hand their cards over to MS.

Somebody has to take the lead, and while they may suffer for it in the short term, the long term looks a whole lot brighter without being beholden to one company that holds are the cards.

Most Linux users are happy to install it themselves, and most people who want a pre-built computer complete with OS and software want one that works just like their old one,

You are definitely describing yesterday's market. Nowadays many, many users are happy with a fully functional web browser. Not a majority, yet, but a significant minority. Look at just how well the linux-based netbooks have been selling as just one example.

Re:SUSE laptops

[thepotoo]

I hate to be the one to bring reality into this little discussion, but for HP to dump Windows and start selling Linux (or any other OS) instead is really, really stupid.

I admit, I'd buy one. You'd probably buy one, too. But almost everyone else in the known universe wants Windows on their computer. Those that don't are buying Macs. This means that if HP wants to stay alive, they need to sell Vista.

I especially like this piece:

while they may suffer for it in the short term, the long term looks a whole lot brighter

I'd like to see the company that could actually look that far ahead. Investors demand short term profits, and especially in the computer world, a couple of bad years might be enough to kill HP altogether.

It's the unfair result of Microsoft's lock-in, but for the foreseeable future it seems to be pretty much an all or nothing Windows vs. Linux (OK, Dell has Windows vs. [hidden on the back page behind a sign reading "beware of the penguin"], but you get the idea).

Re:SUSE laptops

[mrbcs]

The average user is an idiot and should have never bought a computer. There, I said it. You know you were thinking it too.

Email from Steve

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Ring around the blame game...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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).

Re:Somebody help me understand this . . .

[lupis42]

It doesn't have the graphics power to run Aero. Intel instructed Microsoft to remove that as a requirement for the "Vista Capable" sticker. Microsoft agreed, despite previously telling ATI, Nvidia, and HP that they would not remove that requirement, even for Intel.

Popcorn anyone?

[Etrias]

Is anyone else enjoying this or is it just me? I mean, this is like some kind of geek bitch-slap fight.

Microsoft has no strategic partners

[genner]

only stepping stones on the path to more money.

MS Execs taking a beating

[frog_strat]

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.

i915 = No hardware scheduler = no WDDM

[phatvw]

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 :)

Re:Somebody help me understand this . . .

[fahrbot-bot]

And why did this suck for HP, exactly?

Because HP had already made an investment in a more expensive (capable) product line based on the promises of MS. Now HP would have to compete against vendors offering less-powerful systems that could be also advertised as "Vista Capable", even though not actually capable according to the original definition.

Re:What really fucking sucks

[phanboy_iv]

Vista is getting support instead of XP for the same reason XP got support instead of Windows 2000.

It's next in line. What did you expect?

Microsoft can and will make you move forward. Forward being a relative term when we're talking Microsoft.

And I'm perfectly aware of the reasons not to use Vista. Which is why I removed it from my computer.