Microsoft Feared Mac Vs. Vista In '05

CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer sifted through many threads of e-mails released under the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit to dig up this jewel...More than a year before Windows Vista's release — and long before Apple started poking fun at the OS — Microsoft officials were already worried about comparisons between Mac OS X and Vista. An e-mail thread from October 2005 showed that an article in the Wall Street Journal by Walt Mossberg grabbed the attention of managers at Microsoft. In a column headlined What PC to Buy If You Are Planning On a Vista Upgrade, Mossberg alarmed one Windows manager who forwarded a bit from the column.... 'You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows,' Mossberg had written. 'Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista.' Warrier added a comment of his own: 'A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column].'"

Comments

Re:What Microsoft should really have considered

[pcfixer]

This is simply not true. Vista is not faster than XP in almost any respect. Any computer with identical hardware will run Windows XP faster than Vista. Period. While service pack 1 has helped somewhat, Vista still lags behind XP. There have been many reviews to demonstrate this, most recently in Maximum PC. Dont delude yourselft into thinking that you are using Vista because it is faster. It isnt. www.lapcfixer.com

Re:OS X is no longer the only problem

[nawcom]

In 2005, Mac OS X was available and rating "better" as a desktop environment in many places, but in order to "upgrade" to OS X, it required purchase of all new hardware.

by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors and expanded support into the realm formerly controlled only by PC.

You really mean in 2001 Mac OS X was available and by 2005 Mac had adapted Intel processors - right? Your first 2 points confused the hell out of me.

Re:As desktop support...

[crmarvin42]

there should be an oversight committee to determine if a Mac is a necessary item

I'm sorry, that's just stupid. If a researcher feels they'll will be more productive using a mac with windows under emulation for the apps that need it who are you to judge?

I use a mac in a research setting at Purdue and run windows for a handful of Apps I rarely use. I probably fire windows up once every couple of months. I used to use it more frequently but apps like SAS, SPSS, and the windows version of Powerpoint are offered over the web via a CITRIX client so I don't need to waste disk space installing those apps locally anymore. However, if their had been the kind of unnecessary oversight you are suggesting I'd be SOL.

I get the impression from your post that you work for the researchers, but not as a researcher yourself. You are poorly equiped to decide which tools would best benefit the researcher unless you are the PI in question.

Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC...

[hggs]

Or you could try this little tidbit if you are truly a CLI Junkie...

Re:What Microsoft should really have considered

[Colonel Korn]

Wow, what's not compatible with Vista 64? What's wrong with 100% working video drivers that install and function for nVidia and ATI devices exactly the same as the 32 bit drivers? I also suggest you try comparing Vista and XP boxes after a month of use. XP slows down, Vista gets faster. After even a day of use, Vista will be faster at loading some applications (at least Firefox, Word, Trillian for me). Vista will typically have lower average framerates by 0-5% as long as you run a DX9 version of whatever you're playing in Vista. If you use DX10, in most cases you'll suffer by 10-50%. App productivity benchmarks like running PS filters will probably show a very small XP advantage. Differences are negligible on most cases, but it's true that a few albatrosses are still out there, unaddressed.

Re:What Microsoft should really have considered

[nabsltd]

The key here is the phrase 'on the same hardware'. As operating systems do more, they take more hardware to perform adequately.

If Vista were actually doing more for the user than XP, then people wouldn't be quite so upset.

But, most of what makes Vista slow are either bugs (file copy bug, poor algorithm used by SuperFetch that actually slows down real-world usage, etc.) or things the user doesn't want, like DRM or the extra pseudo-security features that don't really do anything, since there are still exploits from the Win2K days that work on an out-of-the-box Vista install.

Re:What Microsoft should really have considered

[sh00z]

The key here is the phrase 'on the same hardware'. As operating systems do more, they take more hardware to perform adequately. And it's not a Windows thing, it's a MacOS thing and a Linux thing.

Not necessarily. MacOS X, 10.2 was faster than 10.1, and 10.3 faster than 10.2, on the same hardware. It wasn't until 10.4 that you actually started seeing a performance hit on G3 and slower G4 computers.

Re:What Microsoft should really have considered

[squallbsr]

If I had mod points, I would mod you up! Just because the number isn't incrementing to astronomical levels with each release doesn't mean that considerable changes aren't being made.

On another note:
Windows 2000 - Version 5.0
Windows XP - Version 5.1
Windows 2003 - Version 5.2

Hmm, seems like somebody was barking up the wrong tree...