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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].'"
...dumbs down society as a whole even more.
What Microsoft should really have considered was why, even before they released it, customers were ready to say NO to Vista.
It's been a huge albatross around their neck. It's Windows ME 2.0, has gotten the same response (and even MS eventually had to list Windows ME as "Do Not Use") and yet the consumer is getting fucked by MS's trying to kill off XP and force them to install the Vista Virus instead.
The "Aero" interface is a standing joke; the supposed "security" of Vista is laughable compared to simply keeping XP properly updated and behind a NAT at home; and the performance hit it takes to run is incredible. Vista is half as fast as XP on the same hardware, that's reason enough not to use it even before all the other crap and nonsense.
When you release an OS as fatally flawed as Vista, especially when you have proven track record of foisting poorly written junk on your customers and making them beta-test it for free, you should be afraid when a viable alternative surfaces.
Uh... this is news? Any good businessman always watches the competition and tries to estimate how many customers might switchover. That's not "fear". That's just good old commonsense.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Who can blame them?! No one wants their product to be compared to a Mac!
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
Which is just plain wrong. Consumers don't upgrade operating systems. They use the one that came with the box until they need a new box. Techno-nerds and enterprises upgrade operating syatems. In the case of Vista, enterprises have stayed away in droves.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm sure many will remember the comparisons of the screen shots and betas for Vista vs. OS X. It was remarkable how much Vista looked like OS X. In both feature (bloat) and GUI. Microsoft is as much, if not more, to blame for the feature comparison. Redmond continued to flaunt using Cupertino as their proxy R&D. When Microsoft finally shipped the goods, the comparisons it seems, were only skin deep.
Seriously?!?!
WTF!
Dude has his head so far up Jobs' ass that he can only see when Jobs smiles.
And even the people who read the WSJ think he's a fucktard.
With a BSD backend, a controlled hardware architecture and the ability to run tools from all platforms via MacPorts or VMWare or Wine, Mac has shown it is not only a better user experience in th long run but a far lower maintenance computer. There are fewer problems due to the maintained hardware architecture by Apple and no viruses to speak of due to sandboxing and BSD's UNIX background.
It does hav bugs like any OS which luckily they are fairly quick to address, and they have a much faster turn around for new versions of the OS (one every year versus every 3-5 years for Windows).
Would I prefer it to be more open like Linux? Oh hell yes especially now that they are adopting HDCP and other DRM related technologies. I suspect however that the Vista fiasco and Netbooks have caused enough people to consider a switch to Linux and with Apple embracing OpenGL for game development on iPhone and iTouch, it will only be a matter of time before it is on equal footing as a game platform and openGL is equally considered thus giving Linux a footup as well; afterall, Blizzard already has admitted to having a Linux Warcraft client internally that they haven't released.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Microsoft has a lot to worry about. When it has come to the big technology shifts, DOS and later Windows have always been trailing-edge technology.
I'm getting really annoyed at the Mac commercials that constantly slam PC's.
I'm the kind of person who hates it when politicians run smear campaigns and TV ads slandering the opposition, and for Apple to be doing this for their TV ads seems unprofessional and childish.
If you want to highlight your product, great! Do so, and let the product speak for itself. People who are so fed up with Microsoft will see a commercial highlighting the Mac's features, and they will generally go research it. I have been put off by the commercials, and any interest I genuinely had in getting a Mac was completely destroyed.
This is old news and obvious FUD. Mac OS X has its place for graphic design people among others. Nothing wrong with that. Vista's failure is not the operating system itself but more with the system requirements and issues that should have been corrected before release. To compare Vista of then to Vista now is completely different. Vista 64 bit is very stable and with 4 gigs of ram runs very well. The old saying still applies as it does in the Mac world. If your system is more than 1 or 2 years old consider purchasing a new system or build a new one yourself and do the research. I did research before building my system and I have nothing but praise for the operating system. It took some time to get used to the new features but given a real use trial I wouldn't go back to XP. And for the flames that will inevitably follow this post. I also use and recommend Ubuntu Linux as well. Ubuntu has been by far the best experience using a computer outside of the M$ realm that I have had thus far and I have tried many Linux flavors. I just felt the need to set the record straight that not everyone who reads comments and stories on /. are M$ haters or someone who had a bad experience with Vista and now tells anyone who uses it they are stupid (idiots).
So working at a University, I'd like to say that we have a lot of people throwing a lot of money at Mac hardware, only to turn around and install Bootcamp or Parallels so they can run the science software needed to do their work and research. And they use federal grants to do this. I'm thinking there should be an oversight committee to determine if a Mac is a necessary item (it almost never is) or if Linux or Windows will do the job more efficiently (they usually do).
$12,000 dual quad core Mac that we had to spend two months rewriting code to compile that worked fine on an old Linux cluster. The professor could have gotten a lot more parallel processing power if he'd gone with a newer cluster rather than a single, decked out Mac.
As long as that is confined to surfing the web and reading your email. Windows still has the natural monopoly on desktop apps.
I hope slashdot contines their fine editorial stance until Linux wins the desktop.
It's called SEO--search engine optimization--and it's pretty much all anyone working with Web sites ever talks about nowadays. You may think it consists of ways to trick the search engines, Google in particular, into giving you higher than usual page rankings. But in fact, it centers around the idea that Google sucks so much that companies think they need to use SEO to get the results they deserve.
By reverse-engineering the way Google operates, SEO experts can see how the process works. From a user's perspective, once you learn how Google does what it does, it's a miracle that you ever get the right results. And from my experience, the right results in many circumstances are nearly impossible to obtain--and may never be obtainable in the future.
Let's look at some of the problems that have developed over the years.
Inability to identify a home site. All the search engines have this habit, but often it is laughable. You'd think that if I were looking for Art Jenkins, and Art Jenkins had a Web site named Artjenkins.com, search engines would list that first, right? Most often this page is never listed anywhere.
Too much commerce, not enough information. There seems to be an underlying belief, especially at Google, that the only reason you go online is to buy something. People merely looking for information are a nuisance. This is made apparent anytime you look for information about a popular product. All you find are sites trying to sell you the product. Hey, here's a challenge: Ask Google to find you a site that honestly compares cell-phone plans and tells you which is best. Try it! All you get are thousands of sites with fake comparisons promoting something they are selling.
What's particularly bad about this is that the few honest sites trying to present information without SEO and all the trickery needed to get attention are put out of business; nobody ever finds those sites. The site you are pointed to should be the best site, not a mediocre popular site. This is the biggest flaw with page ranking.
Parked sites. Have you ever gone to look for something and found what seems like the perfect site near the top of the Google results? You click on it only to find one of those fake "parked" sites, where people park domain names, pack them with links to other sites, and hope for random clicks that pay them 10 cents each. How does page ranking, if it works, ever manage to give these bogus sites a high number?
Unrepeatable search results. Ever run a search a week later and get completely different results? In the end, you have to use the search history and hope you can find it. Can things change so drastically day-to-day that the search results vary to an extreme month-to-month? This is compounded by the weird results you get when you are logged in to Google. These are somehow customized for you? In what way?
Google sign-in changes a query's results to an extreme with no discernible benefit. Often two people are on a call trying to discuss something and both will try finding something online. The conversation often goes like this: "Here it is, I found it. Type in the search term 'ABCD Fix' and it's the fourth result listed." "I don't see it. The fourth one down is a pill company." "You typed in ABCD Fix, right?" "Yeah." This goes on for a while until you realize that one of the two people is logged into Google.
The solution to this entire mess, which is slowly worsening, is to "wikify" search results somehow without overdoing it. Yahoo! had a good idea when its search engine was actually a directory with segments "owned" by communities of experts. These people could isolate the best of breed, something Google has never managed to do. The basis for Google page-ranking is to equate popularity with quality, and once you look at the information developed by SEO experts, you learn that this strategy barely works.
We have to suffer until something better comes along, but there is at least one crucial fix that could be easily implemented: user flagging. Parked sites, for
Sure MS may have been worried about OS X in 2005, but the problem runs much deeper now. Let's take a look back:
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. While technically you still need to upgrade to Mac hardware according to the Mac OS X EULA, the validity of that claim is currently being questioned. Additionally Ubuntu and other Linux distros that make setup easy and are very user-friendly have started spawning and are also beginning to take a significant chunk out of MS's market share.
There may have been signs of things to come in 2005, but thinks look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
This is one of the worst summaries from at least this day. Was this just copy&pasted out of a bigger text or what?
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
"Better ingredients. Better OS. Papa Steve's."
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Russell went on to defend Vista, specifically its ability to "run on a very wide-ranging set of systems from the minimally capable to the incredibly capable," he said. "Apple doesn't do that."
Riiiiight. Apple was able to slim down OS X to run on an ARM smartphone, can MS do the same with Vista ? Oh yeah that's right, they had to extend the life of XP just for the netbook market, cause there's no way Vista could run on that hardware, and they were afraid of Linux taking over.
I can't see how this guy could think that, did he not ever use Vista ?
"A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column]."
That suggests that when Microsoft received reports of a competitor offering a superior product that executives regarded the reports themselves as the problem and not Microsoft's deficient offerings; Warrier writes of addressing Mossberg's column, not of addressing the problems with Microsoft's planning and development processes which led them to an inferior market position.
Blaming someone outside the organization is smart corporate politics because it does not make enemies inside your own organization who might retaliate against you. But then maybe that is the problem with Microsoft management, that it is full of shrewd corporate ladder-climbing types instead of inspired artists and engineers.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Can we replace the pic of Bill with Ballmer throwing a chair?
Microsoft didn't sell the reason people needed Vista. They polished a dashboard up with some glassy looking graphics and slapped a pricetag on it. That's not relevant to 99% of users. Most people use their computers for the internet, or for writing letters. Could Vista do anything like that better than XP? No. And there's your answer.
If Microsoft wanted to sell Vista, they should have examined what the main concerns are of people and acted on them. Most people don't care about what is happening behind the scenes... that's what nerds are for. Most people care about what the computers can do for them.
Now if they wanted to sell Vista, they should have got Jerry Seinfeld to do the Vista commercials from the beginning, and keep Bill Gates out of them. Seinfeld would simply sell the reason people need to upgrade to Vista which is for security and for expanded multi-media capability.
Jerry could have also addressed most of the user objections to Vista openly and with a dash of dry comedy that people tend to admire in the comedian.
But they chose to do a faceless monolithic kind of ad campaign, to combat Apple's ads but that actually made people think about how good Apple is compared to windows which was the kicker-backfire!!!! OMG yes.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Microsoft might be looking for a bailout right after Congress gets through with Detroit? Makes sense if you think about it. Both Microsoft and Detroit have (or should have known) for many, many years what was wrong with their products. Detroit ignored the fuel crises of the 70's and Microsoft ignored the instability and increasing difficulty users had keeping their systems stable. Other similarities exist between Detroit and Redmond, in that both seem unable to properly address the known issues in their product offerings. Vista puts a flashier face (lipstick on a pig - too soon?) on a flawed O/S and GM gives us a freakin' hybrid Tahoe? Yeah, and the people who made those craptastic decisions receive HUGE financial compensation and really don't give a rat's behind what you and I think. Don't worry though. I'm being a tad bit melodramatic. Microsoft, (like GM at one time...) has more money than God and is, in the current venacular...too large to fail. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Why does Microsoft, and apparently Apple, believe what we've been waiting for is more features? I don't know a single consumer who is dissatisfied with their box because it lacks this or that feature. The consumers I know who are unhappy are unhappy with the user experience: box does something unexpected, unexplained, mysterious, unintended, or just plain wrong. So I don't understand the features war. I would think the vast majority of us aren't looking for the box to do something new and wonderful, but to stop doing things that are weird and obstructive.
The ninties called and they want their thinking back.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Yes, I have a Mac. Yes I have 3 "PCs" (XP, Vista, Suse). I work with all four machines regularly. I really, really cannot understand why this generalization about the greatness of MacOs, like, everyone must like it. Yes, it's a good system but so are the other three as well. And actually OSX annoys the hell of me with it's mannerisms (well, MacOs 7, 8 and 9 used to annoy the hell out of me as well). Off all 4 OS I must say I like OSX the less. I may be a strange bird.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
I will kill this Mossberg for you for ten million of your American dollars and a lifetime license for Windows XP.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
In the case of Vista, enterprises have stayed away in droves.
Which is a point I've been making for months to pro Vista people who don't understand why this is such a disaster and keep claiming "Vista isn't that bad." What they don't understand is that for the business market, Vista is extraordinarily bad!! That's extraordinarily bad for Microsoft, and which is their main source of income. Business are still buying XP licenses for new machines, but they aren't upgrading current machines to Vista because it's an admin nightmare and companies have lost complete trust in Vista.
Microsoft has then been trying to fix the problem by putting out odd consumer ads? The problem isn't primarily with consumers, which is why their ad campaign is broken, too.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Look, I know this is Slashdot and all, but honestly I'm starting to get microsoft-vista-embarassing-email-story fatigue. Ever since the Vista class-action exposed all of these internal Microsoft emails, people have been cherry-picking emails and making them into full-blown stories for months it seems.
I'm no Microsoft apologist, it's just that it's starting to get old. Yes, we know Vista sucks. We know Microsoft felt the same way. We get it!! Please stop beating us over the head with it already.
"A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple."
That sounds about right. I'm surprised that Walt spits Steve Jobs' dick out of his mouth long enough to write a column.
You haven't seen some viruses. I seem to remember, back in the dark ages of floppies, long before the internet, when 1.44 MB was all the space on a floppy and viruses were supposed to go unnoticed on one so they could spread, someone had written a 100K virus in Clipper. Or one of the similar DBase2-like databases. In an age of 512 _byte_ viruses, or where even complex and sophisticated ones were measured in single digit kilobytes, that was fucking huge. It's akin to having a 100 MB virus nowadays. In fact, it's akin to nowadays writing a virus in Java and distributing it together with a JDK.
So in all fairness, you can't generalize like that. Just because Vista is the most extreme case of a bloated and inefficient virus, doesn't mean there weren't other viruses that were only slightly less bloated and inefficient before ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I couldn't have said it better myself. We just want the 30-second lockups, hard disk thrashing and other unexplained delays to go away and let us do our work. Unfortunately, Vista exacerbates all those problems instead of fixing them.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Mac: Hi, I'm a Mac
Bill Gates: And I'm a PC
Mac: WHOA, Bill Gates! What are you doing on a Mac commercial?
Bill: To remind people that Microsoft is more than Windows. We've been writing software for the Mac since before there was a Mac. The same Office suite that PC's use is available to Mac Users
Mac: Actually, Bill, it's better.
Bill: [blushes] Thanks. And with Boot Camp and virtualization, you can run Windows if you have to.
Mac: Or want to. I think Vista ROCKS on a Mac.
Bill: That's all. Microsoft makes software and operating systems... for PCs AND Macs.
Mac: So, we can work together.
Bill: Yes. Yes, we can. [shakes hands] Nice shoes...[Exit, Stage right]
[Mac stands stunned]
[Enter PC, eating a churro]
PC: You're not going to believe this. I just met Jerry Seinfeld in the hallway.
[Mac stands stunned]
PC: What? What'd I miss?
[Fade to iMac running Office 2008 and Parallels with Vista] and new 'Yes, WE can' logo
Microsoft doesn't have much to fear from Apple and won't for still some time even if Apple keeps slowly increasing their market share.
What you see here is an interest in the competition, a dialog to consider improving your own product in response to a competitor.
Sounds like the market actually working, but it's not fear.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
"It's news because it's not every day that we get to be party to these discussions."
What, that MS was considering the comparison between Vista and OSX? That's not news.
"We're only finding out because of a law suit"
You're finding out something you already knew because of this lawsuit? What?
"As a linux/mac fanboy..."
You fap to things like this because you're petty.
The dishonesty you people have in contriving reasons to care about this crap is really enjoyable to read.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
From someone who has never used Vista. I've had it installed for years, it's every bit as stable as XP, and while it's clearly somewhat more "expensive" (CPU+Memory), on any kind of modern hardware it is irrelevant.
It's also clearly more secure than XP. In all cases where I've installed it for friends and family, it has noticeably reduced the amount of cruft that gets installed.
I waited awhile to even try Vista because of all the talk, but I got a copy of Home Premium and dual booted it just to check it out, and I haven't had any problems... Its running well, even Aero (2x G280 SLI) and I use it to game all the time. I would agree that XP can run faster but a little, but honestly only like 5-10% with the video cards my desktop runs without using up CPU cycles, and when I jump into a direct X game it turns itself off until I return to the desktop. I have had no crashes, no blue screens, and no issues running all my software. So I just don't get it? Do you people not configure your windows for performance on your systems? Do you just install it and leave it? Maybe I'm just some kind of fluke, but I guess we'll see as I just put it on the rest of the gaming PC's in this house (one more SLI system and one ATI pos) but the kids seem to like it so far... as far as replacing it with a Mac, uh a Mac can't do what I need it to do.
Has been an obsession for Microsoft for decades.
I think Bill Gates has 20 years of Walt Mossburg's columns memorized and can recite any of them verbatim on demand.
Certainly he is a capable tech writer but I don't understand the obsession.
The really scary thing is that someone listened to something Walt Mossberg said.
Apple ditched all of the legacy crap. It was somewhat painful, but it's not like peoples old OS's simply stopped working. When they were ready, they upgraded and left the legacy world behind. MS has far more baggage that they need to lose. I think a lot of the 'bloat' associated with MS OS's would go away if they just started with a clean slate. With the popularity of VM's these days, they could easily integrate old app OS support into a shiny new OS using VM's without trying to maintain compatibility. They have simply become old school, and now they will never graduate on their current path...
He said it correctly - you're correct that in 2001 OS X became available. OS X becoming available in 2k1 is a subset of "In 2005, Mac OS X was available."
Additionally - Sure Mac announced Intel procs in 2k5, (actual launch was 2k6) which again is a subset of "by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors"
I think the point is the threat wasn't at critical mass until later on in their adaptation.
There's certainly a lot of interest in that. There was so much talk out there about the possibility that Windows 7 was going to be this kind of "New Windows" with legacy software running in a thin emulation environment that it became conventional wisdom at one point. They could do this... a lot more easily than Apple did... because the Windows application model is not tightly coupled to the API exposed through it... for example, the Pocket PC test environment in the Pocket PC SDK is just a Windows application with a different set of DLLs available to it. Whether they will or not is a different matter, but it's something they certainly could do.
Part of the reason I don't see them going that way is that currently the complexity of the Windows API is where their application barrier to entry lives. Given a simpler and cleaner API it would be SO much easier for projects like Wine to emulate it on top of UNIX-based systems.
It's fear of a Mac planet.
Why does Microsoft, and apparently Apple, believe what we've been waiting for is more features?
The next OS release for Apple is Snow Leopard which instead of offering user facing features is working on improved programming API's, better stability and performance.
I'm not saying they never chase the shiny ring of featureitis, but at least in this instance Apple is taking the wise path of refining what they have, even if not everyone upgrades due to the lack of new features it's still a great boon for new computer buyers.
In reality I think Windows 7 is party taking the same approach by refining Vista, but they cannot seem to help add new shiny features to try and lure users.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The old saying still applies as it does in the Mac world. If your system is more than 1 or 2 years old consider purchasing a new system or build a new one yourself and do the research.
Sorry, but that does NOT apply in the Mac world in the same way. Leopard runs just fine on systems several years old, not just two, and in fact improves performance on the older systems as well - just like every release of OS X before it...
You seem to have confused an OS that makes you FEEL like you have new hardware for one that REQUIRES new hardware.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I been using PC's since "Run Time Windows" in DOS. I Have owned Mac, not going to do that a again! In simple terms you have to sale your soul to Apple. I'm not going to do that again, the price is just too high. I'm still on XP Pro, but the new PC will be Vista 64/Linux 64. I need to do this since I will be using 8-16 gigs of ddr. Apple just costs more and gives you less at the same time telling you it the shape of things to come. Example trying to kill off FireWire and not using Memory Card Readers in their Crapples. What we need is a Simple Small Secure OS that will stay out of the Users way.
That's a sign of healthy instincts. A company that stops fearing competition is doomed!
how IT is changing the world - http://max.zamorsky.name
I bought a Mac with Tiger last year. I upgraded to Leopard and found it ran faster. Snow Leopard is due out next year and it appears that my current hardware will probably run even faster on it. Why should I buy new hardware with the OS helping my current hardware last longer? This has been the case for a while, although the PPC-Intel switch will probably leave some people with PPC Macs needing to upgrade their hardware after a few years to be able to run the latest Mac OS.
Contrast with Windows, where OS upgrades always put more strain on the hardware, which brings in your 1-2 year rule.
I love that flambait moderation, one of you fanboys must have really been hurt by the truth.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
What's particularly telling here is not that they were "scared" - they weren't. They thought that this was a simple failure of marketing. It never occurred to them that Apple might have introduced something that might actually have some advantages over their next generation system. It was inconceivable to them. That is not a failure of marketing - it's a failure to understand the market and your competition. It is a failure of management - and a failure at the highest levels of the most profitable software company in the world.
OS X has a simple metaphor that exposes the underlying principles of computers in a way that average people can understand -- apps are files you drag from an archive to an HD to install for instance. That's the exact opposite of dumbing things down; it's making things clear. Windows, by contrast, hides the issues -- having programs you download actually be installers that download more files and install them to a non-obvious place, for instance. THIS is dumbing-down -- it leads to users that don't understand what they've just done, never mind how to solve problems. And don't get me started on how illogical having a "file" menu with an exit option is in a PC browser, or an anti-virus program. Macs make that app vs. file distinction much more sensible too.
But then maybe that is the problem with Microsoft management, that it is full of shrewd corporate ladder-climbing types instead of inspired artists and engineers.
It's a problem when people are more concerned about getting the higher-up job than about doing their own job, 100% agreed.
But management positions should be held by managers, not artists or engineers. They should be familiar with the process they're managing (so ex-artists and -engineers are a good idea), but they should also have a good set of management skills. Learning only from your experiences is probably not the best way to go.
Having someone teach you insights of the past, what to think about and how to think usefully about it (i.e. a formal education) is probably a good start, and in my book, if you get a management position, that makes you a manager and an ex-whatever.
[maybe that's what you meant...]
Pathetic Ignoramus that is. Seriously, I just want to know what PI stands for. Anyone?
"-Smart text parsing. The OS should know that xxxx@yyyy.zzz is an email. Mail does something like this, but I don't use it for other reasons."
Please, let us not have this added to anything. That is the format used for Jabber screennames, ssh/sftp logins, finger, and a variety of other network services new and old.
"-Real transparent server file systems. No, XP/Vista/OS X/Linux do not have this."
Wait, let me check...yes, Dolphin from KDE4, and Konqueror in KDE3, and the file dialog in KDE, and so forth all supported ftp/sftp/webdav browsing, saving, editing, and so on. I fail to see how we can get more transparent than that, short of the computer learning to read minds.
Palm trees and 8
'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.
When my wife was asked to do half her work from home (and be much more productive that commuting to the office, it turns out), she had to look into replacing her ancient (4 years old ;-) Windows box. It was running XP, and her office hasn't upgraded to Vista, so she was looking for a PC to run XP. She couldn't buy one, until she asked at an Apple store. They explained to her that she could indeed run XP on a Mac. She got an iMac, installed XP via Fusion, and it works fine. Now a number of other people at work want her to teach them how to do it.
This has gotta be one of the things that terrifies MS's management. They lost a customer to Apple because the customer couldn't use Vista (for work-related reasons), and a competitor's system can run a virtualized XP subsystem. You could probably do the same with Linux.
Back in the 1970s, when the VM OS was taking over the IBM mainframe world, IBM responded by adopting VM and supporting it. This radically improved the usefulness of IBM's mainframes to their customers, and helped them consolidate their stranglehold on the mainframe market. So far, MS has viewed virtualization as a threat to their business, and has tried to block it. Maybe we shouldn't tell them that they're making a huge mistake. If they keep fighting it, they'll never be able to duplicate the total takeover that IBM managed in the mainframe arena. Virtualization is just too useful to a large percent of the users. And if we can avoid that sort of monoculture in the desktop, laptop, etc parts of the industry, we'll have a much healthier industry that will continue to innovate.
So let's all encourage MS to continue to try to block this development. It's for the benefit of everyone (except for MS's main stockholders).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This is why I think Microsoft has been pushing .Net so hard for the last few years. Get a decent new API ready for the eventual replacement of the existing system. It'd also make it possible to switch architectures if needed.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Not to mention that the "basic" version, while still an overpriced POS, lacks even those pretty-graphics capabilities of the more-expensive crap, and lacks what were commonplace capabilities in XP pro/home such as the ability to connect to a password-protected SMB share.
It's news because people forget. Remember when it was found out that the mailed anthrax came from the US's own gov labs? People have already forgotten that too. People need to be reminded of the monopolistic software prison they live in. They don't have to use Windows, and there is better software out there.
It never ceases to amaze me the complete obliviousness you mac fanboys show when it comes to your favorite monopolistic company.
I can buy any hardware I want, put largely any software I want, any accessories, upgrades, add-ons, etc. There are literally thousands of companies making products for PCs. I can install Linux, I can install Windows, I can install anything I want on a PC. I guess you can use Boot Camp or parallels, but native install?
You're the one who's locked down, there, Sparky.
Its funny to watch the circle jerk that is slashdot when the topic is bash microsoft and universal praise is sung unto linux and apple.
Here is the most important and profoundly impacting aspect of Microsoft that Apple or Linux cannot lay claim to, Microsoft single handedly put computing power into the hands of more of the people in the shortest period of time and in a more meaningful way and at reasonable cost overall and in that, has eclipsed Apples or any others impact to the point where getting the avg person to think about computing is commonplace with some over time making the move beyond MS to Apple or Linux. Oh the irony.
If it had been up to Apple or Linux you would still be waiting for the wave and would probably working on the auto assembly line in detroit or working in the "service industry".
So enjoy your cream on MS circle jerk, its just another day throwing stones at the castle walls.
What M$ should fear are the new netbooks, and the fact that they have to use different OS because Vista is too slow.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I wonder if I'm the only one who's sick of seeing the "I'm a PC" ads on the BART stations here in SF?
It wouldn't be so bad if there were just a few posters or ads here and there, but at some of the stations (e.g., Montgomery) it seems Microsoft took a scorched earth approach with their advertising budget and went totally nuts plastering them at about every conceivable square inch eyeballs could possibly scan on the concourse level.
I am tempted to invest in a handful of Linux/TUX stickers and plaster them over the ads but I don't want to be arrested for vandalism either ;-)
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I liked the quotes blaming the fact that "we haven't communicated the value of Vista."
But the biggest one to me was the quote from the dude who fired back about how Vista runs on much more hardware and blah blah blah. That's only a good thing to the few remaining geeks who build/upgrade their own systems yet still use Windows.
They're not viewing the issue from a consumer perspective. The consumer doesn't care how many thousands of video cards and usb-to-serial adapters the OS supports. They want to buy a computer, and use it. It wouldn't matter if Apple sold two computers, one called "Desktop" and one called "Laptop". As long as the OS does what it's supposed to do, and you can run your everyday apps, who cares?
How do we, as consumers fucked into taking vista, start (or join?) a class action lawsuit to be granted a permanent, authentic copy of XP, as a bridge to wait and see what becomes of the next windows version?
I am SICK of seeing windows vista take 1.5 GB of my VirtualBox resources and run slower than dog-guana at times. Mandriva Linux 2008 on the machine (hosting VBox) runs faster, and that is in ~ 350 MB. I want to NOT have to go to ms site at all. I am NOT going to connect my laptop to them to get an update to vista. I rarely directly put it (the laptop) on a live network.
Why do consumers have to fight tooth and nail to get XP on a machine that is not fully up to the task but was marketed as being up to the task? KDE without Compiz/et al is far ahead of windows' Aero.
I'm venting, yes, and yes, *vista does work*, but i'd like that much RAM taken from windows and used by my CAD app (ViaCAD). As much as i can't stand ms, i'm almost ready to willingly pay $170 for XP if i can ever get the cash together. Vista should be rebuked, excoriated, repudiated, and FAST.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
From TFA:
"My takeaway from Walt's article is that we have failed to communicate Vista's value," Russell said in an e-mail reply sent just 20 minutes after Warrier fired off his.
Where Russell is Richard Russell, a Microsoft development manager.
Not, gee whiz, the guy is telling us something, let's improve the product, here's our chance. Not, great - negative feedback is better than positive because it gives us a chance to know how to improve.
Nope. It's just let's communicate the value better - from a development manager.
This is what's wrong in every corporation that puts out a fucked up product, from my experience. I hate it.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Yes, that's it, keep ranting and insulting me just like a football or nascar fan, in your effort to prove you're not just like a football or nascar fan.
"unable to read..."
No, I'm just smarter than you. Smart enough to realize that MY BRAIN IS PART OF ME.
"continuing making people hate you"
Confederacy of Dunces.
Seriously, WTF do I care that some loser ass fanbois mod me down for telling the truth about them?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
You shouldn't apologize, you proved me irrefutably correct.
I said you were like football and nascar fans and you proceeded to behave exactly like they do, thus proving me correct.
So don't apologize.
"you don't know what you post would trigger"
I know that in well adjusted individuals, it wouldn't trigger anything, and even if it did, they wouldn't act like a four year old then blame me for their behavior.
Like you did for instance.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Unless your wife installed a cracked version of XP she got off of Pirate Bay, Microsoft didn't lose a customer. I'm betting the license for the copy of XP she's running was paid for and did, in fact, generate a sale for MS. She probably also installed a paid for copy of Office as well.
Some PC manufacturer lost a sale but MS didn't. In fact, they probably made more money than they would have if they'd sold the OEM license.
Check it out
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Microsoft's strategy for the last 20 years worked really well for them over the last 20 years. Now it's today, and unlike 20 years ago, there's already a Microsoft in the market--not to mention Linux.
There's absolutely no reason to believe that a 20 year old strategy would work just as well today as it did for Microsoft then. This is a sort of hindsight fallacy, where past success is mistaken for future guarantees. It's instructive that the one remaining competitor to Microsoft in the stand-alone OS market gives its product away for free (Linux).
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fail%5B2%5D
Main Entry:
2fail
Function:
noun
Date:
13th century
1 : failure --usually used in the phrase without fail
2 : a failure (as by a security dealer) to deliver or receive securities within a prescribed period after purchase or sale
Right. Which of those two uses was this again?
Bow-ties are cool.
Really, now, just fess up. How much does Microsoft pay you to downmod insightful comments?
Marketing managers in general tend to panic whenever they run into a negative article in a mainstream publication. It doesn't mean anything.
The big concern about Vista before launch, and it's critical to the "Vista Capable" lawsuit, was that the OEMs didn't have their shit together. Despite years of extra time, many hardware manufacturers didn't have drivers ready and some (notably Creative) told Microsoft that using the new toolkit was too difficult and they would just release broken drivers for Vista. MS broke down and reluctantly wrote their own drivers for these devices. And lots and lots of others.
Worse, entry-level systems didn't have DirectX 9 cards (due to OEMs dragging their feet) and couldn't run Aero at launch. Vista Basic wasn't supposed to exist at all. Vista Basic and Vista Capable were something the OEMs insisted on because their $500 boxes couldn't really run Vista in January 2007.
Blame MS all you want but they gave the driver kit to the OEMs almost 8 years ago (Vista drivers are basically Windows Server 2003 drivers, they both use WDF). Betas were available to the OEMs nearly 2 years before launch. And in 8 years they couldn't get anything done. In many cases (80%?) all they had to do was change ONE LINE of code. I personally modified XP drivers for use in Vista, and yeah, I really just had to change one line of code.
Some people have mentioned the last version, 10.5, as being slower, and that it had initial bugs. I havnt noticed it myself.
---
I dont like attack ads either, here in NZ we just had our elections, the party in power ran all these attack ads about the new Leader of the opposition, who became the Prime Minister (NZs version of a president), things about "you cant trust him" and "he was a money trader over in america you know, look what happened there, the rich guys ripped off the little guy, and X has $50 million bucks").
Mac fanatics like myself would say that Apple "invented" the mouse, the GUI, USB, stunning design etc etc. You know the drill by now :)
And yet Apple is still basically invisible worldwide when it comes to marketshare. I live in NZ, New Zealand, and we dont get lovely Fifth Avenue Apple Stores here, overall we get a couple "Big Box" stores per city that MAY have an iMac and a Macbook tucked away somewhere.
So Apple is thought of as something like Lamborghini, you see it on tv, people in womens magazines use Macbook Pros, not normal everyday people. I understand that the "mac vs pc" ads run all the time in america right? I think theres been maybe 3 that have been on NZ TV, and only ever on one channel. We got some iPhone ad, and one for the Macbook Air, but theres never stuff on normal tv etc for Apple.
Surely the best way for Apple to sell more Macs is for them to point out whats different, whats obviously worth spending a few thousand dollars on over the current PC a potential switcher has? BTW, Macs are more expensive here in NZ, and probably in many places like the UK than they are in USA. A normal iMac can end up costing 3000 NZD with a 3 year warranty and Microsoft Office for Mac thrown in. People deserve to know that its worth that, and that they can feel special about being an Apple user after paying that much :)
Sorry if you are annoyed by the American ads. I hope you decide to look at a Mac by yourself sometime, look at the hardware/software somewhere quiet, so you can make your own mind up and hopefully take the plunge. Have a super day.
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Right-click to Google: Already there, at least for all Cocoa-apps, and since Carbon is now declared dead (or specifically, will no longer be updated with new features), all apps will soon have this.
RAW support: Might misunderstand you here, but this is already included AFAICT.
Wireless: Make sure your network is included in the Preferred network list network settings, and then uncheck "Ask to join new networks", and things should be smoother for you.
I use my iPhone for everything, i even switch on its wifi (its through a couple of menus) and use a TV guide application that cost me a couple of dollars, just to see whats on tv next :)
And yet, here we actually do have the iPod Touch ad about gaming on it, and god it makes me itch for a touch! I would get one in a second if they had a 64GB version. I could fit my music by itself on the 32, but its too close to a thousand dollars for me in my mind here. You can buy a Dell with a 20 inch screen for the price of the 32GB Touch here.
Try and get an unlocked iPhone, I mean sure you actually pay the cost of the phone, gasp, but its worth it not having to pay 200 dollars a month like one of the initial NZ plans! ha, 199 for the iPhone 3G and then 200 a month for 2 years! Vodafone NZ changed it pretty quickly, it was all over the media here :) My $790 original iPhone looked cheap :)
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its not fair! its not fair!
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... apps like SAS, SPSS, ...
For what it's worth, you have SAS for Linux already. They don't make the product easy to find, and there are a lot of deadlinks, but it works well -- if you can get it. Also, SPSS for Linux has been available for a while, too.
So you can let the researchers work on whichever platform makes the most productive, be it OS X or Linux. But the real boost is for the system maintenance team. Getting rid of the last of the Windows cruft from the LAN means that all those hours spent coddling and repairing M$ junk can be instead directed towards improving the computing environment. Providing better service is a better goal than just trying to keep things running long enough to get work done.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
For a sec there my eyes drifted down to the equal sign before I read the author name of the article. I thought they were comparing Walt Disney and Apple, and Microsoft with crappy animators.
Need more coffee. Funny tho. :)
I liked the quotes blaming the fact that "we haven't communicated the value of Vista."
Yes, I wish I had included that in my original post. It buttresses the point that there is a persistent misbelief at Microsoft in a problem with marketing Vista and not with the quality of the product itself.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Actually most applications on a OS X system are bundles. Bundles are directories which are displayed by the GUI as on file.
Of course your argument still holds true: You install the application by copying its bundle into to application folder and you de-install by moving the bundle into the trash can. It does not get more simpler than that.
The user does not need to know and never notice that the bundle consists of lots and lots of files.
And even I as a power user who does know the underlying mechanism find it incredible simple and amazing. Because I - as a power user - know that moving the application icon into the trash can will actually and fully remove the application from my system.
Something I am never quite sure about with Windows de-installers.
The thing is MS now has to care about what they put out as opposed to us just accepting what they put out. They are F'ed!
"And you do realize that MS Windows has nothing to do with nerds, right?"
No.
"And that FLOSS and Linux is kinda important here on "/.", right?"
To you. I couldn't care less, and there's plenty of stuff to catch my interest. Maybe you should come to grips with the fact that no mater how your sorry loser ass tries to show it, this IS NOT A WEBSITE DEVOTED TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.
Cry to your mom about it, but that won't change it, and it sure as fuck won't make your retarded objections to my visiting any less retarded.
"You meant; "I am too stupid to comprehent (sic) smart people"
At least you finally admit it, but you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
"Ah, so you don't realise it. Hey I can do this kinda crap too!"
No, because it's not true. I can't "realise" something that isn't true, so no, you fail.
Again.
"This is a website devoted to FLOSS, but not solely devoted to FLOSS!"
No it isn't. It's just a website that has some OSS content. Claiming it is "devoted" without any evidence apart from your opinion, which you're proven to be worthless because you're a liar, doesn't make it so.
"You are such a girl"
Wow, not only are you a liar, but you're a bigot and a misogynist. How fucking pathetic.
And I thought you couldn't make yourself look any worse.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...