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Is Microsoft Improving Its Image?
nk497 writes "Writer makes the case that Windows 7 is a turning point for Microsoft, and we all might start liking them soon ...
'While it's not winning everyone over, there are real signs that Microsoft has taken criticisms on board where it matters most: in the software and services that it provides. The idea of a faster, slimmer Windows is one that most Vista owners would automatically put on their wishlist, and it seems that Microsoft has genuinely done something about it. It's not just reignited interest in the Windows product line, but it's got users appreciating a fresh approach from Microsoft as well.'"
Microsoft's goal is to be like cable TV.
You pay about $50 a month to use their O/S. And then you pay an extra $10 a month for Word, or get the Premium package with Word, Excel, and Access for $20.
Is this where you want to be in 5 years?
I prefer to own, not rent my own PC.
I prefer to own, not rent my applications.
I want my applications to be mine and my data to be mine so that I do not lose access to them arbitrarily.
Microsoft is a big scammy company that provides extremely easy to use products that work reasonably well.
I don't like them as a company but I can deal with that.
I do like their ease of use and will miss it but the free competition is now only a couple years behind microsoft (and gaining).
But I won't be lead to market to slaughter and end up renting their OS and applications at the rates they desire.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If Microsoft wants me to "like them":
1. Ballmer has to go. This guy is just offensive. Between the combat metaphors and the chair tossing, I can't respect any company run by this guy. AND, he's doing a poor job of running Microsoft.
2. The 'kinder/gentler Microsoft' has to become more open. That means opening up APIs and stop trying to manipulate standardization processes.
3. They have to improve their product quality. That will be a huge challenge given their code base, and maybe Windows 7 will be a substantial quality improvement. The record for Microsoft seems to be "every other product is OK" (Win 98 was much better than Win 95, Win XP is much better than Win 2k, hopefully Win 7 will be much better than Vista."
4. They also need to pay attention to both Apple and to their own research arm, and start -innovating-rather than blindly copying what others are doing.
5. Until 1..4 are achieved, I'm not going to like Microsoft. More importantly, I'll not even consider a car (e.g. Ford) that has Microsoft products in it, and the idea of the current Microsoft trying to "fix health care records" scares the fertilizer out of me.
Just my $.02...
It seems that Windows 7 is still a lot like Vista to me.
Shouldn't be surprising to anyone with a half a brain in his head (or has any memory of Microsoft product releases), but that said, take it from the horse's mouth.
PBS' Charlie Rose interviewed Bill Gates a few weeks back and asked him whether Windows 7 was indeed new, or it whether it represented an incremental improvement to Vista. Gates became uncomfortable, went silent for a few seconds, and muttered it was the latter. An awkward pause ensued before the next question was asked. Unsurprisingly, he was more forthcoming and talkative when the questions were general, and weren't about Microsoft or Windows.
So there you have it kids. Windows 7 is the marketing name for Vista SP3. It should really be SP2.5, but the small collections of features to Windows 7 as sales enticements merit some recognition. But then, that's from someone who thought Win98SE was kind of cool.
Well, yes - because XP has been around for so long, hardware has overtaken it.
That's one thing that annoys me about Microsoft (as well as games companies). When I finally get a fast enough computer for the goddamned program to run well they stop supporting it!
Free Martian Whores!
Why would you want reduced playback support in your OS?
Because if no one releases programs which play broken DRMed files, then people will eventually stop releasing broken DRMed files.
Media companies will whine and complain that the lack of DRM prevents them from selling their media on windows PCs, but it only takes one company to break rank and start making money (much like EMI with MP3s) and the rest will cave.
Besides, since I never buy DRMed media, it doesn't really matter to me whether any device I own can play it or not.
Windows XP = lean
Windows Vista = fat
Windows 7 = leaner than Vista = Windows XP
Actually I think it is more like this
Windows XP = Coke
Windows Vista = New Coke
Windows 7 = Classic Coke
Sales of "Classic" Coke skyrocketed when it was RE-introduced to the market. People hoarded it just in case Coca Cola discontinued it again. I see sales of 7 to be quite brisk at launch. Whether you like Vista or not prevailing public opinion is not favorable so anything that replaces it should do well.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Just get rid of the shortcut, it's a lot easier than trying to rip out vital parts of the OS because you'll just get all whiny when removing the only web accessing part of the OS too.
You'll whine that you can no longer use FTP, you'll whine that for some reason you can no longer connect to network shares, etc. What you want to get rid of, sir, is the shortcut. After all, IE is basically a wrapper around the internal engine (Trident.)
Anyway, there are still some applications you should not remove from most distros. Remove apt from Ubuntu and have fun setting it up again, stuff like that.
You seem to mostly be talking about "install bloat", not "runtime bloat".
Although both are bad, I think that these days it's pretty much agreed that using 2GB more hard drive space probably isn't a big deal.
The problem is that Windows has so many background things running that really are required to do anything useful (like using the network), plus all the extra background tasks that you might not feel you need, but turn out to be required for things like applying updates. A Windows XP install with just the Microsoft standard background tasks takes about 300MB of RAM to do nothing, and Vista is far more bloated than that.
Good examples:
This kind of bloat where Microsoft has "important" background programs running that you can't turn off but don't really need just does not happen in a Linux install. Yes, there are some stupid Linux installs that have too many services running by default, but you can just turn off the ones you don't use, and nothing else stops working.