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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.'"
Windows XP = lean
Windows Vista = fat
Windows 7 = leaner than Vista = Windows XP
Or so people keep saying (about XP and Vista).
Back to square one?
"and we all might start liking them soon..."
Hi. You must be new here...
Though, since I am using Windows 7 beta, it might take a little while...
Has reviews of Windows 7 said anything other than: 'this is a prettier hog than vista, but still a hog.'? If so, I would agree, the image is improving, at least.
...of them trying to take control of their image, as opposed to letting it be defined by journalists/other people with opinions/competing companies.
The Jerry ads destroyed MSFT's already fucked up image, by making it more fucked up.
In order to get their image repaired they have to embrace Linux, and Open Source and then they can claim to be pioneers again, like when they pioneered a UI based OS by copying Apple.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
But isn't Windows 7 just a service pack for Vista? From what's been touted about it doesn't look and leaner or meaner they've just put some speed improvements into the UI to make it look faster.
The majority of the stuff under the hood is still vista so people will probably have the same problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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.
It has been awhile since I've been excited about upgrading to a new OS. Why should I go to Windows 7? I just haven't seen the feature jump with the latest windows versions that seemed to happen between earlier versions.
Wow an article on Slashdot that doesn't say Microsoft is a total failure at everything it does. For a second I thought Slashdot was the one starting to change, but then I read the replies...
For my part, Microsoft will only improve its image when they remove DRM support from the OS and its bundled applications (IE, Media Player).
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Microsoft donates to Apache ...and of course, the "Windows 7 might actually be rather good" article in TFA.
Microsoft donates to moonlight
Microsoft supports ODF
IE to be standards compliant by default
Microsoft assist SAMBA team with interop
Maybe; just maybe, Microsoft isn't the evil machine some slashdotters make out.
throw new NoSignatureException();
WOLF! WOLF!
Maybe we should wait until, you know, Windows 7 actually comes out to find if it's the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since Gitmo. Vista was supposed to be the awesome super duper OS everyone would love that would make everyone want to give Ballmer hugs for, but it turned out to (from what I read) be a stinking pile of dogshit.
Frankly, given their history at Microsoft, I have no doubt to give them the benefit of. They're going to have to deliver a slim, fast, stable OS and I'll actually have to try it before I believe a word of it.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Microsoft is going to have to prove itself.
Free Martian Whores!
2009 will be the year of Windows on the desktop?
I love it when the scrappy little come-from-behind underdog is able to pull itself up by the bootstraps and get from a measly 89% market-share all the way back up to 95%. It renews my faith in the hope and outright tenacity of the little guy!
There is also a business-related issue. Microsoft is now the underdog compared to Google. Google gave away a free desktop sidebar, and now Microsoft has made that obsolete by bundling in their own with Vista and Windows 7. A decade ago, there would have been howls of monopolization, and using Windows to enter an adjacent market. Today, nothing. Today it is seen as Microsoft defending its desktop turf against Google's Internet challenge.
Until microsoft makes the end customer who actually uses their products their only focus (and not the RIAA and all these other distractions) and goes back to courting developers like they did when they were successful there will be no significant change. Windows 7 will be more of the same.
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...
> I've also heard that Cheney being wheeled around in a wheel chair makes him more likable.
When I saw him, I don't know exactly why, but this reminded me of Dr Strangelove...
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
New tag: writerwillwinalaptop
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"Oh, wow, maybe people won't just buy whatever crap we try to shove down their throats. This is going to take a bit of rethinking of our strategy..."
Sorry, couldn't resist. I understand that the automobile industry is going through the same realization. We can hope that a few others might get the clue...
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
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.
I don't know. The "Vista sucks" theme really started spreading.
What has been interesting to me is the number of people who I encounter that say they bought a new computer, and while they thought Vista would suck, it's ended up being the most stable computer they've ever had.
You are right in your evaluation. In fact, MS does not design software to fit the slowest or moderate CPU at their anticipated delivery date. They want to design an OS that will be able to stick around and take full advantage of the CPU's and memory advances for several years (at least). This means that several years before the CPU's are developed, they must guess where they will be for the next 5 years and try to take advantage of that processing power to create an OS that will do more than play videos and music.
The real problem with Vista was the minimum requirements. They allowed far too many PC's around the world that were using 2003 technology run Vista. The newest CPU's and higher memory machines with better Mobo did great with it (once the drivers all became available, of course).
This was exactly where we started with XP.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
The real problem is that Windows 7 is just a service pack for Vista.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7
throw new NoSignatureException();
Hey Microsoft, want to improve your image?
1: Remove all the Vista DRM crap out of Windows 7. It's my computer, not Hollywood's.
2: Interoperate better with Open Office and support their open standard in MSWord, not your own.
3: No more per processor licensing agreements. If we want Windows at purchase time we'll ask for it ourselves.
While there's more, get started on this list now!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Windows XP = lean
Windows Vista = fat
Windows 7 = leaner than Vista = Windows XP
I must say that "bloat" is about the least information-laden phrase I hear bandied about :).
What's a consensus defintion of what it means? Wasteful use of RAM? Any additional use of RAM? Does hard drive space count? What if it's for optional non-RAM loaded stuff like templates?
Is is bloat for Vista to include a lot of printer drivers in the default image? It wasn't good for Netbooks with small SSD drives, but didn't impact system performance. And I remember lots of complaints about the full install size of Office back in the day, even though that was mainly templates that didn't need to be installed.
I think it'd be useful if we all were a little more specific about that.
My video compression blog
Okay. Let's start with Internet Explorer.
I've used XP for years, I recently upgraded to Vista 64 bit Ultimate. While it was nice and all, the OS took up 24GB on a 30GB partition and I did not install anything. Talk about bloat, it was straight crap. I then decided to give Windows 7 32 bit a try and have not looked back. While there are a few quirks with certain programs, I have yet to have a BSOD or anything. Actually, it encountered a problem installing paint.net and gave the exact steps to fix it. I did not have to google or search arcane MS Knowledge base articles. It was a simple copy and paste to edit a registry setting and boom it fixed the problem. Vista is the equivalent of an over budget Hollywood blockbuster flop. If Windows 7 is making up for that then keep going. Please keep it lean.
Time limited licenses are already the way of business applications. Companies don't "arbitrarily" lose access to the tools. If they allow the license to expire, they can't use it anymore. It isn't like one day they suddenly have no access anymore.
Unless the permission update fails for some reason other than non-payment. This happened at the radio station I used to work for.
The software that created the daily schedule for all on-air events (called the "log" by the on-air staff) would not update and refused to allow us to create about 2 weeks worth of logs. The vendor had to fly in and do some voodo to restore everything. Meanwhile we had to go back to creating paper logs (photocopier, liquid paper, and typewriter) for a couple of weeks.
At the next contract renewal time, we told them where they could stuff their software, and moved to another vendor who didn't have time bombs built into their software.
And you say you prefer to own your data? No shit? Are you implying that somehow this new version of windows is going to steal your data and give you access only when it wants?
If the application that is locked to that proprietary file format won't let you in, you've lost access to your data. Isn't that functionally the same as not having that data any more?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Microsoft is most certainly improving its image with Windows 7. They appear to be getting a lot of things right. They've improved system latency due to I/O over what was present in even XP, and the system is surprisingly stable (for a beta, of course).
Couple this with the fact that the Linux I/O scheduler appears to have moved away from a model which works well on the Linux desktop. For about the last year or so, Linux kernels have resulted in very latent desktop utility during even moderate burst-type I/O (programs/files loading, access of swap - not prologued disk writes). This may or may not be related to the bug supposedly introduced into the kernel in 2.6.18 - I don't know, I haven't personally tested it. But what I do know is that this behavior has become progressively more evident over the past 8 years: I blame the server-centric development focus in the kernel (2.2 and prior were blindingly responsive on the desktop).
With the fact that Linux desktop performance is somewhat lackluster these days giving it a perceived performance more on par with what Vista is capable of, I can see how it would sour people in preference for Windows 7, when Windows 7 appears to implement things properly - or, at least in a way which works to user expectations.
I should note that I've been personally using Linux (mostly Debian, some Ubuntu and OpenSuse) almost exclusively since around 2000. I don't make these criticisms lightly, and personally say it more as an admonishment of the Linux developers/community than I do as a proponent of W7. Whether it's a good product or not, I can not ethically approve of vendor lock in to the extent that MS software use encourages.
(Side note: has anyone noticed how W7's window effects/widgets (to the exception of the "MS-specific blurry/imperfect glass semi-transparent menus) looks shockingly like the bastard child of KDE 4 and OS X 10.5? I thought the first W7 screenshot I saw actually was KDE4 with a 'lookalike' theme.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Microsoft has placed some serious burdens on users, developers and systems administrators with Windows Vista. They are completely unapologetic for it. People cling to their Windows XP CDs as they would to a life raft.
Microsoft responds with PR ads like "Mojave" completely forgetting that people are annoyed not only by the user interface, but also by the things they can't do or the fact that it takes more horsepower and/or capacity to perform at the same level they experienced with WinXP.
Windows 7 does not appear to address any of the concerns that people have with Windows Vista. If someone would be so kind, I would like to see some sort of list of changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7. Are hardware requirements lower? Are annoying UI issues addressed?
Don't get me wrong -- I really want to see Windows 7 resolve the problems of Vista because the future presently makes me a little uncomfortable. But when I see clever hackers repackaging Windows XP and Windows Vista into "lite" Windows distros that are remarkably small and remarkably fast, very compatible and capable, I have to wonder what Microsoft is most interested in? It has been demonstrated over and over again what is POSSIBLE and I am sure Microsoft is aware of it. So why aren't they?
We can speculate all day long and never arrive at the truth unless Microsoft acknowledges the truth. But terms like "defective by design" are well earned when it comes to Microsoft. They aren't doing what they could. One is forced to assume that they have motives for not making their Windows releases as fast as they could be. What those motives are, precisely, is where most of the speculation occurs. I think it is because Windows is used to prop up other activities; activities of Microsoft and of other parties such as big media interests.
I see the Redmond shill machine is in full swing now. First it gobbles up MSZD.Net. Now another publication is releasing "features" on how "performant" and "fantastic" Windows 7 is.
Bull Fraking Shit.
Windows 2000 and NT 4 was as lean as it got! Want a reminder? Load up Windows NT Server 4.0 in a virtual machine and see how much resources are being used.
20 fraking MB!
Even XP is bloated! Ever wonder why Windows Explorer sometimes takes a few seconds to create a folder on a Quad Core 3.0GHZ 4GB machine? A second on this machine has probably 1000 times more processing power than the Voyager probe and the Apollo 11 Moon lander (if you believe in all that). Yet I have to wait and twiddle my thumbs...
Its been downhill since Windows 2000. That OS ran gorgeously on my dual Pentium III 350 (250MB). XP pigged that machine in the space of time it took to install XP.
I company I worked at recently still used NT 4 to run SQL Server... and it ran like the wind... until a US company took us over and due to Sarbanes Oxley (read "license to print money" from a Redmon/corporate friendly regime) we had to upgrade to SQL Server 2099 (which sucked and was oh so .Net slow), Exchange 3059 (which sucked and was oh so .Net bloated) and a Server OS that gobbled up about 15 gig RAM just on startup.
OK. I exaggerate... but you get the picture.
I was tempted to pull out my old faithful PIII 350 (which happily runs Linux now) and install Windows 7... but why bother?
These days I console myself by liberating PCs from Windows and getting refunds for bundled Vista + Works licenses (thats £120 + vat in Blighty) on all PC purchases.
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.
I've been wondering how much Windows 7 would tone down the DRM that they keep deliberately conflating with security-- when they say anything at all about it. As far as I've seen, they aren't dropping Windows Genuine Advantage and they still aren't being entirely forthcoming in acknowledging that WGA is totally unnecessary for usability even if they did back away from claiming it was a vital security update. Liars. And Windows 7 uses Vista drivers not XP drivers because it requires the DRM disfunctionality. In other words, no change from Vista. How much faster could Windows be if they stop wasting cycles checking whether you're pirating? For me, the DRM would be question #1 on the FAQ about Windows 7, and they ignore or weasel around the issue. I just don't trust MS.
We've fallen down ourselves. Remember the big stink over each Pentium III having a unique number and the concerns over privacy? Intel backed off on that one. And the flap over XP phoning home when 2000 did no such thing? MS didn't back down, and has only made things worse, with WGA next, and then Vista. The almighty consumer could have squelched that if they'd yelled louder and walked when bitten. There has been some of that, but evidently not enough. MS is like a pit bull owner variously putting on an oblivious act or laughably extolling false virtues in defense of their dogs.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
FOSS bias aside, it will take a lot more then a less broken flagship OS for the general IT community to like them again. They also need to stop removing features from new editions of server products like they did in SQL 2008 and Exchange 2007. And start focusing on quality and usability over useless "new" features. It took me 2 weeks on the phone with support to get the latest edition of CRM installed on my company's domain. Why? Because some developer used a library from another project that caused the CRM install to look for Active Directory entries that are totally unrelated to anything CRM does and kill the install if they are not there. After numerous escalations we finally got to someone who knew about the problem and was able to help me setup the random stuff that needed to be there, but all I got was a weak apology...no indication that they actually intend to fix the problem.(hint: if you have Office Communications Server installed on your domain before you install CRM, you are probably ok). How about the PDF render bug in Reporting Services 2005? They know all about it, no indication that they intend to fix it though. STMP component bugs in SSIS? I could be here all day...
In my heart I am still a software developer, a hardcore IT guy and a Linux advocate... In 30 years I worked for 5 start ups blah blah blah. Lots of hardcore techy cred if I want to pull it.
But, now days I make most of my income as a teacher and I make most of that teaching money teaching basic computer literacy and MS Office to people on the wrong side of the digital divide. These are not stupid people, they are not old people, most are under 25 but some are as old as 65. All are high school graduates and some have college degrees. They just don't know much about how to use a computer. They never learned and they don't care about anything but getting their job done.
I dare say that they represent a fairly large percentage of todays population.
You know what? While most of them (not all) have heard of Microsoft, they have no strong opinion of the company one way or the the other. To them windows are something that you open when you want fresh air and for some weird reason is also what makes using a computer hard or easy (depends on the person). If they know the difference between XP and Vista it is because they learned a little about using a computer with XP and then bought a computer with Vista and they are pissed because the it is different from the one they learn on. (OTOH, there is a small percentage who stumbled upon Vista and love it.)
They don't buy any thing from MS. What they have from MS came on the computer. In most cases the only software they ever buy are games and mostly they buy games for their consoles. They down load games for PCs because they can, and as one student so bluntly put it "How can it be illegal when it is so easy?"
What I am trying to say is that for the people I teach Microsoft is like the road they drive to work. They only notice it when there is a problem with it. When there is a problem, they don't blame MS, if anything they blame the company who made the computer. From their point of view rebooting windows is just like driving around a chuckhole or getting stuck in traffic. It happens, shit happens, the live with it. They don't even think about the possibility that it shouldn't happen, because it has always happened.
They do not have an opinion about MS. They don't see MS. They don't buy from MS.
Microsoft has become like the air in a big city, you only complain about it when you can see it. And, Microsoft has taken great care to make sure they are not seen, they are just there, like transparent but polluted air.
Out side of IT and the small number of IT enthusiasts in the world, nobody has an opinion about MS.
Stonewolf
Clearly this time around Microsoft is taking the proper approach to Marketing and starting a Viral Marketing campaign early enough to, in the minds of the consumers, build a positive image for their new OS before the cold shower of reality start pouring down.
I especially like the part where they keep comparing Windows 7 with Windows Vista (which is crap) instead of comparing it with Windows XP (the last good OS they made) - great way to nudge the online reviews and opinions to use an absurdly low basis of comparison AND get the suckers^H^H^H^H experimentalists that bought Windows Vista to upgrade again.
To however is behind this Marketing campaign: I salute you!
Ever tried removing KHTML from a KDE installation? ;)
See, that's precisely the problem.
In Windows, IE has been shoved into places where there's really no good reason for it to be, other than for MS to be able to claim it can't be removed.
Why is an HTML rendering engine needed to access network shares? Why is it needed to access FTP? Why is it needed to get updates?
Even MS had to recognize that updates through ActiveX in a website have disadvantages and had to code an actual application (the systray update applet) to do things that they couldn't shoehorn IE into. But of course they had to stop one step short of making it fully functional, because if it was, the windows update site would look stupid, and one of the places it's not possible to remove IE from would no longer exist.
Why is it needed to get updates?
Even MS had to recognize that updates through ActiveX in a website have disadvantages and had to code an actual application (the systray update applet) to do things that they couldn't shoehorn IE into. But of course they had to stop one step short of making it fully functional, because if it was, the windows update site would look stupid, and one of the places it's not possible to remove IE from would no longer exist.
Apparently you've not seen Vista yet, but that's ok.
In Vista, the Windows Update site does nothing, other than tell you to open the Windows Update app.
As for why they had to code an actual application? It's so it can run in the background. Otherwise you'd need to open your browser every day to check for updates.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
But is 10.3 and 10.4 being faster than 10.0 and 10.1 really an achievement? Early OS X releases, if we are to be fair, were crap.
They were only "crap" in the sense that not everything in the window manager (essentially) had been worked out as much. People didn't like Finder as much as the old, there was not as much software - but the core was in OK shape.
Even the earliest releases were still based on a lot of solid components, like BSD and Apache and so on.
So yes, it's impressive that the CORE system is faster overall with less bloat than the original OS X versions. Just look at what Apple did with launchd to replace a number of different processes and speed up boot as an example...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That doesn't actually remove IE. It's still on the system.
Yes, Linux is gaining some amount of traction with the techno-hipster crowd, but that's still a relatively small slice of the sum total of all computer users across history capable of forming opinions. There are people that have walked into an Apple store and played with one of the locked away, overheating iMacs with mushy keyboards and single-button mice for a few minutes without getting a feel for how the system is actually used. Students that used old Unix shell accounts and IT guys that work overtime fighting the server over a serial terminal with sh. People that remember DOS or their old SGI Irix workstations. People bitten badly by the BeOS and OS/2 generation and people that spend their days working with the arcana of the AS/400 and its legacy.
And then, there are people that have never done any of this and have no perspective by which to judge in the first place.
I suspect that a great many of people that are purpourted to "like" Windows fall into this latter category. (I suspect also that a lot of people will consider commenting at this point with a, "Well, I..."-type response before realizing that, as readers of slashdot, they are not even remotely to whom I refer :).
There are undoubtedly people that like Windows more than any other platform for various reasons ("Games" seems the most-often cited, to be sure), but that crucial set of statistics that outline how many have ever heard of, seen, or used another platform with any amount of rigour is sadly not accounted for in any of what I have seen. Until that point, we can only look at it with mass generalizations: there are likewise a lot of people that commonly use Linux or MacOS on their desktops and laptops and a lot that say they would switch from Windows to something else were it not for some piece of third-party software (engineers give me this often. A lot of the high-powered CAD stuff is shockingly platform restricted and doesn't run in Wine at all).
RTFM