Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Suffers Leaks, Lagging Sales Numbers As They Look Forward To Windows 8
nandemoari writes "With only a few weeks until Microsoft's Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is released, Microsoft is already looking for people to help with Windows 8. An April 14th job ad posted by Microsoft says the upcoming version of Windows will have new features like cluster support and support for one way replication. Apparently the Windows 8 kernel is being reworked to provide dramatic performance improvements. Windows 8 will also include innovative features that, according to Microsoft, will revolutionize file access in branch offices." Relatedly, several users tell us that both 32 and 64-bit versions of the Windows 7 release candidate have been leaked into the wild via p2p networks. The current leaked version shows little change beyond bug fixes, so it would seem what you see is what you get. This all comes as Microsoft posts quarterly sales that have fallen for the first time in the company's 23-year history. Seeing a 6% drop in revenue and a 32% drop in earnings, some within the Redmond giant expect the downward trend to continue.
How is this a leak? Or news?
So thats saying that what isn't out yet is already being replaced, so why should i upgrade.
How about just make something that works?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's vaporware. Announced features tend get dropped from Windows during the development process. Don't believe anything from Microsoft until it's released.
This all comes as Microsoft posts quarterly sales that have fallen for the first time in the company's 23-year history.
This is a perfect opportunity for trash talk! Suck on failure, Microsoft! Sales looking a little limp this quarter? I guess that's why they call it both micro and soft!
Heh. More seriously, as Joel points out:
Microsoft has an incredible amount of cash money in the bank and is still incredibly profitable. It has a long way to fall. It could do everything wrong for a decade before it started to be in remote danger, and you never know... they could reinvent themselves as a shaved-ice company at the last minute.
It's good to see a hint that this fall might finally be starting, but even in this economy, it will be a long time before Microsoft dies.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I have a great memory, and to be honest it's a massive PITA. I can remember when people wanted MS to succeed against the might and nastiness of Big Blue (IBM). Now it's all comers against MS, with Apple and Google getting most of the plaudits and building an empire. If it continues, Apple and Google will be the big bad corporations in a couple of years and us, the nerds, will either fondly remember "good old MS" or hang on hard to a new trend / company.
:-) *
Or Linux will be ready for the desktop
* I troll, I troll, I'm typing this on my Centos machine
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
Can we just get Windows Seven out first?! Jebus.. I'm starting to think one reason Apple might be so successful is because they don't sweat the small stuff and release information about their NEXT OS even before their newest one isn't even released. This is PATHETIC and it makes me angry. I'm upgrading to Seven's beta tomorrow on my new pc, but all this talk about Eight makes me want to puke.
Even *if* Apple did become a dominant player in the OS market, there is no reason to believe they would be any less abusive of that position than MS has been.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Keep in mind that in this case we are extrapolating features from an MS job posting, not from an official press release. Therefore this isn't exactly hype we're looking at here - but rather internal plans which may change as time progresses.
At least Google has a habit of playing fair, and is providing services by simply being better. Microsoft since it's inception has been a deceptive, double-dealing company. Remember how MS-DOS got started? Lots of corporate back-room deals and chicanery. Microsoft has NEVER excelled technically. They've always bought or stolen their tech, and then spun it like it was always that way. Amazingly slimy yet effective businessmen, but not the technical geniuses every layperson thinks they are.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The problem with ARM is the nasty little thing that is known as flash. Has anybody managed to get flash video to play on ARM yet? last I had heard that was a big nope. Folks won't be happy if they can't go to Youtube, and sadly I have been coming across more and more websites lately(especially big media sites) that if you don't have flash all you get is a big plugin symbol on a useless blank page.
So while I wouldn't mind a $199 Netbook for checking email on, i just can't see the college kids down the street being happy with something that won't play their videos. if they manage to solve the flash problem though, they could really undercut everybody. I have even seen sites talking about the 400MHz Netbooks going for $99. At that price they would be impulse buys. And more importantly at that price and form factor folks won't be caring if it runs Windows or not. And unlike x86 a 400MHz ARM is actually quite snappy. But we'll just have to wait and see if they figure a way around the flash problem. Because it is increasingly looking like more and more of the web simply won't work in the future without flash. It has just become too popular for website building.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The first NT came out before they started using year numbers, and continued while the year numbers were being used. And 2000 came out around the same time as ME. Basically, MS has no naming system, unless you count schizophrenia as a naming system.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
As in you get upgrades with X features like Aero Glass, a new explorer, etc. but keep all your settings and applications. Like Apple does.
Apple doesn't sell service packs. Going from 10.4 to 10.5 is an upgrade not a service pack. You can download and install service packs for free just as with Windows. And while you can keep some of your applications not all will work. I found that out when I upgraded from Tiger, 10.4, to Leopard. My security suite, with an AV, firewall, and backup software were broke with the upgrade. After I did a compleat install instead of just an upgrade on top of Tiger. The same with my utilities.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It's good to see a hint that this fall might finally be starting, but even in this economy, it will be a long time before Microsoft dies.
I'll be at the start of any "I hate Microsoft, they're evil!" line, but I DO NOT want to see MS die. We need more competition not less.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
To come back to your point, yes Apple would make as evil a monopolist as Microsoft, but I'd prefer if they all had to compete for my $$.
A monopolist of what? Hardware? So Dell, HP, Acer, etc. are going to be swept away? Or Software? Wait, what will we run that Apple software on?
If Microsoft goes belly up, and Apple doesn't license clones, the other computer manufacturers will throw so much money/talent/marketing at *BSD/Linux that it won;t be fun (unless, of course, you're the target of such spending).
Win2k source code was a leak, everything after that was PR.
I suppose it's easy to interpret "it was a kick-butt achievement" to mean that I liked Classic, so let me just elucidate; when I say it was a "kick-butt achievement" I'm saying that it bridged the gap between two extremely different systems. It allowed Apple to leave behind the spaghettifest that was OS 9 while keeping the customers that they had.
I'm talking about the end-goal as a business to retain customers that you already have while essentially uprooting the entire customer base and moving on to something better.
I'm sure your personal experiences with Classic aren't unique, but that doesn't change the fact that it achieved its goal: it allowed most applications to run (I'll counter with my own pull-out-of-butt metric for how many apps ran under Classic), thereby allowing Apple's loyal customer base to have an upgrade path while retaining the ability to use their already allocated software investments.
And it did it all while running a flakey OS on low-powered hardware.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Windows 7 isn't even out yet and already there's talk of the next product coming around the corner. I think this is part of the problem Microsoft is having with Vista: Nobody wants to invest in the considerable outlay in "upgrading" to the latest version of Windows when they already know their investment is going to be irrelevant in a year or two when something newer (read "better" in the eyes of Joe Sixpack) hits the shelves.
"I'll hold off," say millions of cash-strapped computer users.
And thus, the cycle repeats.