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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.
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.
Neither. It has been posted prior to every previous OS release by Microsoft, replacing only the current and next OS names.
In particular, they include this statement every time: "provide dramatic performance improvements"
And is "revolutionize file access in branch offices" the filesystem MS promised for Vista, or is that still DOA?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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.
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?
Yeah, those retards thinking WinFS nee Relational File System nee Object File System was supposed to be a file system! Rubes!
And is "revolutionize file access in branch offices" the filesystem MS promised for Vista, or is that still DOA?
I would hope by now that people are able to see through this as yet another defense against encroaching Free and Open Source solutions. If this "feature" is actually delivered, any bets that it will not play well with Samba? Given Microsoft's history, there is every reason to suspect poison in every Microsoft offering.
Every press story about Windows since 1994 reads:
I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, those are all fixed in $NEXT_VERSION. And they're finally ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF.
Also, there'll be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome!
I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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.