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.

Comments

Feature freeze?

[RiotingPacifist]

Isn't it a good thing that they are concentrating on the bugs from the betas, instead of adding features? Perhaps users of the final release wont feel like beta testers this time?

I'm no ms fan but they seam to be doing it right this time, move feature work and innovation to windows 8, while a 'stable' branch of the code is finalized for release.

Re:point of reference

[rsborg]

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.

Why do we need a new "dominant" player? Why can't we just have a plethora of OSs that inter-operate at a basic level and let users and companies cater to one or all of the preferred OSs?

The best thing in the world of software will happen when no one company has a stranglehold on innovation... take a look at the web for example... lots of innovation until IE dominated, then Firefox broke the domination and now you have IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera and a whole host of other browsers that adhere standards (for the most part) and web developers write to those standards (and tweak for specific browsers)... innovation is picking up pace again.

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 $$.

Re:Windows XP Mode

[Titanium Angel]

This is one of the most important developments in Windows history and will shape the future of Microsoft's operating systems. XP Mode will finally allow Microsoft to remove all of the legacy crap that's been holding Windows back for at least a decade.

Re:Fuck yeah.

[jmorris42]

> More seriously, as Joel points out:

Joel is wrong. A few years ago he was right but he obviously hasn't looked at Microsoft's latest balance sheet. They blew through the cash horde paying us stockholders dividends to keep us from going after em with pitchforks. Used to be they carried zero debt on their books, not anymore.

Go look it up, it is shocking how fast they went from more money than the Pope in Rome to a normal profitable company. And now the recession is upon them, netbooks are encroaching on their fat margins and there isn't much excitement in corporate America to engage in a mass hardware refresh to get Windows 7.

The computing landscape is about to change, the old guard who built the industry is retiring/dying off and things are about to make the shift from high flying growth to stable basic industry.