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Michael Dell Says Windows 7 Will Make You Love PCs
ruphus13 writes "In a recent talk at the Churchill Club, Michael Dell addressed several topics, including the fact that Windows 7 is poised to take advantage of the upgrade cycle. Dell has always been a strong MS OEM ally and it is now hoping to cash in again from the impending upgrades. From the post: 'Dell made plain several times that he sees the installed base of technology as very old, and sees a coming "refresh cycle" for which he has high hopes. "The latest generation of chips from Intel is strong, particularly Nehalem," he said, adding, "and Windows 7 is on its way." (The operating system arrives Oct. 22nd, although Microsoft's large-volume licensees are already getting it.) He pointed out that many business are running Windows XP, which is eight years old. "I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now," he said, "and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement."'"
I can't put my finger on it, but loving my PC seems narcissistic somehow.
I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99
(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)
Latest Office 20xx: $399.95
Total: $979.93
So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."
My work here is dung.
All my Dell boxes run Linux.
It is a well know fact that Michael Dell uses Ubuntu exclusively at home, and only trots out the pro-Windows stance when paid to by Microsoft, so none of this should be taken seriously. Not that anyone sensible would take anyone saying 'Windows is good!' seriously.
It seems if you run a Vostro (like me) Windows 7 might not be your friend if you want your touchpad and video card to work.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/cf9bc301-e3c2-4c5b-b9cd-9eab8582f45f
Or maybe they will fix it in the next week, but I doubt it.
Translation - Buy stuff from me. I won't sell you poison again, honest. You can trust me and my stuff is less bad than last time.
For a /. geek, what does Windows 7 have that's *really* useful/desired/cool vs. Windows XP? Not trolling, just haven't had the time to install it/play with it yet.
It's newer and less awful than vista. But it's still really NT with an updated interface and some new bits glued to the side.
It's just better.
I upgraded to windows 7 pro about a month ago (through MSDNAA) and I've even stopped using linux at home.
Revenue Q2 2008: $14,147m
Revenue Q2 2009: $10,623m
Profit YTD 2008: $1,400m
Profit YTD 2009: $762m
Yeah... If I was Michael Dell, I'd be working to sell the idea that Windows 7 is going to make you love a PC too. Especially if you bought a lot of other expensive shit.
...much like Ike loved Tina (or Chris loved Rhianna for our newer readers).
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
My experience with Dell is that the company is tricky. I try to avoid Dell because for me the company does not make a good business partner, which is the relationship you have when you buy something technologically complicated from a company.
Quote from the story: "He pointed out that many business are running Windows XP, which is eight years old." [Should be businesses.]
That's a bit tricky, in my opinion. There is no migration path directly from Windows XP to Windows 7. If you are using Windows XP now, it is necessary to re-install ALL your applications, and re-configure ALL your settings. For us, that easily takes 40 hours. Windows XP has had a VERY high cost of ownership for us, and here we go again. Microsoft did not want to finish the work, apparently, and provide a way to convert automatically from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Also, Windows XP is not 8 years old, in my way of perceiving the matter. Windows XP was very troublesome until service pack 2 was released on August 25, 2004. So XP is actually 5 years old, because that is the date of what could be said to be the first release candidate.
It doesn't matter how old an OS is! We are not in the OS business. We are happy with what works for us.
In our experience it is better to buy components and build our own computers. The inside of a mass-market computer is amazing. Everywhere costs could have been cut, the components have been made a little cheaper, and sometimes a lot cheaper.
There are a few things that have improved, most of which were avalible in Vista too:
Much better use of multicore CPUs
GPU acceleration of the GUI
self healing system files(in some instances)
OS aware of SMART HD readings and able to prompt user
DLL seperation
vastly better RDP
vastly improved central managment and deployment features for businesses
Easy 64 bit usage with drivers
Faster installs
Better power managment and usage of hardware suspend
better usage of memory (cacheing for very noticible speed gains)
Media center!
transparent Bitlocker hard drive encryption (in pro and ultimate) with TPM
program execution isolation that redirects reg and file system calls to safe locations
epiclly better wireless support
support for propper GUI scaleing on high DPI LCDs
Integrated Touch support and Speech Recognition(not fantastic but alright)
Automatic driver retrival for most hardware right of Windows update without searching
Fast search and indexing
Document libraries for easy organisation
Faster boot times and UI responce on semi-decent hardware (compared to XP)
Better moniter support for HD TVs and multi moniters/GPUs (by default)
Child restricted accounts to limit games and allow usage limits for children.
Just to name a few, it has been a long time since XP and things have progressed.
On the cons side I still don't like the superbar much, you can change it to be simmilar to the Vista one quite easily though. They have also removed the email client probably due to the EUs meddeling but live mail is still avalible.
While I agree Windows 7 is a leap forward from XP, I think Intel are going to struggle to get people to see Nehalem as the same category for upgrades. The Nehalem processors (and the associated required DDR3 RAM) are significantly more expensive than the Core2Duo processors, without providing any noticeable benefit for the vast majority of users. Unless you are a gamer or into heavy video/photo editing, the current Core2Duo generation is more than sufficient to outperform your needs. Ironically Windows 7, by running better than Vista on lower system requirements, will actually hurt Nehalem sales, by breaking the "software bloat"-"hardware upgrade" cycle
After installing Windows 7 (started using it at RC level, I think), everything just feels smooth. It actually made me want to use Microsoft's included products for everything. It definitely has more appeal to me than OS X now.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way to Microsoft or its subsidiaries. I just really like Windows 7.
I have first hand experience. I've used Windows 7 RTM, and office 2010 technical preview I can honestly say that this advice is nothing more than a joke. In fact the 'type mismatch' errors that Autodesk Inventor throws up when syncing to Excel, make me lean more towards hateful feelings. Win7 / office 2010 are good and expensive, but i don't see how they are justifiably better than XP / office 2003/7. The love inducing factor comes from Michael Dell rubbing his grubby mitts together.
> Conflict of interest, anyone?
More like identity of interest. He isn't "conflicted" about it at all.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
...if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
Ok, I'm a graphic designer who often works with photoshop files that are 500 meg or larger (files in the 1 gig+ range are not uncommon at all). For me, having a fast processor, a lot of ram, and the other bells and whistles that go along with it will make a "dramatic improvement" because we're talking about a massive file and long processing times for each action I take. When you're using Office - you know, a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, and a presentation program - you shouldn't need the latest and greatest. Sorry, but I just feel that needing the latest and greatest so that you can "love your PC again" when all you're using is an office suite just might be a sign that the office suite is bloated well beyond what is required.
My two cents. They're Canadian cents so take 'em for what they're worth, eh.
Tell me again why I need to upgrade? Oh yeah, I'm missing a bunch of DRM. And I can't run the latest IE. Hmm... that's a shame...
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
“Its amazing that it takes Micro$oft 6 years to what the Linux, community can get done in 6 weeks”
I always wonder how this happen so fast as well, its like I woke up one day everybody had gone 64Bit. But one day at my local lug, Alan Cox was there and we got taking about 64Bit drivers and he said that when he was working at Red Hat the code for the Alpha port helped a lot.
Plus Linux has been in the 64bit space for a while it just commodity hardware caught up.
Microsoft are not know for being ahead of thing, there just playing catch up.
I take you point that FOSS did the transition better it just wasn’t as magical as you put it.
As someone who's used the beta / RC of Win 7 64-bit since it came out, it has plenty of useful things.
The easisest to see, and one of the nicest changes, is the new taskbar. The quick launch toolbar has been merged with the taskbar (sort of like the dock in OS X). All open tabs go under the icon for the program running and if you mouse over the icon you see a preview of every open window (and in the case of IE, each open tab as well) which you can then click to select or close. It makes things cleaner and it makes it faster when searching for an open window. Also the "show desktop" is now a part of the taskbar (on the far right edge) so it's nice and clean.
Windows Update does an amazing job of finding the right drivers for your system and with one click you can download them all and after one reboot, you're good to go. Much nicer than downloading individual drivers and installing them when you do a clean install, especially for hard to find drivers like the video card on a laptop.
Probably the best part is that it's a 64-bit OS where basically everything 32-bit works 100%, so you don't have to worry about legacy software not running after switching to 64-bit for more RAM (especially important for gamers since you can buy a new video card with 2 GB of RAM on it).
It's also incredibly responsive - much faster than XP when it comes to opening programs.
Another feature that will become much more important as time goes on is that it does a great job of load balancing with multi-core processors, especially when it comes to quad-core processors.
I use Windows (for gaming), OS X, and Linux regularly. I promote Linux use all the time (which gets me lots of flack from my fellow IT guys at work who've never tried Linux) and am about to purchase a new Macbook Pro, but Win 7 is the first OS from Microsoft that I intend to pay money for.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Teredo scares the shit out of me. Here's a great way to endear yourself with the legions of IT professionals who have to manage your products, MS: let's name a feature that attempts to circumvent a managed IP4 network after the Teredo Worm, "the termite of the sea,".
body massage!
Same pig, new dress.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Nearly all of these "features" have been in both Linux and Mac OS X for years. Hell, intelligent processor scheduling was in BeOS way back in 1998. So you're going to start using Windows 7 because Microsoft is finally catching up on basic OS engineering? If they want to get $200 out of me they're going to need to try way harder. I can do at least as well as Windows for no money and way better for $129.
*SCHLORP*SCHLORP*SCHLORP* "Is that how you wanted it sucked Mr. Ballmer?"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
What's the point of saying anything as the CEO of a company when everyone who listens is thinking "yes, this is just him talking as the company, so well biased"?
Those who would slavishly follow what the COMPANY wants anyway will listen but there was no need to say something in that case. And everyone else will consider the source and ignore it.
So if what the CEO says is always and necessarily expected to be not his personal opinion but what the current incumbent of the CEO post of that company would say to make that company profits, there's no point talking at all.
You're making the fatal mistake of assuming that people are clever and source critical. You can easily manipulate people into doing whatever by saying the right thing at the right time. All you need to do is to play on their pride and ignorance.
I am the lawn!
Windows has had x86-64 versions for over four years now. Just because manufacturers are starting to catch up doesn't mean that Microsoft is behind the curve here (at least on the OS side).
Oh, and those signed drivers people keep complaining about? Microsoft is using this as a bludgeon to get manufacturers to write 64-bit drivers by refusing to sign drivers unless they have both versions.
P.S. Fun Fact: Windows NT 4.0 had an Alpha version.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
OK, MS dumps millions -- tens, maybe over a hundred million, anyone? -- into antipiracy efforts for Windows 7. I'm talking direct work on Win7 to stop piracy (activation codes, backend infrastructure, employees, coding specific to Win7, etc).
We know it won't stop piracy, although we don't know if it will slow it. And then they turn around and price the product at outrageous prices, which only serves to punish and/or discourage the users who would purchase it and encourage fence sitters and experimenters to pirate it.
Why not price it much more generously and make it "one" product versus many, with installation options for multimedia, and make "home" a mode or something?
I'm thinking single copies at maybe $50 and five license packs for $150. I think they would probably sell more, and in the long run probably *make* more versus dumping a ton of money into antipiracy efforts and then pricing it sky high.
Some of the amenities are nice - the Explorer changes (mostly done in Vista) are very helpful, but at the same time the Explorer interface now takes up much more room than it needs to. The only thing I actively like about 7 is the new taskbar -- but even that has its frustrations, primarily that it's not friendly for running applications that are configured based on command line options. An example is java -- while it recognizes java apps that you "pin" as JRE-based, it loses any additional information/parameters when you attempt to launch a jar file from the pinned menu. Another is putty, which lets you specify a parameter controlling startup profile, but this is not available to pinned instances.
All in all - it is definitely better than Vista. Whether it's better than the XP-based configuration that Dell is talking about... I think that's very much up for debate.
Psst, did you notice that this was in his/her gaming machine?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
The more they promote W7, the more wary I become. Maybe MS thinks the problems with its products are not bugs, and shoddy design, but customer perception. Maybe they are trying to build a Steve Jobs reality distortion field sans Steve Jobs. Two problems: Balmer is not Steve Jobs, and Apple, in many cases, lives up to the hype.
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Seriously. What do you expect Michale Dell to say? That Windows 7 is crap? Why is this marketing drivel being reported on Slashdot any way?
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Really?
When you consider that way back in the 1980's, people were shelling out upwards of $2000 for a new computer, what makes you think it's so "shocking" that people would still pay over $1000 for a new system in today's dollars?
Although the market has been flooded with "entry level" systems starting as low as $300 or so, that doesn't mean everyone has decided there's no reason to spend more. And although I realize the cheap PCs have been great from a standpoint in getting more people on-board with using a computer at home, they've also resulted in lower standards across the board. I, for one, am tired of the garbage that passes for a power supply out there. You've got the same problem as cheap, imported car and home stereo equipment, where the wattage ratings mean nothing. I can remember when you could pull a power supply out of one of the original IBM AT machines and it might say something really low, by today's standards, like an 85 watt rating. Yet you could add a bunch of power splitters to the thing and hook it up to a FAR more modern system that needed at least a 250 watt power supply to run, and it would still power it! These days, you get power supplies with a 450 or 500 watt rating that conk out if they're asked to output more than about HALF of that rating!
I'm equally tired of the way manufacturers cut corners on things like cooling fans (cheap sleeve bearings, so the fan quits spinning after a year or two, risking destroying far more expensive components), or sourcing the cheapest motherboards they can find that have the ports and connectors they require. (Again, where's the real savings when your new machine gets flaky and starts refusing to power up half the time, risking all your important data?)
All of this (and shoddy software!) are reasons I've been "loving my PC" for years now by switching to higher-end Macs. Yep, they cost more.... a lot more in the case of the Mac Pro. But I've had practically NO headaches or hardware issues. (My first Macbook Pro portable did arrive DOA, but it was swapped immediately and its replacement worked great. Even there though, the things were shipping direct from a factory in China. Back when people were conditioned to pay more for computers, all the way around, these things would have still been assembled and QA tested here in the USA.)
SP3
I know you're just trolling, but I'll bite.
"- Multimonitor support is terrible"
No it isn't. I hook my Macbook up to projectors periodically to give presentations, and it mirrors when I want to and extends the desktop when I want to. Keynote has this cool "presenter mode" where it shows the slides on the secondary display and things like time elapsed and a timer and the next and previous slides on the primary.
I don't run a flight simulator or Cowboys stadium out of my house, so I don't really have a need to hook up more than two displays at once. I did manage a workstation for a pro once who had three 23" ACDs (in the day this was a $6000 setup) and that was always plug-and-play as well even though it needed two graphics cards.
"- 64-bit? With drivers? You're kidding, right?"
I don't know what that means. I don't have to install drivers, except for things like printers. I've never had a problem with 64-bit mode in Snow Leopard; even though I have an older printer with some pretty ancient Panther-era drivers it prints just fine.
"- Games? Child restricted accounts? Nope."
I'm kind of boring, all I play is Warcraft and Civ 4. Restricted accounts have been around since System 7, and although they just refined all the user restrictions in Snow Leopard that kind of functionality has been around for ages.
"- Program Execution isolation"
If you mean NX, it's been transparently integrated since 10.4, and seriously improved in 10.5. If you mean some Windows feature that keeps your 16-bit crapware from blowing up the rest of the OS, Mac OS X doesn't really need that.
"- Transparent Bitlocker"
It's called FileVault, and Apple had it in 2003, years before Vista. Argue the merits of full-disk encryption all you like, I think it's stupid unless you work for a bank, hospital, or government, and then you'd better be using OpenBSD and fancy encryption hardware instead. For non-spook intrusion it's just as effective and much faster.
"- Central management and deployment for businesses"
Dude, Apple Remote Desktop, and it's much cheaper than anything nearly as powerful on Windows. Clearly you never worked in an Apple production environment.
Me? I managed large labs of Windows PCs and Macs in an academic research environment for three and a half years. I've seen the good, bad, and ugly on both platforms. I know what's realistic and what isn't on both sides. Most critically I know when idiot trolls like you are full of crap.
Do you shills actually think checkbox marketing is going to fly with this crowd?
I doubt they do, but they have to try anyway. After all thats what they are paid to do.
Slashdot needs some kind of filter to get rid of Microsoft marketing drones.
Vista's 32-bit ASLR is beatable too. That's more a function of the size of the address space than the implementation. The 64-bit ASLR in both Win7 and Snow Leopard is much more robust. It's a wash.
Vista's massive problems are well-documented and are certainly not FUD. I hope that Windows 7 fixes them for the sake of the computer world at large but that doesn't mean they've got anything worth switching back for. You don't even get a Perl or Python interpreter preinstalled in Windows; how backward can you get?
Considering the post he's responding to was "which of these features has OS X had for years" you're a bit off target - "Well...yeah, Apple does it too" is entirely the correct response in this case.
But yes, he failed on the games front!
"...So I hung back and lurked. For 18 months. Can't beat a good old-fashioned lurking."