Windows 7's milestones to nowhere
weblog.infoworld.com
weblog.infoworld.com
The problem with Vista is that it was bloated, didn't add much of value over XP and was initially MS forced it to be rolled out on low-end machines that couldn't handle it. Hardware support was initially flaky too, adding problems for the tech-savvy crowd who also were underwhelmed considering its long development cycle. All these things gave it a bad reputation, especially as the good largely didn't make up for the bad.
Windows 7 will likely be appreciated, even if it's not a radical change from Vista. Access control should have settled down now it's been introduced to developers and MS have got its act together to make it less annoying. Since there's no driver changes, it's no longer an issue. It'll likely not be significantly slower than Vista. Everyone loves eye-candy, and hopefully Microsoft have added another layer of sheen to Vista's above-par sleekness and removed the inconsistencies left from XP, integrated everything together better, added some niceties and improved the UI a bit. I don't think a huge departure is needed, just a lot of tidying up.
Oh, and having an upgrade path doesn't really matter to most people - people tend to buy new PCs that'll come with it and most of those running XP won't be able to handle Windows 7 anyhow.
"Windows 7 will likely not be significantly slower than Vista?" Wow, what a great selling point. "Everyone loves eye candy and UI improvements?" Perhaps -- but those who do have bought Macs already. "Now with better access control support?" Gosh, that's what I really hate about XP -- it doesn't have enough DRM to slow down my machine and lock me out of my own data!
The best selling point for Vista would probably be security. But Microsoft seems oddly reluctant to play the "switch to Windows 7 because our earlier products are so riddled with flaws that they put your life at risk" card. ;)
(I should point out that I'm joking -- I'm no security expert, and in fact I'm not sure that XP is really that much less secure than Vista. And that, itself, is part of Vista's marketing problem, isn't it?)
The business sector, as it is, inevitably upgrade to whatever Microsoft puts out once they pull support on old versions of their OS. Microsoft have basically no competition in the business sector - they're pretty much only competing with themselves.
A large proportion of people dislike like Vista because they've either heard it's bad or have had bad experiences using it on low-spec computers. This is unlikely to happen with Windows 7, especially considering improvements in computer speed in the meantime.
Apple products make up around 10-15% of the market in the west and much, much less worldwide - a relative minority. People like pretty things whether or not they own, or can own, a Mac.
"Access control" isn't DRM, it's a security decision, and actually a good thing that had to be introduced into Windows eventually to improve its much-criticised security model. There was always going to be some criticism over it.
Microsoft don't need to make a great product, just a better one. Their product is the natural upgrade path, they just need to create a "Windows 7 fixes the problems with Vista" message which looks like the direction they are going.
I agree with this. And, yet... once you cross the line from nominally working for your customers to overtly extorting money from them, you can't go back.
So I doubt that Microsoft will pull support for XP until the demand is gone. And the demand won't be gone until there's a real reason to upgrade to Windows 7. A "Windows 7 fixes the problems with Vista" marketing message will be nice and everything, but I'm guessing that IT departments will not be easily fooled. They've heard a lot of marketing doubletalk; they're pretty used to it by now. They will have to have to be given actual reasons before they will switch.
If you think that it's "inevitable" that XP will eventually be retired... I know some Cobol programmers that I could introduce you to. ;) Not that I believe that XP will last as long as Cobol. I find it hard to believe that it could possibly be supported for much longer than another decade.
As an Operating System, XP firmly falls into the 'good enough' category. At 7 years old, it's actually matured into a reasonably solid product that works. If you run Windows 2000 on modern hardware (providing you can get driver support) you'll find it runs like shit off a shovel. I'm not talking Office 2003 versus 2007 fast, I'm talking Windows 3.1 versus Windows Vista fast.
Therein lies the problem.
Microsoft have the unenviable task of pandering to a massively diverse range of users in order to retain market share, anything that they do to XP will piss off at least a minority. Anything that they fail to do to XP will piss off at least a minority.
Pretty much the only option for Microsoft in terms of releasing a new Operating System is to add features, but doing so without slowing the OS down is a massive challenge.
I don't believe that Vista will ever be considered a success by anyone outside of Redmond, but I do think that Windows 7 will do better simply because of the timescales involved and the fact that it's not Vista.
10.0 took forever to load on brand new hardware. Want to launch a web browser? Got a minute? Want to minimize that window, please hang on. Everyone on Mac message boards was complaining and many hoped Apple would just go back to the OS 9 codebase. Plus, since Aqua (the OS X interface) had such different dimensions from Platinum (the OS 9 interface), nothing lined up right even if they were native OS X apps. 10.1 helped a bit with the speed issue, but things still didn't look right and Windows XP ran circles around it in most cases.
It was painful. I mean, I have been using Macs since the LC & Quadra days and 10.0 just sucked. But it turns out they were just growing pains. Today, OS X is awesome. I'm amazingly happy with it and its future, but it wasn't so bright a year or two in. 10.3 was really the breakout release IMO and it was 10.4 that started attracting the hackers in droves.
I've used Apple eMates more than I've used Vista so I might just be full of crap, but while most current Mac users were on the sidelines for the OS X 10.0 growing pains, I was in the thick of it and I can say that Vista is a ton better than 10.0 was. Of course, we are nearing the two-year anniversary for Vista and that's about when 10.3 came out. . . Maybe Microsoft isn't able to smooth out the rough edges quickly enough.
You've found the problem. It's not that it's necessarily fatal to release a poor interim product. It's that you have to keep the "interim" down below five years, which is how long it took to go from XP to Vista.
1983? ;-)
The problem I see is that the jump between OS 9 -> OS X was way bigger than XP -> Vista. There are just too many vestigial bits in the core of Vista right now. It's not even close to Apple's Carbon situation. It's far, far worse. I am pretty sure I saw an icon from Windows 3.1 just the other day.
The Bill and Jerry cartoons? Eh?
Call me back when it ships, and I'll look at whatever it might be then, and whether it's competitive with whatever else is available then. Until then, I really don't care.
I'm amazed that industry mouthpieces still don't get this. It has nothing to do with pride or stubbornness, and has everything to do with helping pc manufacturers sell new plastic. OS upgrades don't sell new plastic.
And I'm pretty sure that was the only argument the writer had.
Do you have a source to back that up? It's an interesting figure.
4 gigs of DRAM costs less than $100, today. Who cares if software is bloated?
I'm still holding out hope that your comment was a joke gone awry.
The global information and communications technology
industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of
global carbon dioxide emissions, a figure equivalent to
aviation, according to a new estimate by Gartner, Inc.
On the other hand, my modern, much-more-flexible-and-capable Linux desktop uses 250MB idling at the GUI. With all four workspaces full, Firefox running for multiple days, Sonata, Pidgin, many other apps all going right now, I'm still using barely a gigabyte of RAM. On Vista, that's enough to run the OS and Firefox. Kind of dumb.
Really stupid. ... Kind of dumb.
If you say so. Meanwhile, higher consumption of resources (such as DRAM) causes those very resources to get cheaper. DRAM is as cheap as it is, because software is bloated. If (to wage war on bloat) we switched to hand-coding all of our software in machine-language, DRAM could get very expensive. More on that general subject is here: