PC industry 'disappointed' with Vista
Published Tue, Jul 24 2007 9:22 AM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet
If you followed my travails with Vista, you know that I'm far less than impressed with this obnoxious excuse for an operating system. About the only really good things I have to say about it is that the Aero interface looks cool and that I like the sidebar. In the sidebar we finally see the return of a nearly decade old technology from under the thumb of oppressive government regulation.
I'm particularly annoyed by the willful disregard Microsoft has for developers and people with older hardware or software that simply won't run on Vista. Microsoft has lost Steve Balmer's vision of "Customer Love" and exchanged it for an ever increasing level of arrogance similar to the arrogance that led to the downfall of OS/2 for IBM. The company I used to work for has fallen far.
Sales of Vista are brisk, and, for Microsoft at least, the operating system is a success. All is not as rosy as those sales make it appear though. Techworld discusses Acer's open attack on Microsoft.
Acer president Gianfranco Lanci became the first major PC manufacturer to openly attack Microsoft over the Windows Vista operating system in the Financial Times Deutschland on Monday.
Lanci said the operating system was riddled with problems and gave users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC, according to the report. Taiwan-based Acer is the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer, after HP, Dell and Lenovo.
"The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Lanci said.
Despite the long wait between Windows XP and Vista, the latest operating system still lacks maturity, he said. "Stability is certainly a problem," he said.
Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in the history of PC manufacturing. He added the situation didn't look likely to change in the next six months.
Many business customers have specifically asked for Windows XP to be installed on their new machines, Lanci noted.
Is it any wonder? Any time you want to do something serious with the system up pops a warning box telling you it's not a good idea. If your hardware is a couple of years old, it's not going to run very well with Vista either. There's just not much to recommend it.
The company has said most Vista users are satisfied and that nearly all software and hardware is compatible.
That's a royal laugh. Microsoft's own developer tools aren't compatible. SQL Server 2000 isn't compatible. Visual Studio 2003 isn't compatible. Neither is Visual Studio 2005, unless you get a service pack AND A PATCH for that service pack.
At the time of Vista's release, most anti-virus and security software wasn't compatible either. A Microsoft engineer told me that I would have to buy a different anti-virus package because McAfee's current offering wasn't compatible, which was why I had trouble activating Vista. McAfee has since updated and has Vista compatible products.
My mother is a quilter. She uses special software on her laptop with a "dongle" or serial key to control one of her sewing machines that does fancy embroidery. She can't use Vista on that laptop because Vista doesn't support serial keys.
It's plain to me that Microsoft has been wearing blinders if they think that nearly all software and hardware is compatible.
On the other hand, the company recently told analysts it expects Windows XP to make up a significantly larger part of sales than it had previously expected, at Vista's expense.
Chief financial officer Chris Liddell has told analysts that he expects XP to make up 22 percent of sales in Microsoft's new fiscal year, up from the previous estimate of 15 percent. Vista would make up the remaining 78 percent of Windows sales. Windows XP sales will, in other words, be nearly 50 percent higher in the next 12 months than Microsoft had estimated earlier.
Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions at Microsoft, said part of the problem is that users prefer lower-cost machines that might not work well with Vista.
Well DUH! Not everyone can afford to go out and spend a couple of thousand dollars on new hardware just because Microsoft decides it want's to create a new, sluggish, intrusive operating system.
"Most of the machines I see pitched in catalogues are in the $700 range, certainly under $1,000," said Cherry. "Computers with that amount of hardware are a better fit for XP. With Vista's requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware."
It's possible, Cherry added, that Microsoft might find itself forced to recognise more reality in the future. "At some point, they might have to consider limiting the availability of XP," to push people to Vista.
The software developer has made at least one move in that direction already. In mid-April, it announced it would terminate sales of Windows XP to resellers and retail after January 2008. User reactions were almost unanimously negative.
So by "recognizing more reality" in the future, Microsoft means limiting consumer choices. I can understand that people should expect hardware and software to advance over time, and that you can't support the past forever. This is hardly the way to treat consumers though.
Microsoft has risen to a level of arrogance that I find offensive. Their disregard for the average consumer and their arrogance toward the developer community will eventually be their downfall. It's almost certain that the PC industry's disappointment with Vista is good news for Microsoft's competition.
Who knows... Microsoft may be doing what the Justice department failed to do in the late 1990s.
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JAM responded with:
 | I bought a brand spankin' new Dell three weeks ago. A decent mixture of speed, power, and affordable. My old one wouldn't even import video without it being choppy, so I was definitely due for something faster.
I love the new machine I bought, nice 20in wide screen.
And WINDOWS XP PRO.
My slide scanner, flatbed scanner, printer, and even the midi cable to hook up my guitars Line 6 POD 2.0 all work perfectly, the first time, no hassles.
I avoided Vista like the plague. |
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