"On January 30th Microsoft releases to consumers the newest version of its operating system, called Windows Vista. Although the company said on January 17th that it would make Vista available for sale and download online, most people will buy the upgrade in old-fashioned boxes, just as they did back in 1995. But this time, despite plenty of razzmatazz, few customers will be queuing up to buy a copy."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-09-22
Interesting article, since it mentions most of the difficulties Microsoft is currently facing. The problem is that MS isn't the only one: The market is changing and every company is being forced to change the way they make money. That's precisely why MS is opening to a wider market, selling not only Windows and Office but also gaming consoles (with Live Arcade subscriptions), media players like the Zune and services like OneCare. I repeat, just like the rest.
Web services and open source / free software are changing the way all computers-related companies make money, Microsoft is just acting in consequence of that changes. Apple dropped the "Computer" remember?
As I said, interesting but this facts are well known and they affect more than MS only.
Member since:2005-07-08
The point that most of these "Vista is exactly what we expected" articles are missing is the bottom line. Vista is exactly what we expected, a huge advance over a huge amount of time to bring it up to speed with its competitors.
The problem is not that people won't like it or buy it. The problem is that it cost Microsoft untold billions of dollars to make. Nobody else is spending Vista-type money to build software. Nobody. And yet Vista is exactly what we expected. That's the problem.
Member since:
2006-11-08
Member since:
2005-06-29
Can we get some decent review articles on Vista or are there any yet? You know, a nice one using the released version where they nitpick and get into details...
No more RC reviews that attribute all faults to things which "will be fixed before release."
And no more death of Microsoft articles. We all know it's dying, but it doesn't seem like it's happening very quickly!
Member since:
2006-07-30
Member since:
2006-04-21
This time Microsoft has put aside any complacency. In the past 18 months the company has reorganised its divisions and put managers from a commercial background in charge instead of their technical colleagues. This counts as a big shift in what was always an engineering culture.
Microsoft had an "engineering culture"? Coulda fooled me; I woulda thought engineers could have come up with something that actually worked once in a while (not to mention that I doubt many engineers think highly of their "point two fingers up at everyone else and break interoperability" attitude").
And now they say they are going to be run by a bunch of bean-counting marketroids? Things are going to get a lot worse, before they get worse.
Only this time, it should hurt.
Shame.
Member since:
2006-12-29
