Microsoft is about to release the Windows Vista operating system, its biggest software upgrade in years. The commercial versions will be out in November and the consumer version will be ready in January. Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, sat down to talk with Mercury News Staff Writer Dean Takahashi about the Vista launch.
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Member since:2006-09-22
be glad microsoft is doing something about it now than later.
So, we're all supposed to be thankful to MS just for doing its job? Who's the one making money? You? Me? In my humble opinion they are the ones who should be thankful to people for not moving to another platform and keep paying over and over againg just to get:
* A f*cked up first release (let's face it: every MS OS has had a "Second Edition", "OSR2", "SP2", etc)
* Terribly slow fixes and updates (but if you can wait 5 years for an OS supposed to be here way sooner I think that's not a problem)
* Low quality support (I have to deal with them everyday, they always say "Please refer to the PC's manufacturer" No way, you made the OS, not HP).
* WGA (Better keep my comments, I don't want get banned from... the solar system)
But, even suffering all that, people keeps trusting and, even worse, buying MS. That's just unbelievable.
PS: This is not a personal attack to ParaMouthBalls. No flaming here, just trying to understand how on earth MS has managed to be the #1.
PS2: I know that a Service Pack has nothing to do with a "Second Edition" or something like that. But Windows XP SP2 was huge (hey, they lost some binary compatibility, that means big changes), and XP original release was almost completely f*cked up.
Member since:2005-06-29
@merkoth
No flaming here, just trying to understand how on earth MS has managed to be the #1.
Everybody else either gave up (IBM) or like most repeatably made weird decisions that killed or weakened them (CBM, Apple, Acorn, etc...)
The IBM AS/400's first releases also were a mess. Unstable and the likes. Systems 36 were much better. But nowadays, it's the most solid servers out there. Just like today's Windows OS, XP is pretty rock solid. Vista will be even better. Maturity is important but takes time.
Member since:2005-12-02
"But, even suffering all that, people keeps trusting and, even worse, buying MS. That's just unbelievable."
Actually it is not. It is not Microsoft that keeps Microsoft in business. It is the software manufacturers such as Adobe and the like who only write software for Windows or Mac OS X, and yet others who only write software for Windows alone. Until we get those folks on board with writing software for other platforms such as Linux, Windows will remain.
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Member since:
2006-10-25
Learn how the company works first. I took buisness in college and costumer service, I know its 1# in every companies books to bring back their costumers. Whats with this software shit anyway. Isn't OS News about companies too. Its not the product, its the company doing its best to bring in great things to benefit you in the long run. Microsoft is doing a good job, though do to having to drop everything because everyone complaing about bugs and Graphics that don't support their system they haven't met their (Quota/Deadline) yet. I'm not complaing about the software, be glad microsoft is doing something about it now than later.