RSSPDC 2008: The hard job of moving on after Vista
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 29, 2008, 1:59 AM
Remember the good old days when it seemed that a PC on everyone's desktop was a modern miracle? After recent experiences with Vista, the course Ray Ozzie may set for Windows 7 appears intended to recapture some of that magic.
Windows Vista has been described with a wide variety of adjectives, ranging from an ongoing success to, in the words of my friend and colleague at Microsoft Watch, Joe Wilcox, a "flop." The very fact that such a variety of monikers exists is all the indicator one needs that something went wrong during the lifecycle of this product.
Its initial release, with its stark, persistent, and nagging reminders of the need to maintain security, planted in users' minds the idea that something was inherently wrong with the product. That seed was nurtured and grew to fruition as a serious lingering doubt, well before Microsoft decided to start taking action.
The problem could perhaps be likened to the feeling one might get from being seated for a long period of time in the security bunker of a penitentiary. It could very well be, at any one random period of time, the safest place one could possibly inhabit in all the world -- safer, perhaps, than one's own bedroom. But its architecture reminds one of the constant danger that lurks outside, and in so doing, manages anyway to project the sense of that danger inside, making it feel unsafe anyway.
Windows Vista has been proven a far safer operating system than any of its predecessors in the Internet era. No matter; the problem is that its users generally feel unsafe, and thus conclude that Vista itself is unsafe. Thus Apple is capable of helping to set the agenda for Microsoft, with its most recent ad characterizing "Mr. PC" as allocating resources for the problem at hand this way, "Advertising, advertising, advertising...fix Vista."
Microsoft can't exactly step out into a spotlight and present Windows 7 as "the fix for Vista" -- not without saying that something in Vista's architecture is fundamentally wrong, and it's not. Since Windows 7's architecture is not a fundamental change from Vista, the company can't afford to tell its enterprise customers that they've just invested millions in a flawed product, even if it means telling customers they're wrong and the problem is with their own perception. But it can't walk away from the problem, either: While many were quite happy to let Microsoft sweep Windows Me under the rug with the much-welcomed unveiling of Windows XP, that get-out-of-jail-free card has already been played, and Microsoft has gambled too much on Vista's long-term success to make a major mea culpa now.
So what's Microsoft's plan? The part that we can see so far is this: Microsoft will step away from Vista, and position Windows 7 as something other than its predecessor, something that will remove the Vista stigma. But the way to get to that position does not appear to be decided yet, and it's obvious that different players in the company have their own ideas.
The route being "beta tested," if you will, by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie today may be the most dangerous option: a nostalgic step back into the warmer, softer realm of the PC as an appliance. But the route back to where Microsoft has already been goes through territory that it's never traversed; and we saw a hint of it this morning from Ozzie for the first time: the trend toward diminishing expectations.
"In our industry, it's only natural to be excited about the potential of new technologies, and to focus all of our energy on delivering the promise of that next big thing," Ozzie began his Tuesday morning keynote speech at PDC 2008. "But in times like these when so many of us are just pausing for a moment, taking time to reflect on our fundamentals and on values, it's been interesting for me to reflect upon the PC and Windows, and how over the years, together, they've exhibited such flexibility, such resilience, such adaptability to our changing needs."
In fairness, no one else we've seen or spoken with at PDC this week has exhibited any hint of playing the old political game of diminishing expectations; and Ray Ozzie, with his lofty and sometimes even unfathomable metaphors, is not the kind of fellow you'd expect to find coming down from the clouds. But in waxing nostalgic today, Ozzie at one point appeared to appeal for a return to a simpler era, when we could trust the integrity of the computer on-sight, without thinking twice.
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| Ray Ozzie takes PDC attendees back to a simpler time when it was amazing even to perform accounting at one's own desk. |
"For many of us here today, it's hard to imagine a home or a teacher or a student who doesn't have some kind of access to a PC," Ozzie began his speech this morning. "It's even harder to imagine a desk in our workplaces without a PC. What would you do all day?
"For those of us who have used the PC for the past 10, 15, or 20 years, through countless events in our lives, it's easy to forget just how much this amazing tool has changed over the years, how it's grown as our needs have grown. Without thinking twice, we've grown to entrust it with our family memories, our finances, our contracts, the records of our health."
Next: Steven Sinofsky's approach, to reposition Windows 7
The only way Microsloth will ever convince me to trade in my Mac is to give me an OS which gets out of the way and lets me get things done.
Stop treating me like an idiot and Stop asking stupid questions.
YES I want to delete. YES I did mean to empty my recycle bin. And, YES I would prefer that you delete all traces of the file when I do so.
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Granted it was stupid to sell pcs with Vista that cant handle it. But I built my pc last year with Vista in mind. No way I would take Vista out and put XP in.
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Don't get your hopes up to high for Windoze 7. According to this Windoze fanboy, Vista 2nd edition a.k.a. Windoze 7 is simply lipstick on a pig:
http://weblog.infoworld....AILY&cgd=2008-10-29
(But you guys already knew this right?)
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Based on M3 (pre-beta, *no* GUI changes present), and a biased interpretation of PDC2008?
*laughing*
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh at you. That's a hate-filled response. After Obama's special last night, I've seen the light. I'm all about Hope and Change now.
Sorry, man. You're entitled to your interpretations of the facts. In this case, your experience and mine differ greatly and as such, our facts don't show commonality.
I believe, that if we truly desire peace; if we embrace Hope and work for Change, we can work together, across the isle, to reach a mutually beneficial and shared view that we can use to make the Country and the World a better place.
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I get a hoot out of the seemingly endless number of threads on why Vista is/is not such a spectacular success!
And while some of the whosits on the site decry the reference to or mention of 'the enterprise' - the MAJOR source of contention regarding the adoption of Vista has been exactly that - in the ENTERPRISE!
And now that MS has announced Win7 - whatever it is - within 2 years, it hardly justifies a company to expend the time and resources to test all of their applications and utilities to Vista, only to face repeating the process almost as soon as they are able to migrate to Vista...
A "hard job of moving on AFTER Vista"? Yeah right. The fact is, most companies lack a compelling reason to move to Vista, both from a legacy harware perspective as well as the expense required to train, test and migrate
personnel and their software tools.
And for a remaining two year lifecycle, there is now less of a reason to do so.
But its always fun to listen to the desktop game jockeys debate this ad nauseum.
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Vista is fine! There is nothing wrong with it!
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Another disaster in the making, for sure. So many of us have avoided the mess of vista by hanging on to xp, even in our new-this-year computers, that to say that 7 has the same driver architecture as vista is to doom it. The reason I hung on to xp was primarily to make sure my add-on programs worked well.
Why can't MS include an xp emulation for drivers in its new programs?
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I'm guessing that if it had been announced that the driver architecture was being changed, you would have complained about them changing the driver architecture yet again.
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"Ozzie at one point appeared to appeal for a return to a simpler era, when we could trust the integrity of the computer on-sight, without thinking twice."
In that time the computer was one thing and the Internet a very different one: it meant only an option. Now the OS is a total mess. The return to a simpler era should begin by putting each thing in its own place. But that's just the opposite to all present forecasts.
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Windows XP is good enough for most users but Vista should not be ditched in favour of something else. It is a great improvement over WinXP and provides some cool features. But what about performance? Linux is gaining ground in the netbook market and here you need to keep in mind that Xandros and Linpus aren't really the top of the class. Now companies like Asus, Mandriva and Google are working on a faster Linux desktop which will be LXDE based to serve the needs of the next generation small netbook devices. It all cumulates into the "thin cloud client" and for the cloud WinXP features are good enough. The cloud is the web. Users will use web-based applications which make use of open standards. Any browser will render them. Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE. That is, people get OS-indifferent and will focus on speed. Either you buy leading edge technology or you install a faster OS. Sorry, it is no "either...or". Why take a brand new OS from Microsoft that makes your latest hardware run slower than ten years ago, that doesn't but and run faster. The old Intel-Microsoft performance standstill alliance is going to end.
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Windows 7 def. has a much better UI than Crap OS X :)
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agreed
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i saw a link of the UI, it looks just like vista.. so you mean vista has better UI than osx
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Vista was never the disaster it was portrayed as being. However, some of the computers that came with Vista were severely flawed from the start.
The problem, which still exist, is the huge amount of crapware which comes with many systems. They are cripples from the jump.
If you're not a system builder, I would suggest that you give it serious thought.
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Very true. the reason that most new pc's are not running as smooth and fast is all the trailware installed by the manufacturer.
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I recently got a new machine with Vista 64-bit. What a steaming pile! Not sure what Microsoft was thinking when they wrote that slow, bloated turd.
They are copying Apple with all the features in Windows 7, so maybe it will not be too bad...but this is Microsoft we are talking about.
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*laughing*
You've never even glanced at a machine running Vista, have you?
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really? copying apple? do tell...
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I just got a Gateway P-7811FX so i can game while sitting on the couch. After owning a last generation MacBook Pro, I must say the quality of both the hardware and software on the PC Clone side is horrible.
Have you ever used OSX on a MacBook Pro? Obviously not.
*laughing*
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Have you ever used OSX on a MacBook Pro?
Daily. It's part of my job.
4GB of the slowest available RAM, and a 9800M integrated GPU does not a "gaming rig" make, regardless of what their marketing materials state.
That said, Vista x64 runs beautifully on my woefully underpowered (by comparison) desktop.
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Had you bothered to read the articles on Windows 7 most of the stuff being added was stuff intended for Vista but failed to make it to the final product.
Basically MS is optimizing the code that Vista is and trimming down the fat, almost every feature you can say about Apple was borrowed from open source or was there before, so sorry if you actually believe Apple doesn't borrow ideas...
All companies do its how you stay competitive, stop being a fanboy and get a clue.
Also keep in mind they borrowed their entire OS as its based on BSD and requires the dependencies that are found in a lot of linux distros.
Just because you buy a company (nextstep) doesn't mean your ideas are totally fresh...
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*Posts the same comment here too so that these ignorant CrapBook fan boys can read it*
CrapBook Pro? What a big waste of money. I have used and dumped CrapBook Pro and will never every buy and rotten Apple crap again. It seems like Apple keep innovating that's why they have the world's most dominant OS--crap OS X right? They are software giant right? They never copy anything from anyone? For example, switch user feature was present in Tiger before XP, so were parental controls in Leopard before Vista right and so many other stuffs, right? Hope you know the truth. The only thing that crapware maker is good at is making cool looking case for their hardware and OS (not anymore). Just compare the interface of Vista with OS X's brown and ugly interface. Windows 7 will just blow crap OS X away. See, these ignorant Mac fan boys think they are cool just because they use glossy looking machines. What a dumb ass. Not all Mac users are like that, I have seen many Mac fan boys but they are def. not a retard like this and internetworld7 f**ots. Vista x64 is the best OS out there and Windows 7 will even be better. Poor Apple fan boys, shove off!!
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CrapBook Pro? What a big waste of money. I have used and dumped CrapBook Pro and will never every buy and rotten Apple crap again. It seems like Apple keep innovating that's why they have the world's most dominant OS--crap OS X right? They are software giant right? They never copy anything from anyone? For example, switch user feature was present in Tiger before XP, so were parental controls in Leopard before Vista right and so many other stuffs, right? Hope you know the truth. The only thing that crapware maker is good at is making cool looking case for their hardware and OS (not anymore). Just compare the interface of Vista with OS X's brown and ugly interface. Windows 7 will just blow crap OS X away. See, these ignorant Mac fan boys think they are cool just because they use glossy looking machines. What a dumb ass. Not all Mac users are like that, I have seen many Mac fan boys but they are def. not a retard like this and internetworld7 f**ots. Vista x64 is the best OS out there and Windows 7 will even be better. Poor Apple fan boys, shove off!!
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thanks for confirming...you never have ran OSX on a MacBook Pro.
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...and how did I confirm that? By stating the exact opposite?
Thanks for proving you are as retarded as iTard7. ;)
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hey Tool... why do you keep replying to this idiot's fanboy-ish retarded posts ??
look at his name "Fatty" he already admitted to spending time in the couch ...
put the pieces together and you're most likely arguing with an iTurd
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Best Troll Artice Period
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Gateway !? The brand with the cow ???
Dude you are a out of it...
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I agree with Das Mod; if someone's being intentionally inflammatory (by, say, blatantly ignoring the possibility of any point of view but their own being correct), it's best to ignore them.
Which brings up the question: Why am I writing this?
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How did he get in the couch? :>
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Windows 7's gonna be the best OS out there. Can't wait for it.
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Microsoft shot Vista in the foot by releasing XP SP3 and announcing Windows 7 within weeks of each other.
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not at all. XP SP3 is still XP... less secure... less technologically advanced... than Vista SP1... and SP2 will come before the release of Windows 7. The service packs are not gonna add a new task bar, new gadget behavior, new performance and reliability enhancements, new media center, new libraries, to the previous OS. The only way to get the new features, which i have to say are AWESOME, is by upgrading. And even if people are holding onto XP SP3, windows 7 should be the answer to bringing the advancedments to PCs with less resources.
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"new performance and reliability enhancements" don't be so sure about that.
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XP SP3 saw few real improvements over SP2--just major convenience for those of us who slipstream SPs with our OS for deployment. Also, it's nice installing one big update and a few others rather than installing 113 updates and then others.
That being said, I don't think SP3 had any significant influence on this at all.
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The service packs are not gonna add a new task bar, new gadget behavior, new performance and reliability enhancements, new media center, new libraries, to the previous OS.
Don't be so sure...remember what XP SP2 added?
Actually though, if MS does start releasing new OSes closer together like they are with Windows Vista and Windows 7, there may not be any repeats of XP SP2. I think even Microsoft is starting to look back and wonder if they should have just released a new OS at that point. Not that we'd of been happy with that decision of course...
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Honestly, Vista has been a tremendous success amongst our customer base and overall, support requirements have been significantly lower than our customer base running XP. Vista isn't perfect, but it's a great OS. (My opinion as a industry pro going back to the DOS days)
The reason many problems have occurred in user perception has been due to the evaporation of users being hooked up to local consultants that help them make OS transitions. Our customers never had a perception of the security features of Vista being "scary" (?) because they were given a lowdown overview by us of things that were different at OS transition time. And if they encounter things they do not know what to make of, we are a quick phone call away - but that level of support is not common nowadays.
Strangely enough, it was the very lack of this type of security features in Windows that were the target of Window's security deficiancies by Linux fans. (Can you say "must be logged on with Root Access"?) Now that MS has implemented similar features, they are criticized for it.
But, in reality, those somewhat irritating security features in Vista have reduced security related downtime and repair cost significantly. (I know they don't make us more money on the software repair front.)
Greater HW requirements? But that's par for the course, isn't it? After all, this is a new category of OS. It has been this way since the days of yore. Of course stuff will run somewhat faster on a lower feature laden OS (go back and run stuff on W98SE and IE6 with no Antivirus or firewall) but hardware also continues to advance to offset that natural performance loss as software advances.
What really got Vista off on a negative PR track was not so much the OS itself, but the early erroneous promotion of it being able to run decently with all its promoted features turned on, on cheap, low end integrated video HW that was coming out of many manufacturers at the time. (And on many similar upgrade PC's)
In reality, most of those systems and most others, will run Vista Basic quite fine with little performance drop over XP. But Aero Glass it does not have. (And for many people "who care's" is their response.)
Driver problems? Like it or not, that's to be expected somewhat. Manufacturers will not all re-write software for their old out of production HW for new OS software architectures and you can't expect MS to write new software for all old HW in existence. Our customers did not have many problems with this as we helped them do HW assessments in advance of purchase.
In reality, it had been a long time since a new OS with significantly different requirements came out of Redmond. In the meanwhile, local support resources that used to exist in relation to the common computer user have in many cases, ceased to exist. Commonly, a user's options are limited to a $29.95 phone call to a call center to a nice person in Bangelore reading info off a script.
If Microsoft had promoted Vista properly as to its HW requirements, (including the upgrade track) included a better overview of the more significant feature changes in it (from a USAGE perspective - not a "new glitzy feature" perspective), in an optional startup video tutorial, a lot would have gone differently. (and still could)
A few free, well designed, online tutorials on things like Vista file navigation, security feature use, and how to improve performance by turning aesthetic features off, would help today's users (that are more "on their own" than ever) a lot.
We look forward to the improvements MS is working on for W7, but there are more than a few things MS can do now to make Vista a greater success. (Why not put that notification option for security in a Service Pack or separate download now if the Vista implementation of it was such a mistake?)
A real display of goodwill now along these lines, would do more to lift Vista's prospects than a raft of commercials ever would.
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I remember those arguments in the third paragraph well. Linux fans seem to ignore that fact now...
...rest of this post is right on too.
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Today I have read a quite a few articles about Windows 7. Whilst all of them have touched on Vista's unpopularity and the reasons for that, I find it interesting to note that not one of them has mentioned the "elephant in the room" called embedded DRM, or given any indication as to whether Windows 7 is crawling with it like Vista is.
People are very reluctant to get stuck with an OS which thinks it can decide what they are allowed to do with their computers, so I predict that many will wait and see whether Microsoft has continued to "push that agenda" of mistrust and arrogance in Windows 7 (e.g. TPM, fritz chips, "tilt bits", protected pathways etc.).
If so then I also predict that users will continue to migrate to Apple and Linux in ever increasing numbers even if this new OS does run better than Vista, have a cooler UI and nag less.
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The segment they care most about are corporate customers. Very few of those customers would consider OSX or Linux for mass desktop deployments. The most likely outcome (if W7 doesn't catch on) would be continued life for XP.
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News flash! the embeded DRM that you are so afraid of is there to LET YOU play the media that you otherwise couldn't without it there. Windows does not dictate that the files that you create must be wrapped in DRM, nor does it consume any extra resources to play back DRM-free media. Any OS that wants to play back DRMed media will need to support it. So be thankful that Windows supports so many different kinds of DRMed media so that you CAN play it back (although with restrictions not set by microsoft, but by the content creators).
Oh and HAHAHA Apple, the least controlling of them all. (note the sarcasm). That requires you to use their hardware with a TPM to run their OS. That still only has DRMed video and only 1 major label supplying DRM-free music via iTunes.
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*laughing*
Troll much?
There is no embedded DRM. There is *support* for formats protected by DRM.
Palladium? Not in Vista.
"Protected Pathways" don't block you from playing media you legally own. It *does* allow you to play HDCP protected content.
DRM support adds functionality, takes *none* away, and is not *active* unless you are trying to play supported, protected media.
Get a clue.
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Beat me to it.... :p
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"Its initial release, with its stark, persistent, and nagging reminders of the need to maintain security, planted in users' minds the idea that something was inherently wrong with the product."
Now there is something I agree with. While it may be good for it to be this way, it is nonetheless doing exactly what was quoted.
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It's true, though having worked for a software security company, I personally found the popups useful (because they were built-in, they were less intrusive (crashing programs, etc) than most other programs with similar functionality)
Squeaky wheel gets the grease, but if you give the customer a free can of grease with every wheel, well...
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