RSSWhat's Behind Acer's Vista Complaints?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 30, 2006, 11:58 AM
In an interview published last week by the British publication PC Pro Acer Senior Vice President James Wong complained that Microsoft -- a company with which Acer has, at least on paper, partnered -- is actively scheming to force computer users to invest in more expensive PCs, in order to take advantage of the more feature-rich tier of its upcoming operating system, Windows Vista Home Premium.
"The new experience you hear of, if you get [Vista Home] Basic, you won't feel it at all," Wong reportedly stated, adding that the company is actually actively undermining its own lower tier in an effort to persuade customers to move up the value chain.
Acer is among many manufacturers whose names have been associated with the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo program, which is on Microsoft's upper tier. The "Certified" label, which at one time was to have been called "Vista capable" as opposed to "Vista ready," is a symbolic guarantee that new computers will render the new Vista environment with such graphic features as 3D transformations and partial alpha transparencies.
Without a graphics card that supports the DirectX 10 library, PCs will only be capable of rendering Vista with a more conventional appearance - certainly not plain, but without much of the "experience" that Microsoft has been touting as a principal Vista feature.
Last August, as Bloomberg News reported, a Hong Kong-based trade publication stated Acer would be among several manufacturers that have been asked to pay a portion of customers' upgrade fees, when they purchase a Vista-capable PC without Vista installed this holiday.
The paper provided what it claimed to be reliable estimates of $5 to $7 per coupon. A representative for Microsoft in China told reporters there that partners were free to choose their own strategies for handling that fee, meaning it would be up to them whether to pass that cost on to the customer.
In Wong's interview with PC Pro, he complained that manufacturers must pay 10% more to license Vista Home Premium than they currently do for XP Home Edition, which is not divided into "basic" and "premium" tiers. He indicated that this does directly result in price hikes for PCs, of about 1% to 2%.
In a global PC market whose growth rate is declining, by most reliable estimates, Acer's shipment growth this year has been around 40% annually, based on numbers from both Gartner Group and iSuppli. Briefly, Acer topped Lenovo on Gartner's list as the world's #3 PC supplier, and in iSuppli's list, the margin between #4 Acer and #3 Lenovo is razor-thin. Last week, Acer reported quarterly revenue up 17.1% from the same period in 2005. Meanwhile, market leader Dell is experiencing some serious declines, especially in the US.
How does Acer manage to buck the trend? An analysis published two weeks ago by GitexTimes points to two factors: Acer's steady growth in notebook PC sales, and the company's rapid push in emerging markets, such as the Middle East and Africa.
For example, Acer has recently scored exclusive supply deals with the governments of Jordan, Oman, and Bahrain. These deals include desktop PCs, which may be one major part of the reason why its desktop PC shipments are rising while others are falling.
But these shipments to the public sector and to emerging markets are clearly outside of Vista Premium territory, to customers for whom the "Certified" logo will least matter. Even with desktop PC shipments growing, though, they reflect 16% of the company's revenue, while 60% comes from notebook computers, and the remainder from sales of displays and MP3 players.
It's a lot easier for an OEM to upgrade a desktop PC line than a notebook line, especially with all the platform innovations that a DirectX 10-capable feature set requires. So the crux of Acer's complaints could center around the possibility that it's being persuaded, if not forced, to upgrade its feature set in order to stay competitive in markets that were not responsible for Acer's success this past year.
Microsoft informed BetaNews earlier today that an official comment on this subject may be forthcoming.
Mass market is the key to understand all this mess. As long as you feel insecure you pay for security. Does it remember you anything?
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|Most name brand have dinky 4 meg video cards anyway.
Let them have Vista Basic and stay in the darkness of mass market.
But I do have a BIG PROBLEM if I cant re-activate my shiny Vista Ultimate after a ALOT of hardware changes.
I would then say HELL WITH Microsoft and skip Vista, but I cant watch DX 10 pass me by.
Thank-You Sirs may I have another...(WACK)
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|After reading that Vista can only be transfered to a new computer once in the lifetime of the product I'm done with it anyway.
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|Why always more allmighty computers? After a long time using XP in my new machine, I casually connected again my old computer with Windows 98 SE. I loaded in it new compatible browsers (Maxthon, FF, Opera and others) and mail clients (Foxmail, Thunderbird), new cleaners and new optimizers. Really cool. I keep using it regularly. No games and no DVD applications, but no security problems, no unwanted updates and no intrusions at all instead. In a certain sense you experience a new freedom.
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|Wong must be high; Windows Vista WindowBlinds Edition does NOT require DirectX 10.
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|yeah well you had to of seen this coming. I mean yeah your right there really should not be a basic version. All versions should at least have the aero interface. I mean what the heck? So now someone is going to pay an extra 40 to 60 dollars for premium just to have an interface that has see through menu bars and thumb previews with live video? Oh wait it also has the media center "feature" that is only really useful if your going to hook it up to your hd tv.
let's also not forget that those versions prob won't be capable of hooking up to a domain. So I guess you now have to buy ultimate right?
Microsoft is just a weird company they do stuff that really doesn't make sense.
marketing vista as having a aero interface then stripping it out in the version most people are going to buy and most oem's will ship with was just plain wrong.
But thats the way it is. That is why the provided all editions on the same dvd, so when you buy the basic version then get told about all the advanced features that you already thought you ahd with the next upgrade, you might dish out another 60 bucks. Nice job.
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|You just cant satisfy everybody, I here people complaning all the time about bloat, Microsoft seperates it, here come the complaints, too many versions.
This is what we asked for, Right?
Why should I pay for Aero if Im just going to disable it and go back to classic.
BTW its only 4 versions you can buy off the shelf 2 Home, 1 Biz, 1 for both
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|"This is what we asked for, Right?"
what?
are you thick?
it was never about paying for something you didn't use, it was about not being able to remove a windows integrated program for a third party alternative.
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|Thank goodness for James Wong blowing the lid on Microsoft's super secret strategy "to persuade customers to move up the value chain."
Before he came along with this brilliant revelation, I was completely convinced that Microsoft (and all other corporations) were promoting a minimalist lifestyle. I expected that shopping malls would be shutting down, 500 cable TV channels would all switch to public broadcasting and donation-funded community programming, and Starbucks would be bringing back the 25-cent cup of coffee.
Luckily, James Wong warned me in time to steer clear of that sneaky Microsoft. Let's all meet at Starbucks to celebrate. Bring a quarter.
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|He indicated that this does directly result in price hikes for PCs, of about 1% to 2%.
Sounds like Acer is looking for an excuse to raise prices. What do you wanna bet they'll make 5-10% price hikes and blame it on MS.
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|I think that MS is trying to do with vista what they did with Windows 95. I has been 4 years since they last had a mojor OS release (similar to the the time before Win 95). They are going to find some way to force everyone to upgrade by completely killing support for XP and "convincing" software publishers to only release code that is vista only (or is atleaste is marketed as being vista only).
As for the multiple release versions I cannot think of an IT shop that is going to support both business, Enterprise and Ultimate (have to make the CEO's feel good).
I think it will be interesting to see how many offices start switching over to linux. It could also prove interesting if MAC were to release the latest version of OS X for the PC on the same day as the vista launch.
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|Instead of making a high performance OS. They bloat it even more than an already bloated XP. Then they confuse Windows with a video game and use Aero as a selling point. Suckers will be lined up to install this "cool" looking OS. ROFL
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|....where to begin...
Oh, yeah.
Shouldn't you be in school?
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|Yes, we wouldn't want a person's OS to actually take advantage of its specialized video hardware. Its much better to let the GUI continue to take up CPU cycles. (I've had an ever so slight resentment of GUIs, ever since Win3.1. It has decreased as CPUs became powerful enough to handle GUIs AND useful work, but the principle that the GUI still ate CPU cycles that could've been used for something else still bothered me. Now the GUI can be handled by the hardware built for graphics.
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|This is by far the lamest article I've ever come across here.
Most, if not all laptops produced in the last 6 months have been Vista Capable. PC's only requirements above and beyond what's been available on *any* system with at least 512MB of ram is at *most* another 512MB and a $40 video card (probably $20 OEM/white-box).
In Wong's interview with PC Pro, he complained that manufacturers must pay 10% more to license Vista Home Premium than they currently do for XP Home Edition, which is not divided into "basic" and "premium" tiers. He indicated that this does directly result in price hikes for PCs, of about 1% to 2%.
The dolt is comparing apple's to oranges. XP home does not have media-center functionality. Vista home Premium *does*.
One must wonder is this guy has even *seen* the OS in question...
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|Anyone with half a brain would agree that MS has been working with this kind of thing in mind anyway.
Vista Basic should not be called Vista if you're not going to get the "Vista" experience to begin with.
People are associating the "Vista" name to the new interface as it is.
Quite honestly there shouldn't be a home basic version, it should just be premium and be done with it. It just interjects more confusion into the market to begin with.
When you buy a pc with Vista you would have what, 4 choices? Basic Home, Basic Premium, Vista's "pro" version and the "Ultimate" edition?
The distinction between XP Pro and XP Home was pretty clear for anyone who knows about computers, but now even that won't be, with all the confusion of what edition does or doesn't have what included with it.
This is nothing more than a typical MS money-grab. And this is "news" to people?
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|Actually there are at least 6 of them:
Vista Business
Vista Enterprise
Vista Home Basic
Vista Home Premium
Vista Ultimate
Vista Starter
For some reason I was thinking there were going to be 7 of them, but in any case its way too many versions.
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|Yes, but you're not going to buy a PC at the store with Business, Enterprise, or Starter on it.
At least, not in the US.
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|Waaaahhhh.....where's Vista Training Wheels?
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|It's called Apple Macintosh. ;)
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|Without a graphics card that supports the DirectX 10 library, PCs will only be capable of rendering Vista with a more conventional appearance - certainly not plain, but without much of the "experience" that Microsoft has been touting as a principal Vista feature.
??? I am running RC2 with onboard graphics, with all the bells and whistles running just fine. Granted, the onboard is a 6150 and not an intel integrated piece of crap.
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|Same here, running RC2 on a card that was made before DX10 was ever announced (GeForce 6 series).
Everything runs fine.
Besides, we have a bit of a ways to go until games REQUIRE DirectX10, because that would mean locking out all the users who use XP or lower... and losing those sales. Until that group becomes a minority the company would be insane to market to just Vista users.
Oh wait, Halo 2 PC is going to be DX10 only. Right, insane, like I said. :P
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|The 6150 will support DX10 (AFAIK).
It's got the 128MB, and my experience mimics yours. My wife's HP has the 6150LE (on an Asus A8N-VM-CSM, no less) and Vista runs brilliantly on it.
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|...
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|Yep, that's the micro atx mobo I am using in my testing machine, and it has a Athlon64 3000 (no current powerhouse by any means) and runs great.
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|neener-neener.
Mine's (my wife's, rather) a 3800+. :p
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|3800+ ftw, at least for now...year end bonus may decide what I upgrade.
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|I'd wait until the quads come out at least. Not that I'd buy one right away, but the prices on the rest of the lot should drop quite a bit.
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|If you want to take advantage of a new powerful GUI, then you'll need the appropriate hardware. The same thing with xgl on linux. I think this article is lame.
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|I don't know why you got modded down, but you're right.
Vista is an upgrade, folks. In order to maximize it's feature-set, you need that hardware to support it.
You think Compiz\XGL will run on an *MB integrated Intel GPU? Good luck with that.
Ya want pretty, you need a decent vid card.
That said, I haven't seen a system for sale in the past 6 months (if not longer) that *won't* support Aero.
I agree. Teh article is lame. Seems to be here only in the interest of starting a flame-war.
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|Interesting--(glances through BN policy). Well, the reserve the right to remove comments for any reason, so can't complain that they are doing something they shouldn't, but weird that this post does not violate any other specific policy and is still a -1 score.
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|I haven't seen a system for sale in the past 6 months (if not longer) that *won't* support Aero.
Probably some bottom of the barrel Dells using integrated intel graphics...but would anyone seriously expect those machines to be capable without a major upgrade? Well, I am sure some would, but that doesn't mean it is a reasonable expectation.
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|What's with the asinine mod down??? Hey, BetaNews, strap on some huevos and get in here and explain this one!
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|Agreed.
Damn you.
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