Vista, Disaster and Microsoft’s Rosy World
Posted on October 15, 2006
Filed Under Companies |
The idea that Vista is doomed and Microsoft will be hauled over the coals by the EU competition authorities, mercy, mercy, is gaining unnecessary traction.
I like Vista. I like the semi-transparent screens. It really appeals to the boy racer in me. I can’t be seen in a car with stripes down the side but an operating system equivalent? Gimme. For years I used Macs and then decided I won’t apologise again for a client, editor, friend not being able to open a file. I went to MS.
How worried would I be about the EU? I attend some of those meetings where the big bad American bear becomes the topic of regulatory and investment conversation. They don’t talk Microsfot any more, they talk Google. So worry, yes, but in a been there and done that kind of way.
Back to the small screen.
Is VISTA so critical to MSFT? It’s probably the last great OS update as everything moves to the web and open source. If it fails relatively speaking, along with IE 7, so what? These products are Microsoft’s mature market and there is no make or break. You could almost wish them away if you want your business to become more dynamic.
MSFT has an adorable future on the small screen - the TV and mobile. Microsoft and Alcatel are working on a buddy system f0r the future networked television (which is where research dollars are headed).
It will allow you to alert one of your buddies (anywhere on the telco network that will also be the TV network) to what you happen to be watching. It will let you build groups, IM and do wonderful things in your living room.
Got Clooney on screen? Tell your girlfriends what they’re missing with an IM type message through the TV. Better still IPTV on your telco’s network will allow you to record and then show your girls friends everything they missed in a Clooney movie. When you record in IPTV the recording takes place in the network so you don’t have to set up a TiVo or other device.
MSFT is in the middle of it, just as it is in the middle of handheld developments, games, downloads. It doesn’t quite breast the tape but being in the medals in all these areas doesn’t sound like a company on the brink - though spelling out MSFT doom is a biannual fest. I’d rather be in the back of everyone’s TV, and powering their mobile experience, game life, tunes, and uploads than dealing with a legacy system on PCs ten years down the tracks.
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2 Responses to “Vista, Disaster and Microsoft’s Rosy World”
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Vista may be a good operating system. It may even be a great operating system. It may be crap. My perspective is that I don’t care and Microsoft has done nothing to induce me to care. I manage several hundred workstations and servers. We buy about half a dozen machines every month or so. I now find that I cannot buy PCs with anything but Vista. This makes daddy very unhappy. I don’t care what Vista does better or differently. Business runs on standards and will not embrace a new OS across the board. I will continue to read and learn about Vista but this method of release is badly done.
Buddesatva
The year is 2008 now. Yes, a full year after the Vista saw light through an obviously very painfull birth. My laptop with perfectly legal XPs was stolen in November 2007. So I got a new one. By that time even over here in Czech republic (that´s the part of Europe that does actually better than you U.S. folks nowadays, in case you´re not being told) it was impossible to find anything new without the “improved” system. That is if I didn´t want to venture into any Cult of Greengrocers dealing with electronics that look nice instead of being accesible or the other guys always liking a little cuddle with maths or penguins, neither of which I do. Anyway, after four months of my personal patience and the whole full year of Windows Vista being on market I´m giving up on it. I´ll just “flush it down the toilet” and will install probably an old XP and wait untill the MS bunch will finish their job properly. Just don´t expect me to pay for any of it, anymore. I have already. More than enough.