Submitted by US sales of computers carrying Microsoft’s new operating system Vista soared in the week after it was launched, defying the expectations of analysts who gave Vista lackluster reviews. Personal computer sales for the week following Vista’s debut to succeed Microsoft’s Windows XP in January were 67 percent higher than those in the same week in 2006, and nearly triple those of the preceding week, according to Current Analysis.
I read elsewhere that this rise in PC sales had more to do with lowering prices on XP based computers to clear out old stock.
So, the rise in sales may be due to Vista’s arrival, but not in the way the article may lead you to believe.
This basically means that people will be throwing away large numbers of computers soon (yes, people actually do that)…
Start visiting your local landfills and dump sites in order to pick up 2-year-old machines that need to be “cleaned” of their malware and put back into good use.
This basically means that people will be throwing away large numbers of computers soon (yes, people actually do that)…
Start visiting your local landfills and dump sites in order to pick up 2-year-old machines that need to be “cleaned” of their malware and put back into good use.
any Mac’s there ?
.
Nope, I’m running the latest version of OS X on my clamshell iBook. It’s around 7 years old and still works like a dream.
Thanks for confirming no Mac’s on dump sites :/
This 8-9 years B/W PM G3 350 Mhz ain’t that bad either – running 10.4 charmingly
Bullshit. Unless you think “charmingly” means I’m able to surf the web and open Mail. We have a Grey and White dual 450MHz G4 at work running 10.3.9 and it’s a real dog for anything but mail and the web. CS2 works on it but I’m glad it’s not my computer.
Bullshit. Unless you think “charmingly” means I’m able to surf the web and open Mail.
10.4 Tiger runs actually faster on this G3 350Mhz than the previous 10.3 Jaguar. Every new version of Mac OS X runs faster than previous version on older hardware.
We have a Grey and White dual 450MHz G4 at work running 10.3.9 and it’s a real dog for anything but mail and the web. CS2 works on it but I’m glad it’s not my computer
Did you expect a modern Photoshop-station CSII on a 9 years old machine ? It will although run older versions of Photoshop very well. My PM G3 350 serves as a 365 7/24 server and as a all around surf station for everyone in our SOHO workplace. It has done so the last 3 years. Receives incoming faxes, web server for the LAN, iTunes music and podcast server for everyone as well as file and print services. It runs office apps fine (good enough)
“10.4 Tiger runs actually faster on this G3 350Mhz than the previous 10.3 Jaguar.”
We didn’t find that to be the case with the two 4-year-old G3 iMacs we had. When we upgraded them to Tiger, they slowed to to a near full stop…so we actually just had to phase them out since no one wanted to use them and no one wanted to go through the trouble of reinstalling Panther and all the old versions of other softwares.
Every new version of Mac OS X runs faster than previous version on older hardware.
Bull shit. There is no way this is possible Apple has really shitty programmers and they have to keep refactoring their code to make it better. Or they are purposely slowing down previous versions to make the new versions look like a better buy.
Either way it doesn’t speak well for Apple, and I really have to assume you have no idea what you are talking about.
Bull shit. There is no way this is possible Apple has really shitty programmers and they have to keep refactoring their code to make it better. Or they are purposely slowing down previous versions to make the new versions look like a better buy
Rather outrageous statement. Apple frequently optimizes OS X. ‘Tiger’ runs faster on older supported hardware than ‘Panther’. Of course if you espect features in ‘Tiger’ such as ‘Quartz Extreme’ and ‘Core Image’, and softwares designed to use these features on an older G3 then you are expecting the impossible.
If you want to use features like the above on a G3 B&W for example, you can upgrade to a G4 processor and a new video card with excellent results. Try that with ‘Vista Home Premium’ on a Pentium III machine. It isn’t going to happen. Vista should run adequately well with some upgrades such as RAM, and likely be an improvement (if you can get it to install), but you will not run all the features a “Premium’ capable machine will. Upgrade the processor? No way. Oh yeah, a new MOBO, power supply, RAM, video card…. oops, I guess a new machine.
Try that with ‘Vista Home Premium’ on a Pentium III machine.
That is the problem with you Mac people, forget about the decade old hardware. Stop living in the past. Go out and buy a new machine for $300.00 US. Oops. I forgot you have to plop down at least a grand to get a barely functioning computer by by current standards. And forget about upgrading the thing, the only options you have to upgrade are pretty much the RAM and Hard Drive, but only if it is on the Apple Care approved super priced perpetual list. Or you risk voiding your already shitty support program.
But… you won’t be able to run Vista on your Mac unless you get one of the more recent models :p
Edited 2007-02-11 01:48
Yes, but the 2 year old Macs are broken beyond repair.
(I’m getting voted down, I know)
i have 5 free pcs with windows xp found in a dumpsite
Last week all parts of my new computer arrived. I’m assembling it myself, and I’m quite happy with all the shining new hardware
Partitioning is difficult – I want to have room for Windows XP, Vista and Gentoo, and maybe Fedora. Installing XP is easy, and the XP drivers for my geforce 8800 are OK. Of course, I will wait with installing Vista until most bugs are fixed, drivers are available, and until I really need it for directx 10 games. But c’mon, why install Vista while it offers nothing I need right now? I’m using the classic windows interface, themes in XP are for children and only show down my computer. If I want fancy graphics, I just install Gentoo with Beryl, that’s just more fun.
Why not wait until you can sensibly ditch XP for Vista? Then you only need room for XP and Gentoo.
Personal computer sales for the week following Vista’s debut to succeed Microsoft’s
Windows XP in January were 67 percent higher than those in the same week in 2006, and nearly triple those of the preceding week, according to Current Analysis Inc.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? This week in 2006, WinXP was many years old already. No shit nobody bought it. Also without any hardline numbers these relations mean absolutely dick. If WinXP sold 2 copies and Vista sold 6, that’s 3 times! as many sales. Oh my god, alert the presses.
From the article…
[i]”Adding to the achievement was the fact that computer sales are usually sluggish during the end of January and the beginning of February.<i/>
I’d guess that it doesn’t have anything to do with the age of XP. Personally, I’ve never put off a computer purchase due to the “age” of the OS.
People just don’t buy that many computers at this time of year. So, in that sense, you’re right that neither a 67% or a threefold increase means much.
for people to accept that MS does anything positive?
I have said this before, MS and the PC industry work hand in hand. New and different releases require X, Y and Z to work so people get a new machine. Prices fall for older hardware, early adopters buy new while smart shoppers pick up great deals and wait for the next cycle.
Accept the fact that new stuff, even if its repackaged old stuff (like most Uninformed people think vista is), help sell computers. At least now a bargain maachine is a duo core, sweet!
I have said this before, MS and the PC industry work hand in hand.
And… you have been wrong before.
Microsoft works hand in hand with no-one.
The reason each new release demands an upgrade is purely down to lazy programming.
Each new generation has more and more bloated programming tools, the latest being .NET
Ban them and make everyone learn assembler !
And while we’re at it, we should all go back to living in caves! Running water and central heating is inefficient and only for sissies!
In my day, we programmed by aranging twigs on the floor into binary states and running the programs through our head. It did us just fine without all these fancy compilers and junk.
In my day, we programmed by aranging twigs on the floor into binary states and running the programs through our head. It did us just fine without all these fancy compilers and junk.
And in your days people used to ride horses because there were no all these fancy cars. Earth was center of the Universe and people were not allowed to read anything but the Bible, right?
And just look at them today.. all these sex magazines, naked people jump all over the place and presidents get b******* in their offices. Oh, my! Let’s not forget the ultimate evil – Internet. Have you heard that the Pope was Nazi?
Salvation, oh please
Edited 2007-02-10 22:22
calm down mate, there are people on this site who will not take that as a joke.
I think their sarcasm detectors are broken.
Accept the fact that new stuff, even if its repackaged old stuff (like most Uninformed people think vista is), help sell computers.
Accept the fact that new stuff, even if its repackaged old stuff (like any non-fanboy can clearly see vista is), help sell computers.
Fixed that for ya.
“””
I have said this before, MS and the PC industry work hand in hand.
“””
I would disagree. There is a relationship, to be sure. But it would be more accurate to say that the PC industry works in Microsoft’s hands. Practically speaking, it is not as though anyone other than Microsoft has much of a say as to the terms of the relationship.
Edited 2007-02-11 23:34
The jist of the article is about PC sales, not OS sales.
Where are the VISTA sales figures ?
Come on Microsoft, show us how many people are buying Vista, not just a new machine?
How many people have upgraded to Vista ?
How many people have downgraded to XP ?
Scared to show the REAL data ?
It doesn’t take the massive intellect of a Linux fanboy to check over at Amazon and realize that, yes, Vista is selling like hotcakes, just as anyone capable of rational thought expected.
Look people, all the analysts who told you that Vista would be a turn-off and cause consumers to jump into the arms of Apple or Linux were just playing a sick little joke on you. They knew you would click on their links and believe what you want to believe. They got their page hits, you got your hopes up, everyone was happy.
There are two kinds of people buying Vista right now. The average consumers who are getting it with their new PCs, and the Windows power-users who are running to the stores to get it (even if they we underwhelmed by the beta releases). Neither of these groups gives a damn about the downsides of Vista. One group isn’t informed enough, and the other has too much at stake.
Just look at poor Scot Finnie from yesterday’s story. He’s gone and convinced himself that he likes his Mac more than he liked Windows, but you can tell he’s not happy with the Mac apps he found to replace his Windows ones. Give him 60 days and he’ll find some reason to go back to Vista, probably touting how it’s got better driver and app support since the launch. He’s trying really hard not to like Vista, just like his peers in analyst land, but it’s just not bad enough to truly hate.
The fact of the matter is that with Vista, Microsoft has yet again resurrected its favorite release criteria: good enough. Just barely keeping pace with where Leopard will be, both watching Linux a few strides behind and closing steadily.
Analysts say that people are happy with Windows XP, which will limit Vista uptake. I disagree. People are not happy with Windows XP. It’s still way too hard for average people to administer their computers. Will Vista make this easier? Maybe not. But consumers are willing to give it a shot anyway. Because although the tech-savvy know that Vista offers relatively few fundamental advantages over Windows XP, consumers are interested in anything that might help them navigate the confusing mess that is their Windows PC. In this sense, Windows XP is both Vista’s biggest competition and its most compelling reason to upgrade.
Corporate IT is staying put, consumers are searching for something better. What else is new?
Did you actually READ what I wrote ?
I want actual figures !
Of course anyone can go to Amazon and see it is for sale, but how is that going to show me any official figures.
One thing I can see though, is that some people are buying Vista, then selling it again.
Now, like I said in the original post…
Show us the figures for new sales, for upgrades and for regrades.
OK, you want numbers, I get it. What makes you think you’re entitled to these numbers? Are you accustomed to receiving real-time sales figures from software vendors?
You’re only entitled to the same information Microsoft’s shareholders receive: once per quarter, gross and net, split into business units (i.e. no indication of Vista vs. XP revenue).
Maybe if you ask them real nice…
Amazon to show that Vista is selling like hotcakes , worldwide , not impressed at all , lets confirm it :
Best seller in software :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software/ref=pd_ts_c_th_head/0…
Tax Softwares …
Desktop :
http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_3401592_3/002-9268642-9502465?…
Apple …
Laptop :
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/pc/5…
Apple …
Now , I guess hotcakes dont mean #1 with a large margin these days … Like other windows version sold where.
Now Where are the Vista ultimate sales in those ? Aren’t Vista Ultimate *the* ultimate windows vista platform or is the only thing ultimate about it is its price ?
I am sorry but since you introduced an off topic subject in Vista sale by discussing how you want to bash GNU/Linux , let me say that WOW Burning crusade was selling like hotcakes , the difference is simple.
Stores ran out of stock , There where waiting lines for it and people actually bought the special edition , for the content , not because all other version where broken in some way and offered less , but because it offered more.
When I read sale report from trusted source they give actual numbers , by product and regions , when someone quote 2 out of the 7 retail version and direct me to amazon , excuse me if I seem to find it really bogus.
Considering that when I clicked on your link, Vista Ultimate was at # 14, and most of the rest was office software or tax software (and considering the time of year), I think you could define Vista sales as selling like hotcakes, and WOW Burning Crusade selling like crack cocaine
In our region most big box stores had virtually no inventory to sell the week prior to Vista’s launch, some for as much as 2 weeks prior. New computers arriving with Vista sat in storage rooms and could not be sold until Jan. 30 per “agreement” with MS. the first full month and first quarter sales will be the only more realistic stats.
I’m having a hard time figuring out how this is good news for Vista. I guess in one sense it’s a good thing that people aren’t actively avoiding buying new computers because of Vista, but how much of the sales are due to people just jumping to the front of the inevitable upgrade curve, versus people actually wanting Vista?
The simple fact is that regardless of what kind of reviews Vista gets, everyone will eventually buy it. Either they’ll have to buy an upgrade copy to run some new piece of software or hardware, or they’ll get it with a new machine. If sales of your product are inevitable, how then can good sales reflect positively on your product?
PS) This isn’t just Microsoft, btw. Leopard will still probably have great sales among Mac users, even if it isn’t very good, simply because people will eventually have to upgrade to it, so they might as well get it over with.
“Leopard will still probably have great sales among Mac users, even if it isn’t very good, simply because people will eventually have to upgrade to it, so they might as well get it over with.”
How is this any different with Vista?
It isn’t. Which was what I said.
You’re on the right track, I think. Microsoft has two markets for its desktop client: consumers and businesses. The consumer market is nearly automatic, like you suggest. Vista sales will scale with the PC market, plus a relatively consistent (and small) factor that accounts for upgrades.
Despite all of the whiz-bang features and marketing blitz, the only true reflection of Microsoft’s success with the Vista client is in corporate uptake. Nobody is expecting this market to jump in with the early adopters, but analysts are looking closely at when the waves of corporate Vista transitions start to happen. Will businesses start their migrations within the year, or will they stay put through most of 2008?
You raise some valid points about business uptake (and it’s nice to see some folks around here who realize that the consumer market is peanuts for MS).
I personally don’t think Vista will take off in the biz sector until Vista Server is released, and who knows when that will be. But even moreso than that, it’ll be up to the corporate development teams as to how fast Vista adoption rates are before VS comes out…as a development platform, Vista does have some very clear advantages over XP.
I’ve been in the consulting industry for a while now, and I haven’t seen Vista/.Net 3.0/etc mentioned in a single spec as of yet…nor have any of my colleagues. That’s not to say IT decision makers are not impressed with Vista, but the overall cost of migration is too much for the added benefits…and of course we can’t just pitch software that uses Vista features just for the sake of pitching it.
I expect the business space to remain pretty quiet until maybe 4th Q of this year; XP SP3 is supposed to be out then, so I would expect some smaller businesses to start rolling out Vista, along with depts in larger businesses that might have a special need for it.
Will businesses start their migrations within the year, or will they stay put through most of 2008?
Depends on how terrible their custom applications are written and thus compatibility broken, and whether software vendors started investing their over inflated profits back into their products to provide any necessary patches to bring about compatibility.
There are some great features in Windows Vista such as the work flow API and the likes, but its going to a while before we start seeing applications out there taking advantage of those new features?
By the time software take advantage of those features where will Linux be? considering there might be atleast a 2 years lead time between Vista and Vista based applications; thats a long time in the IT world, Linux could make a leap forward, Sun might actually finally pull the finger out of their ass and make a decent effort to turn it into the Windows alternative that I know it can be, but never pushed enough to actually achieve that ability.
By the time software take advantage of those features where will Linux be?
Which will happen first: Will corporate IT mold itself around Vista, or will Linux mold itself around corporate IT? That’s pretty much the crux of the issue.
Microsoft is making advances that look linear. Linux development looks more exponential. Everybody wants to stand in front of an exponential curve and point at it. You get promoted for doing that.
But more specifically, certain shifts happened during the Vista development cycle. IT is now conscious of the MS lock-in, and they will try to avoid it as best they can. That will limit the uptake of Vista APIs. This leads me to the next point, which is that MS no longer drives standards. While they were away toiling with the complexities of the Windows codebase, Linux began to dictate the IT agenda. It used to be that if you didn’t have an IT strategy concerning Linux, you better start thinking about one. Now, if you don’t have a Linux strategy, you must not be in the IT business.
RANT WARNING!
The executives who really dictate IT strategy talk about Linux in terms of eventualities. Linux isn’t a competitor to Windows, it’s the eventual replacement. Linux isn’t a competitor to AIX, it’s the eventual replacement. By the time Linux reaches competitiveness, it’s already a replacement. When? Nobody knows. But anyone at the helm of the IT industry who isn’t short-sighted (i.e. not Sun) envisions a future consisting of Linux and not much else. Hey, if HP’s customers want Solaris on x86, give them Solaris. But the tattered remains of a once great company still knows more about IT than Sun, and that will never change.
Flamebait? Show me a strategy for competing head-to-head with Linux. The key is that Linux is not your usual disruptive technology that can be addressed with the usual embrace and extend tactics. That’s OpenSolaris in a nutshell. Linux is the result of a major social phenomenon. There are many thousands of very smart people around the world who didn’t go to elite schools and didn’t get jobs at the major software vendors. They decided to cooperate and show that they can make better software, and the rest is history. Do you honestly imagine that Sun can hijack the Linux community at this stage in the game, after all of the inroads made and heads turned? I’m sorry, Mr. Schwartz, but the ship has sailed. Linux has become what UNIX should have been, and it’s all eventualities from here on forward. The future of IT belongs to each and every one of us.
I would say that you’re incorrect about OpenSolaris, however; OpenSolaris is going to take time because not all parts can be opensourced, they need to be replaced gradually as copyright encombered code is replaced with clean room implementations.
With that being said, what is holding it back is a lack of leadership and vision by Sun – like I said, they have the potential there, but they don’t take advantage of it; its like watching a gifted child who turns to drugs and alcohol rather than using those abilities to makeselves successful later on in life.
I just *hope* that *maybe* the CEO of Sun knows something we all don’t know about GPL3, OpenSolaris, and whats happening behind closed door, because so far, the development of OpenSolaris is almost dead given that none of the big ticket items in regards to bugs aren’t even being addressed.
That’s a good point about business upgrades. They’re all going to switch to Vista sooner or later, but in the past they’ve demonstrated a bit more independence with the upgrade timing than has the consumer market.
Entertainingly, though, Vista isn’t “for” the business market at all. Most of Vista’s new features are targeted squarely at consumers (Aero, UAC, etc).
I’m having a hard time figuring out how this is good news for Vista. I guess in one sense it’s a good thing that people aren’t actively avoiding buying new computers because of Vista, but how much of the sales are due to people just jumping to the front of the inevitable upgrade curve, versus people actually wanting Vista?
The simple fact is that regardless of what kind of reviews Vista gets, everyone will eventually buy it. Either they’ll have to buy an upgrade copy to run some new piece of software or hardware, or they’ll get it with a new machine. If sales of your product are inevitable, how then can good sales reflect positively on your product?
PS) This isn’t just Microsoft, btw. Leopard will still probably have great sales among Mac users, even if it isn’t very good, simply because people will eventually have to upgrade to it, so they might as well get it over with.
True; but at the same time, what is going to spur sales of Windows Vista won’t be Microsoft’s hype, but Office 2007 – personally, they should have added more, “Vista only” features to spur adoption, and what third parties have to offer in the way of applications that take advantage of Vista’s new technologies.
The problem with Vista isn’t that there aren’t enough features, but the fact that many of the features are deeply hidden, and for the end user to actually experience those features, it relies on third parties to release applications to take advantage of them.
As for Leopard, its almost a certaintity that Apple will release “Leopard Optimised” bits of hardware – so its hardly a new thing.
As for ‘throwing hardware out’ – I’ve got a Toshiba laptop here, hardly top of the line (A100-PSAA9A-0CU004) and it runs Windows Vista very well, smooth, fast, reliable, and not a crash yet.
So in regards to the doom and gloon merchants, as a singer once said, “don’t believe the hype, don’t don’t don’t believe the hype”.
No doom and gloom, just cynicism. It’s hard to tout great sales of your new products when everyone will eventually have to buy your product anyway.
Hence the reason I sing “don’t believe the hype” – if you’re making a decision to buy something off the back of what everyone else is buying, you’re doomed to purchase something you don’t need and doesn’t address what you want it to.
Use what you think does the just, and to hell what anyone else is running.
Anyone who gives their money to Microfart to buy Vista is a total idiot. Idiots deserve shitty software.
I have seen a number of things happen with the Vista release it.
1)some people really want Vista and Buy it right away. 30%ish
2)Some people Fear Vista and are Staying with XP.40%ish
3)People jumping to the Mac 20%ish
4)A number of New linux users asking me about what will work with there new OS 10%ish
I suspect this is probably the perfect time to get “throwaway” (just-not-good-enough-for-vista) PC’s for cheap and either keep/install XP on it or install Linux.
Personally I chose Linux: I love being able to benefit from all the improvements being made over time, yet also being able to keep my current hardware (heck, XGL even worked fine on my old Geforce MX440!). XGL, Beagle search, the new KDE menu from SuSe, improved directx support in Wine, … none of which required me to upgrade my hardware. Only I got a 6600GT card some time ago in order to run my games in Windows/Wine better.
But although Linux is great… some people just don’t seem have the patience for it! And then they start blaming all their problems on the OS. Not pretty.
About Vista, well, I have to say, here in Europe, Vista is sort of a non-issue.
Almost no one is talking about it… I also spotted a new magazine, “Vista Magazine” or something, but not a single one of it has been sold yet (I come by that shop to buy Linux and computer magazine and gaming magazines, to read on the train).
Edited 2007-02-10 22:14
Thats a thing…
If no-one uses Linux, why are all the shops always sold out of the Linux magazines the day after release ?
Where I go, they’re usually not sold out… I wish, but they’re not. But practically every magazine shop I visit has *at least* copies of two Linux magazines – 2 out of these 3:
– Linux Magazine
– Linux Format
– Linux User & Developer
They’re more expensive then the Windows counterparts, but then again the quality of the magazine&articles are usually much better than 95% of those!
But apparently enough people keep buying them (Linux mags)frequently enough so they remain in the racks.
A couple of months ago, all I could think about was upgrade my hardware… but now I’m perfectly happy to keep my current system for at least another couple of years. There’ll always be a distro just right for it.
I’ll bet you anything that sales of hardware (with Windows pre-loaded) have been *WAY* down below ‘year-ago-sales’. The reason for my speculation is that the surge is actually due people who have been holding off buying for the past 6 months because they knew they would be buying outdated hardware. So, they waited until Vista’s release to purchase. I should have written an article 3 months ago how Vista was hurting PC sales, in the pre-release period.
Perhaps I’m not representative, but one of the concerns *I* have for not buying recent hardware, is because I’m a bit ‘scared’ of all the DRM stuff most HW companies are trying to put into it!
Perhaps in 5 years I’ll be forced to buy my hardware from China in order to remain DRM-free so I can keep control of my own computer. Now that’s kind of an ironic thought.
“The reason for my speculation is that the surge is actually due people who have been holding off buying for the past 6 months because they knew they would be buying outdated hardware.”
Nice theory, however most of the big vendors have been offering “Vista Certified” hardware + free upgrade licenses to Vista once it came out for many months now.
I’m not convinced, consumers tend to be wary of promises, even when they’re ones that can be upheld. Why buy a computer now, only to have to upgrade it in 1 month when you could buy a new (cheaper?) computer next month without the bother of upgrading it, or returning it for upgrade.
Confused as to why I was modded down for my reply, but whatever.
Some posts I see modded up to 5 stop short of calling someone’s mother a whore, and others (such as mine) state mere facts or rebuttals yet get modded down.
Fix the g/d modding system on this site.
Now mod me down for being OT, at least it’s legit this time.
it’s 275gb raid 0 sata II, geforce 6800gtx (256mb) P4@3ghz and 1gb ram. AERO runs just fine and the machine is working great with vista dual booting with xp. in fact I only boot it into vista now as my kids use the pc also and I like using the parenal controls aspect.
I bought this pc in September 2003 and it runs vista brilliantly, and the only thing i’ve changed about the pc since it’s original configuration (and that was over a year ago) was the video card> upgraded the ati 128mb radeon to the nvidia…
so maybe you don’t need to throw away your old pc yet if you really want to run vista,
just my 2 cents
cheers
anyweb
it’s 275gb raid 0 sata II, geforce 6800gtx (256mb) P4@3ghz and 1gb ram.
You call that an “old PC”?..
The PC I’m using right now is 700MHz, 256MB. Almost as fast as your videocard
I agree, that’s hardly what I’d call an “old PC”…my “old” PC is a Pentium 166 (web server/firewall), my “middle-aged” PC is an Athlon 900, 80MB HD, 1GB RAM, my “young adult” laptop is a Turion64, 1.6GHz…
The PC industry is very consumerist, with hardware becoming “obsolete” very quickly. It’s always been that way, driven mostly by games…Vista is part of this. Dell and other PC makers hope it will make people buy new PCs so they can use all its bells and whistles. MS doesn’t have a choice, it has to guarantee a revenue stream or it will collapse.
I’m not sure how much longer this industry can continue to function like this. There are already signs that it is losing some steam…I think this is a good opportunity for alternate OSes. Linux, among others, may benefit from the fact that it can already offer a fine desktop experience on what people here would consider old hardware (with Beryl running fine on older 3D hardware for eye candy buffs).
I can see how games drive upgrading in the home market, but I can never understand why so many companies feel the need to upgrade all their computers very couple of years. Often there’s nothing wrong with the existing machines, and any productivity boost from the faster computers is offset by all the time wasted by inevitable problems with the new systems.
For example, my office has just finished throwing away the last of their old P4 systems. Most were replaced with new Athlon 64X2 hardware last year, but 2.4Ghz 256Mb RAM P4s were still used in the company call centre.
Obviously with that little RAM they would be useless for Vista, and pretty painful running Office 2003 on XP, but all they were used for was call logging and accessing a database. There was no analysis of whether much faster computers are actually needed for the task, the P4s were a few years old so they go in the trash. I imagine the call centre people will be enjoying Vista eye candy on their PCs in a few months, while essentially using them as simple terminals.
That isn’t an isolated case, everywhere I’ve worked seems to have the same kind of wasteful policy. I suppose if the IT department didn’t keep trying to fix things that aren’t broken they’d be out of a job…
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/channel_cleaned_house_…
This makes more sense.
That’s a very interesting article, and the argument put forth makes a lot of sense. From the article:
“PC sales plummeted the two weeks before Windows Vista’s Jan. 30 release, as retailers cleared out older Windows XP inventory. The channel clearing–and not Windows Vista–looks to be the major reason for an apparent end-of-month sales spike. […] Based on channel checks, [Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of Industry Analysis] expected to find that PC sales declined ahead of Vista’s launch because there was little or no stock to sell, creating pent-up demand independent of the new operating system.”
All in all, I think it’s *way* too early to gauge Vista’s market success…of course, because of Microsoft’s hold on the OEM market, it *will* eventually displace XP, but any analysis of its sales performance should wait a couple of more weeks, if not months IMO.
Take a closer look here:
http://www.currentanalysis.com/r/2007/s/vista-2-1.htm
It’s really an illustration for claim that customers were waiting for new OS.
But I don’t think there’s single prove “that U.S. retail consumers WARMLY embraced Microsoft’s introduction of Vista.”
Only time will tell what’s gonna happen once they learn
more about DRM, software/hardware incompatibilities, “reduced functionality mode” and so on…
I’m not saying Vista’s sales are not as they are described in research documentation.
I’m just not inclined to believe in such thing like
“consumers WARMLY embraced Microsoft’s” whatever.
To prove something like that researches have not only count the number of Vista computers sold but also measure customers’ warmth regarding their acceptance of whole new OS.
What were customers waiting for?
Consumers are afraid of falling behind, and ads naturally play to this fear. “The Vista marketing budget roughly equates with Microsoft’s total company sales in 1987.” (Forbes) That’s about half a billion dollars.
Throw the workings of the retail channel into the mix.
Then somehow we are supposed to see these types of “news” articles as anything other than reckless speculation and likely propaganda?
Even when measuring consumer acceptance of Vista, would not the typical experience be conflated with newer, better, faster hardware? The potential for abusive “research” is only heightened when you consider whatever understanding consumers might show of what they use, e.g., parroting slogans such as “Intel Inside”(TM), saying “Microsoft” as a catch-all for whatever they perceive as software, etc.
In short, how could liars^H^H^H^Hmarketers be happier?
It was fun how immediately there are bunch of Microsoft haters started to justify that it isn’t because of Vista etc etc. It is just fun to see how people have such a strong bias.
Stallman at least is successful in making software a religion.
Anyways I think Vista is a very good OS from Microsoft. Better than the previous versions. I used it and i am loving it. The integrated search just rocks.
Stallman at least is successful in making software a religion.
What is it with you and RMS? You seem completely obsessed with him. Never mind that few Linux users really think about him all that much…you seem incapable of not bringing him up, even in completely unrelated threads.
You know what they say about people who are intensely homophobic…I think this is something similar. Admit it: RMS is your secret sweetheart, and now that Valentine’s Day is around the corner you just can’t contain yourself anymore!
(To everyone else: sorry about the off-topic post, but I’m getting really tired of this NotParker wannabe…)
This is because i see RMS’s illegal sons and daughters and shemales (like you) in every darn thread about Windows and Microsoft who come here and say only negative and try their hardest to prove that Linux is superior.
Can’t you guys stay away from every thread that is about Vista or Microsoft?
No because guess what you fear Microsoft and Vista. You know your fav platform i.e. Linux is not so superior and you want to make it popular by shouting. So guess what buddy…2007 is not the year of Linux:)
Now pretty please f… off and go make Linux stand up to competition on quality and then come back here…
Insults, as usual. You even a little friend to mod you back up (unless that’s just a sockpuppet account).
We are discussing about the success of the Vista release…discussing what that means for Linux adoption is quite apropos. In any case, you’re not one to shy away from trolling Linux threads…
But please, continue showing such little class in your posts, it only serves to further damage your tattered credibility.
Archisteel do you really think i care for credibility from the people like you who are so blinded by GPL and OSS that they have made software a religion…
Long live commercial software and BSD…and GPL puppets can keep fighting over GPL vs BSD, Linux vs Windows, GPL2 vs GPL3 etc etc
Your classless acts damages your credibility with regards to everyone, not just people you disagree with.
(Funny, you are the one talking about religion, yet you’re the one that acts like a religious fanatic.)
I said what I had to say. Enjoy rolling around in the mud.
go make Linux stand up to competition on quality and then come back here…
BWAHAHAHAHA
Oh sorry. Let me compose myself and start over..
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You are just too funny.
More money twords Mac and Linux.
As I get calls from people I know who buy Vista machines and then can’t figure that confusing crap out, I will make money and put it twords more Mac and Linux stuff! LOL!
Started using ecomstation this week. Old OS2 but it’s pretty cool. Fast as all get out on my old P3 machine. The TCP/IP stack is very fast, web browsing and email run really fast (Using Mozilla 1.7)
WTF, this is an operating system, not life. Put down your keyboards, go out into the sunlight, and get a girlfriend for god’s sake. Especially you Linux zealots, who have nothing better to do with yours that just troll ANYthing that has to do with Microsoft? Get over it. Simple fact is, if Linux was so great as many claim, it would be the dominant OS. But it isn’t, by far. Instead of making a trully unique and excellent OS, Linux zealots believe if they shout loud enough people will just ignore all of Linux’s problems and just adopt it. Well then at this rate, we will be having the same lame arguements 10 years down the road. Better use of time would be to actually develop something that can actually compete would be my suggestion. Until then, like I said…get a life
Vista is a great release. The release is going ever smoother than XP. I am impressed.
How many people WOULD have bought a computer until someone at “Best Buy” told them to wait until next week. In other words, was the week before on par with the weeks and months before it?
Most retailers/vendors/etc have been offering Vista certified hardware + free Vista upgrade licenses for a while now, so I seriously doubt they would have told anyone to wait. Plus no business in their right mind would ever tell a customer to wait for anything, lest they risk losing that sale.
Yeah so I will just come out and say it. I usually don’t “buy” windows products unless it comes with the machine. Though vista looked intersting enough that I picked up home premium and actually (outside some issues with trillan) I haven’t had much issue. The worst thing I have had to do is right click a shortcut and click “run as administrator” to some game updaters to work. My 7600GT OC did drop frame rate though but I expected that and had planned on getting a 8800 anyway. Oddly enough, I prefer the file browsing in vista etc over xp but I can say its VERY GNOMEish. …hrm…maybe thats why I like hahah. At any rate I have issues with drivers, everything works, so far my experience with vista hasn’t been bad at all