Vista The Last Of The Dinosaurs
Winga
MrSouth Africa Icrontian
Industry critics are wondering if Microsoft will ever build another Vista.
According to Business Week and the Seattle Times, it took more than five years and 10 000 people to make vista. With the average salary at Microsoft at around $200,000 that's $10bn shelled out for salaries alone. It's just had its debut and already experts are predicting Vista may be the last of its kind.
"Suddenly, the market changed and competitors started delivering technology at the speed of the Internet," said James McQuivey, professor of market research at Boston University. "In some cases, they do it for free, and that's painful for Microsoft."
Vista was made the old-fashioned way. A single packaged product put on a disk, so users can buy it in a store and load it onto their computers. By contrast, rivals like Google are creating spreadsheets and browsers that you simply download from a computer server. It delivers what you need, when and as you need it. If Google continues with more offerings of free, ad-supported software over the Internet, Microsoft won't be in a position to charge a premium for its operating systems anymore.
Since Vista first hit the drawing board, the development of software has changed a lot. Linux has made a huge splash on the market and has changed the way that projects are managed.
Vista has shown there is only so much an Operating System can do without it getting unmanageable. In the meantime the Open Source community have been adding extra packages onto Linux so that users can choose what they want the application to do. This flexibility makes it incredibly useful in a business framework.
Microsoft has been so focused on its monopoly, it has missed the fact that punters want to see the software and don't care much for the technology it sits on.
Yet Microsoft is still expected to hang on to it's monopoly, despite coming out with a product a couple of years late, because it has no direct parallel competitor.
It seems less likely that Microsoft will want to blow billions and another five years on an operating system again. If it has any sense, it will be looking at ways to connect consumers to services, while unlocking a computer's full potential for the likes of applications like gaming.
According to Business Week and the Seattle Times, it took more than five years and 10 000 people to make vista. With the average salary at Microsoft at around $200,000 that's $10bn shelled out for salaries alone. It's just had its debut and already experts are predicting Vista may be the last of its kind.
"Suddenly, the market changed and competitors started delivering technology at the speed of the Internet," said James McQuivey, professor of market research at Boston University. "In some cases, they do it for free, and that's painful for Microsoft."
Vista was made the old-fashioned way. A single packaged product put on a disk, so users can buy it in a store and load it onto their computers. By contrast, rivals like Google are creating spreadsheets and browsers that you simply download from a computer server. It delivers what you need, when and as you need it. If Google continues with more offerings of free, ad-supported software over the Internet, Microsoft won't be in a position to charge a premium for its operating systems anymore.
Since Vista first hit the drawing board, the development of software has changed a lot. Linux has made a huge splash on the market and has changed the way that projects are managed.
Vista has shown there is only so much an Operating System can do without it getting unmanageable. In the meantime the Open Source community have been adding extra packages onto Linux so that users can choose what they want the application to do. This flexibility makes it incredibly useful in a business framework.
Microsoft has been so focused on its monopoly, it has missed the fact that punters want to see the software and don't care much for the technology it sits on.
Yet Microsoft is still expected to hang on to it's monopoly, despite coming out with a product a couple of years late, because it has no direct parallel competitor.
It seems less likely that Microsoft will want to blow billions and another five years on an operating system again. If it has any sense, it will be looking at ways to connect consumers to services, while unlocking a computer's full potential for the likes of applications like gaming.
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Comments
- Microsoft is not evil
- Vista/DX10 have potential
- They are well aware of market shifts, and are investing heavily in to services (live)
- Microsoft is no longer a monopoly
?
- Vista/DX10 has some potential
- They are well aware of market shifts, and are investing heavily in to services (live)
- Microsoft is and always will be a monopoly
I get the point of what you are saying, but this statement left me a little confused- isn't Google offering here applications and not an OS?
However, this article really got me thinking hard.
First I wondered if Bill Gates was figured into the average salary.
What would the economy be like with only open-source freeware available? Would we have to rethink our current understanding of "economy"?
Being between the availability of the internet + free software and a growing interest in generalized Healthcare (two huge industries), and the fact that everyone must still work at something and eat, I'm beginning to think that a major economic restructuring is going to have to follow.
Last weekend I had an opportunity to play with OEM Vista. Honestly, it seemed like a bald-faced attempt to obsolete everyones software and lots of hardware too. It was like everything I tried to install required special attention by either setting admin controls or compatibility modes and it gets way worse with games (I didn't have time to get ANY to work)- stuff that John Q Public will have to either 1. storm tech support for help with or 2. buy the Vista equivalent. Am I dreaming this, doing something wrong, or is it really that bad?
But I guess I also have some serious misgivings about a hearsay, faceless, trackless, and donation-based structure. It leaves things too wide open for rewarding the wrong person/community for an agenda-based product that has too many uncertainties and no accountability. There are just too many good people who don't know any better.
Well, this one's a puzzle for another degree, but there is something about both that seriously bothers me.
Sigh. Sorry I've rambled on- I hope I'm ok doing that here. I guess until they figure it out, I'm seriously thinking about going into Multi-Boot.
I know if I build a computer for a friend or family member who only needs internet and email usage, it's linux... I know just enough to do that in Linux and make it just a couple quick shortcuts. I don't hear from them often about problems on their computers except when the monitor doesn't work or something hardware related like that, sometimes video's won't play but at that point I don't know how to get the codecs to get them to play.
I tried to build my mom a new comp (hers was a P1 running win2000 that she took home with her when she retired 6 years ago) You would have thought I was trying to steal her 401K...
Most of comp users (like me)are just barely able to surf the web because of Windows. If you were to take Windows away they would just give up and go back to writing letters by hand.
Does that mean this little known Linux OS is as easy to install as Windows?