Vista sales sluggish, must be the pirates
jared
College Station, TX Icrontian
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Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers! This was the past battle cry of infamous Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer is widely known for his outgoing attitude and wild comments.
Lately Steve Ballmer has been playing the blame game. Who might he be blaming? Pirates. Analysts have reported that Windows Vista sales are off to a slow start compared to the generous predictions Microsoft originally gave (90 million copies in '07). Steve says people pirating Vista are a big reason for the less-than-stellar sales.
Those are some big words to accuse internet piracy for a products slow launch; on the flip side it is predicted that 33% of all Microsoft Software available worldwide is pirated so their accusations might be justified.
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers! This was the past battle cry of infamous Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer is widely known for his outgoing attitude and wild comments.
Lately Steve Ballmer has been playing the blame game. Who might he be blaming? Pirates. Analysts have reported that Windows Vista sales are off to a slow start compared to the generous predictions Microsoft originally gave (90 million copies in '07). Steve says people pirating Vista are a big reason for the less-than-stellar sales.
Those are some big words to accuse internet piracy for a products slow launch; on the flip side it is predicted that 33% of all Microsoft Software available worldwide is pirated so their accusations might be justified.
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Comments
I still haven't been able to find out how to prompt a user for saving files from MDI apps in Visual Basic, nor do I care to decode the Microsoft-specific jargon.
I'm going back to ANSI C and assembler. Yeah it's more work but there was am immense amount of time wasted on trying to find out how to do common UI tasks with VB .NET.
I think Vista sales are off because it didn't bring much of anything new to windows itself, the way XP brought the better NT kernel mainstream. I run older (4-7 year old) hardware which isn't able to take advantage of hardware DEP, Aero, or handle the indexing system very well. Why add unnecessary overhead to the things I do everyday for no tangible benefit?...especially with the idiotic hardware, driver, and software requirements foisted on them by the entertainment industry. This is my computer and it will stay that way.
I'll probably continue to run XP until it becomes more or less unsupported. Probably Linux after that.
Can't be to do with lack of WHQL nVidia drivers worth a damn, lack of Creative Inc WHQL drivers, half the common audio applications (FL Studio, Sonar...) don't work under Vista's new driver model.
It also can't be to do with the huge difference in price among other markets. It costs the same in British sterling (pounds) as it does to buy the equivilant in US Dollars.
Damn those pirates huh??
In my company... that's over 3,000 PC that will NOT be going Vista for at least a year and a half.
I am always a moving forward kinda guy - I always keep up to date, I buy into the latest tech, I'm an early adopter, I believe in progress, etc... but Vista just isn't a compelling upgrade right now. I'm curious to see what IS the compelling, lets-jump-the-fence feature.
In general, Vista adds more robust and configurable Firewall through Domain Group Policies, new Domain Group Policies to manage and secure Domain Vista PCs, and an overall more secure environment. Downside... We still have Windows 2000 PCs to migrate to WinXP. We have to do this soon since W2K is at "End-of-life" and that means it may not be secure any longer. Budgets for government facilities is not great of late and we have many systems that are under 500 MHz, thus there is NO WAY that we can really upgrade to WinXP and maintain quality computing, let alone upgrade to Vista. These systems would need to be replaced with new Vista compatible systems and there is no money for that.
Overall... our organization is apprehensive to change unless pushed down from DoE or from Microsoft. We ARE looking forward to the advancements of Vista but theses advancements are overshadowed by the burden and expense needed to implement Vista.
I ran Vista RC1 for about 2 months and I was not impressed. It was slower (obviosuly probably because it was beta but still) and didn't make me any more productive. It just had a lot of extra crap I never used the whole 2 months I was using the OS.
XP is as close to perfected as it is going to get. I think I am going to stay with it at least until Vista SP1 comes out or I get a new computer. Besides that, Vista won't be available to students through the A&M software center until May or June.
I would rather put my money into Office 2007.
cheers
- Thunderbird > Outlook
- Google Docs & Apps > Word & Excel (for my low-end purposes)
- If I get to a point where I regularly need PowerPoint (unlikely) I'd do it on a Mac platform and use Keynote - it's so superior it's silly.
- MySQL + PHP > Access
- Dreamweaver > Frontpage (by 15 million landslides)
And, oh right, 3/5 of that list is free. Why would I pay a couple hundred for products that are either inferior or full of features I never use?I absolutely agree with Brian and the fact that Vista is overpriced given its functionality. The amount of work (for me) done by Windows applications vs. Internet applications is continually drifting towards my browser.
My college recently started moving towards a app server / dumb terminal arrangement in some parts of the campus. Old machines are loaded with Windows Legacy (yeah, it exists) and then Remote Desktop into the app server. This lets 500 MHz machines run advanced apps like Photoshop easily. There are definitely bugs that they've hit along the way, but it was really their only option for staying ahead of the problem Q described.
I'm sure they'll move to Vista on their newer boxes at some point, but I wouldn't be surprised if they reevaluate their dependence on Microsoft products overall in the meantime.
I'd say overall OpenOffice/StarOffice is 90% as good as MS Office, for $0.
Two answers...
- Common users have been indoctrinated into the Microsoft world and things not MS seem difficult to adopt. Word will always feel like home for common folk. Open Office, Google Apps, and such all work fine if you have the time to train users how to use them. Support for each of them is a pain with tons of training for the support staff... It's sad but MS has many companies hostage in this regards...
- Tying in with #1... Since a company cannot move to other products, they cannot afford to drop MS because everyone else in industry is using Microsoft products. It's become a standard. I've seen TOO many Open Office documents, saved in MS Word format, not look right or blend correctly when collaborating. What I've seen is Adobe Acrobat for PDFs and MS Office for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Firefox is really the only product that has been able to push MS, and Firefox is still not even up to 30% of the Browser market...
Oh... Dreamweaver is expensive when compared to Frontpage.Secondly, I agree.. free apps are great, I've used most of the ones you named. However, MS Office is still a better set of apps for the advanced user.
It is like when people say to me "Why do you use photoshop, just use GIMP.. after all its almost the same thing".
Pfft... almost the same thing. Yeah right. GIMP is almost the same thing to photoshop if you only know how to use about 2% of its features. While I agree Thunderbird, for example, is a great app.... but if you are an advanced outlook user it doesn't get the job done.
cheers :cheers3:
As an added bonus, the "Rules" feature actually works the first time you set it up, without endless tweaking, etc.
Vista is not ready for the general public to adopt and accept. I’ve heard over and over again- “give it time, so the bugs can be ironed out”. If it’s really a “beta” or a “trial” copy, then maybe Microsoft should put a warning on the box when releasing it to the general public. After all, if they have to put warning labels on cigarettes then maybe they should also put them on retailed beta code.
Most people that I encounter do not have a computer background that goes much beyond figuring out how and where to print something out. Many have hundreds, even thousands of dollars tied up into their working software that may not work for whatever reason on Vista. Legacy installs are like trial-by-jury cross-examinations to complete and then, as often as not, they will not launch even after a supposed success.
Despite what MS may think, people actually have grown fond of XP and the applications they’ve installed on it and people simply can’t understand why it has to be so difficult and expensive to transition to Vista. They do not want to be Microsoft beta testers but productive users and/or get on with their entertainment. I think this was pretty callous to market the product as it is right now.
I've had the same exact thought. God as my witness, I'm telling you that about half of my users watch over my shoulder as I right click and say, "Oh that's right, I always forget about that other mouse button", then they giggle. It's pretty tough to explain, in terms simple enough for my users, how Vista will make their life better.
I do think there are enough advantages for Enterprises that it will gain traction there. Its just not stuff that appeals to the average joe.
I am on the lookout for w2k system discs. Since we all know that it would be wrong to install the same software on 6 machines.
Heck, we might even see low cost XP hitting the market soon. That I would pick up.
Vista? When there are apps that I want that need it I move. I am a single (rather independent) user in a medium sized company. I have used four different word processors over the years (starting with MultiMate) and four different spreadsheets.
Heck, I might end up running openoffice, unless MS gives me reasons not to.
To be fair, I recommend against a switch to OpenOffice while I was there and probably still would today. I'm only arguing that the potential is there and growing. I think I'd soon be hard-pressed to justify staying with MS, especially once we hit the cost of upgrading. Well, yeah... except in education
As far as compatability is concerned, what apps will or will not work on vista? Sure mozillas stuff will work. But how about my games? The reason i just upgraded my computer was so i could play ut2k4 and americas army without having to lower the resolution to low. Will they work at the same speed in vista? Not if the graphics drivers are troublesome.
And how about all the other apps i have. I would eiter have to visit their website or just try to install them anyways and hope for the best. No i'm waiting so the developers have had time to fix new versions of their software.
And about pirates causing the low sales. Ha.
What percentage of pirates are still currently selling or even outselling win XP over Vista?
I know its a dubious question, but I bet XP probably still has some demand. Granted, as of (2/22/07) Amazon's Full Version (Non Upgrade) Vista Ultra is #44 in software sales and Full XP Pro (Non Upgrade) is #49. (Upgrade versions of both OS's are higher in sales.) http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software/51560011/ref=pd_ts_pg_2/105-9059820-6773223?ie=UTF8&pg=2
If Vista sales is affected by pirates, then how about Office 2007?
I absolutely love Office 2007. If I didn't have a MSDN VL subscription, I would definately buy it. If I really had the desire to acquire it illegitimately, then I would take that risk, because its worth it (pros to MS for worthwhile software). Office 2007 is a good product. I'll recommend it to anyone. I guess thats why is Office 2007 is off to a better than expected start.
http://news.com.com/More+buyers+home+in+on+Office+2007/2100-1012_3-6158723.html [article misidentified first week of sales]
If a rep from Microsoft or any Authorized Dealer gave me Vista Ultra for free, would I use it?
I think it would probably still be in a drawer somewhere after at least 1 year. I basically wouldn't use it if they gave that pile away for free. I wish I had statistics of the express upgrade to Vista for all the PC's elegible for it, I wonder what the ratio of how many PC's were eligible to those claimed.
ADD:
OK I now feel the need to give an actual comment... I don't think the OS is really the major problem anymore, it still has it's little things to work out. But really... what is the issue? It's a new OS so naturally certain programs are not going to be 100% compatible. But also, drivers... NVidia and ATi as we all know are still basically on beta drivers for this OS, but I am sure mostly to due with the changes MS made to the OS towards the end maybe?
By the time SP1 rolls out, Microsoft will and had better have fixed all their ****, but also the other hardware companies like ATi and NVidia should have had enough time to perfect their drivers.
I would bet is that SP1 will make Vista worth pirating.
Now that I think about it, I had a bunch of buddies that all pirated XP when it came out. They were all slapping copies of it on their machine with the infamous FCKGW key.
Fast forward years down the road, not one of those guys has Vista installed, much less a pirated version. As far as I know they are still going strong with their copies of hacked/pirated XP.
The bottom line is, besides the sleek new interface (which why the hell do I care? I run XP in classic mode with all the extra crap turned off anyways) Vista doesn't offer anything compelling.. instead it is just slow and has bad driver support currently.
cheers