Microsoft Gets No Kick From Vista

[Gizmo]

Seems at least some analysts are skeptical of Microsoft's claims of Vista sales prowess:

David DeJean
Information Week

Fifty-one billion dollars is a number so big it's hard to get your mind around -- a number-of-galaxies-in-the-sky number, a Halliburton-no-bid-contract number. Still, I'm willing to believe Microsoft took in that much in its just-ended fiscal year. But Microsoft says that huge number was in some way helped by "solid customer acceptance" of Vista? Come on, I wasn't born yesterday.

Read more on the Front Page:
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/content/view/2921/2/

[Gizmo]

Apparently the word is starting to get around in financial circles that Microsoft is, err....well, having issues.

[Samuknow]

The way I look at it is this. When XP came out there were quite a few PC in homes. That was quite a while ago. Many more PC's have been purchased or built since then. Many homes have multiple PC's. The common man is becoming more PC savvy. More comfortable with an upgrade be it hardware or software. Now Vista comes along and he buys into the I must have this to make my computer better. More computers in more ill informed users homes = more unit sales. Just a guess, but I imagine the number of computers out there has more than doubled since XP was released.

[danrok]

The computer systems market is seeing good growth, as in notebook and desktop sales.

Even with the launch of Vista, MS's profit growth is barely in line with the overall market growth. Hence, the lack of "kick".

Those who already have a good system running XP, aren't upgrading to Vista in large numbers.

Had they got it right, MS would be seeing vast profits right now.

[Daniel ~]

One thing for sure, they are getting their asses kicked in the OS price war! ":O}

Really Linux has made massive progress toward a very good desk top for free. By what I'm seeing in Fedora 7.0, two more years and they really should be able to support all my needs... which are rather pedestrian...

What's Ms going to do then? Really? Good Free desktop. I see a real chance that MS may not be in the OS business 5 years from now.

[Repo Man]

Many people had Win 98 or ME when XP was launched. XP was a very significant improvement over those operating systems. Vista may have some improvements over XP, but I don't really think the vast majority of XP users really find the operating system wanting in any significant way. It's stable, they're used to it, it does what they want. If they made Windows Defender capable of truly clearing, and defending against mal/spyware, they probably could have answered the biggest need for the average XP user right there.

[Daniel ~]

It's a really shame, and I mean that. But MS has never seemed to me to care about meeting my needs, only it's own, hence the ease with which I ignore their products. I agree Repoman. Feel the same way about 2000 Pro. Unfortunately MS is ACTIVELY working to make 2000 pro obsolete, not merely stopping support on a large percentage of their installed user base. The whole DX 10 thing as a case in point.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

It's a really shame, and I mean that. But MS has never seemed to me to care about meeting my needs, only it's own, hence the ease with which I ignore their products. I agree Repoman. Feel the same way about 2000 Pro. Unfortunately MS is ACTIVELY working to make 2000 pro obsolete, not merely stopping support on a large percentage of their installed user base. The whole DX 10 thing as a case in point.

I've heard rumors of some hacks to run DX10 on WinXP, and there are rumors that MS is seriously considering back-porting some form of DX10 to WinXP. However, near as I can tell, those are only rumors.

[Daniel ~]

I think it was Keith or Toro who posted a week or two ago about a third party that's back -porting DX 10 to XP and 2000 pro... was still in the works, but they seemed quite confident it can and will be done... So...MS may not really have a choice after saying it couldn't be done except in Vista...but to now do it...?

[Wolf2000me]

MS seems to anticipate the lower sales of vista themselves. Vista price cuts in China to prevent piracy, the sped up release date of SP3 for XP and continued support for it shows it.

[Daniel ~]

OK check this out. I'm running 2000 pro, will some one tell me what either XP or Vista have that I should just pine away for?

MS is sabotaging my OS for a good reason, which is, they don't have a good reason for me to change, so they intend to force me to change... and eventually they will...I'm around 95% Linux now... still really need 2000 pro for games, but that's ALL I use it for now... Were I less lazy or had I more talent, MS would already be finished in my home.

[Daniel ~]

I think one of the most overlooked factors concerning Linux is that it's not just a free OS, Nearly everything you would want to run on it is FREE as well! Or has a free alternative. This is a major consideration for me. One reason I'm no longer maintaining a back up machine is the cost of buying additional Anti-virus and utilities, the other reason is the cost of everything else! ":O}