Gates Provides Windows Crash Statistic 984
cybercuzco writes "In an otherwise innocuous article at they NYT (FRRYYY) Bill Gates says that according to error reporting software in windows, 5% of all windows installations crash two or more times every day. Gates goes on to state that Microsoft is looking at charging for some of its software updates that it now distributes for free."
skewed statistics. (Score:5, Informative)
DIRECT LINK! (comments) (Score:5, Informative)
HERE IS THE DIRECT LINK [nytimes.com] : (Doesn't require you to log in!) Thank you, Google News! [google.com]
My favorite part: Last week, Microsoft raised its revenue forecast for fiscal 2004 by about $1 billion. At the same time the company also said it had no plans to spend any of its $49 billion cash on major acquisitions or increase dividends, despite recent rumors.
Now, If I'm reading this article correctly, they are indirectly affecting their positive cashflow 'problem' by increasing R&D. The article says that Microsoft expects revenue to increase 6-9% (of total revenue) in 2004; They are going to spend 8% more on R&D (8% more than R&D expenses in 2003)... So this looks like one way that Microsoft is going to slow down their positive cashflow. I can't see anything bad coming from Microsoft spending more on R This should be beneficial to end-users as long as MS doesn't spend all this additional research money finding better ways to make it difficult to pirate Windows.
NYT Hack Still Works (Score:1, Informative)
Couple of auto-redirects happen. Keep browser window open.
Click on www. link again - no registration required.
We see a slightly higher incidence (Score:5, Informative)
Re:skewed statistics. (Score:5, Informative)
The statistic is highly scewed because most people don't send the crash report to Microsoft.
Re:More amunition for Linux fans (Score:1, Informative)
The only reason I'm not on Linux 100% is because my company insists on using Lotus Notes for e-mail, and there's no native Notes client for Linux.
Re:skewed statistics. (Score:5, Informative)
I've found the feature to be really annoying while you're trying to debug the problem, however, so I usually turn it off.
Re:skewed statistics. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:skewed statistics. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:5, Informative)
Oct 25, 2001 - Windows XP ships
Sept 9, 2002 - SP1 ships (10.5 months, or 4.5 months late)
Sept ?, 2003 - SP2 ships (12 months, or 6 months late) Check out Mr. Allchin's comments [com.com].
And, according to this [ethan-c-allen.com] link there are almost 300 issues addressed in this long-overdue patch.
What exactly are they going to charge for? Fixes, or enhancements? Apple charges for their regular updates - OSX 10.1, OSX 10.2, OSX 10.3, but they are also ENHANCING the product significantly with every release. Is this something MS intends to do, because I certainly don't mind paying for updates to the software as long as it actually ENHANCES things. I'll be pretty ticked off if I have to pay for FIXES.
Major versus minor updates (Score:5, Informative)
Each time a major OS release comes out of Apple, they charge for it, yes. So does everyone else. Microsoft does it. SuSE does it. Don't let the version numbering for Mac OS X fool ya, 10.2 was a major upgrade over 10.1, which was a major upgrade compared to 10.0.
However, Apple doesn't charge for minor point releases. They're up to 10.2.6 right now in OS X, so you can see there have been several point releases since 10.2 was released, plus a smattering of security updates and individual application updates. Those are all free.
If Microsoft really does start charging for service packs, as the parent article for this thread suggests, their customers are going to revolt. From the Microsoft standpoint, they need a new revenue stream, and they want a way to subsidize the ongoing effort of improving products already in the market (like Windows 2000 Professional, since many users refuse to upgrade to XP).
I'm willing to pay for a major new OS release once every year or two, if the new features are compelling enough and my hardware can support it. But I'm not willing to pay for the vendor's bug-fixing efforts and minor feature fixes/additions.
MS Does Track OS Crashes (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the time for me, that information is "this was caused by a device driver problem; we are investigating." Once however, it told me, "This crash was caused by a problem which has been fixed in SP-1. Please update your installation."
So, I have no doubt that the 5% statistic is really operating system crashes as the article states. Now, for all those non-connected machines or users that choose to deny the report to microsoft... well.... 5% could be a little low.
Re:So? (Score:1, Informative)
It's perhaps better to think of the feature as an "application error report". Of course, the boundary between "application" and "OS" is fuzzy at best, and meaningless at worst.
So, to translate your argument into Unix terms, you're saying "it doesn't matter what causes the segmentation fault. The OS should be essentially signal-proof, and should never produce a core dump for any reason". Put that way, the flaw in the complaint becomes more obvious, doesn't it?
Error reporting does not log system crashes. (Score:2, Informative)
How are they calculating this? Are they using an estimated number of Windows installations, or is it only 5 percent of systems which log errors experiencing this? Most people I know turned error reporting off a long, long time ago.
Re:Windows Error Reporting (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft has a huge AppCompat lab that they run to test against thousands of applications whenever they release new versions of their software. If you send the non-Microsoft-software errors, it helps them see if maybe some new app is causing a problem. If it is, they may consider adding it to their AppCompat lab (although it does depend on the usage of the software). If they determine it's a Windows bug being surfaced by the app, they can work on fixing it. Otherwise, they can notify the vendor and say "Hey, your really popular program is crashing in these cases for this many people and here are the details we've gathered." It may also help them view trends like improper API usage and the like. That may help them improve the SDK docs so app developers have a better idea of how the APIs work.
Boom, instant feedback for application developers. This option is not available for Linux that I know of. It's the user's responsibility to find the right mailing list to join up to and try to debug the problem. They might even be told to submit a patch themselves before it'll be fixed.
Re:skewed statistics. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple Updates (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:3, Informative)
of course there were ways around this.. but they at least tried something.. the 'whole' idea is to get them to be subscribers, you can't warez an internet connection you subscribe to, ms would like to sell you a subscription service similar to that.
Full text of the article (Score:1, Informative)
July 25, 2003
Microsoft Moves to Weather Time of Slow Growth
By JOHN MARKOFF
REDMOND, Wash., July 24 -- Microsoft today outlined a new corporate approach designed to allow the company to weather a period of slow growth in the computer industry. At the same time, its executives disputed the idea that the information technology boom had ended for good.
Speaking at the company's annual meeting for financial analysts here, Bill Gates, Microsoft's cofounder and chairman, announced the company's plans to increase its research and development spending this year by as much as 8 percent, to a total of $6.9 billion. The company also said before the meeting that it would expand its work force by 4,000 to 5,000 positions during the current fiscal year.
Despite its aggressive stance on investing in the future, the software company earlier this month dramatically altered the way it rewards its workers, shifting to direct stock grants from stock options. That move was widely interpreted to be an acknowledgment by Microsoft that it was maturing as a corporation and that its compensation packages had to tilt in a new direction.
The company said today that it had already seen some indication that its stock-based incentive plan is helping with recruitment of new employees.
Also today, Microsoft introduced a tier of financial managers that it said was part of an effort to apply new financial discipline to its operations.
Mr. Gates's remarks suggested a new sense of realism at the company that has 600 million customers and whose stock price grew dramatically before 1997, but has since tapered off.
The computer industry "experienced a boom that I don't think we'll see again in our lifetime," Mr. Gates said in describing the Internet boom. He noted that since 2001 companies have been forced to face harsh new realities that have significantly limited new software investment.
But he directly challenged the view -- now held in some technology circles and recently presented in an article in the Harvard Business Review -- that the technology industry is headed for a period of consolidation.
"The debate about what came out of the boom and what these information technology investments mean has really gotten fairly extreme," said Mr. Gates, who is Microsoft's chief software architect. "Obviously we put our money where our beliefs are in saying we disagree with all of this."
Last week, Microsoft raised its revenue forecast for fiscal 2004 by about $1 billion. At the same time the company also said it had no plans to spend any of its $49 billion cash on major acquisitions or increase dividends, despite recent rumors.
Shares in Microsoft fell 45 cents each today, to close at $26.
Throughout the day, a parade of Microsoft's executives summarized each of the company's businesses, describing new products and strategies and outlining competitive threats.
A number of them described the company's overall strategy as "integrated innovation," a reference to the drive to add a continual stream of features and services to Microsoft's Windows and Office software businesses.
"It shouldn't be necessary for people to buy additional products for their secure infrastructures," Mr. Gates said.
Microsoft's plans in the computer security field have created both fear and skepticism in that industry. Its competitors have said they fear that Microsoft will govern that arena in the same way it attacked Netscape and came to dominate browser software.
But despite a concerted effort to improve the reputation of its products for security and stability, Microsoft has been plagued by a series of embarrassing computer security flaws, including a new security hole in a program used to play video and audio files that it made public on Wednesday.
Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day.
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cash for updates? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, yes. And it barely worked on the first try.
5,000 integrated circuits (versus 30M or so on a Pentium), no disk drive, 74K of ROM, 4K of RAM. In other words, less horsepower than your average programmable calculator.
And as it was, the damned thing still had a bug on final approach.
See http://www.abc.net.au/science/moon/computer.htm for the details, or google for 'apollo moon computer'.