Microsoft Hoping for Vista in January 424
WebHostingGuy writes "Bill Gates said Tuesday there was an 80 percent chance the company's next-generation operating system, Vista, would be ready in January. He is also hopeful that the next version of Office will ship in December. The holdup, he says, is due to constant revisions due to beta tester feedback." From the article: "'We've got to get this absolutely right,' Gates said. 'If the feedback from the beta tests shows it is not ready for prime time, I'd be glad to delay it.' He said Microsoft was investing $8 billion to $9 billion in developing Vista and the company's next version of Office, its key cash-generator. He said the company's software partners, in developing and adapting their own products for the two launches, would invest 20 times as much as Microsoft."
Will there be (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I heard, all the features were being removed, and that it required an insane machine to run.
Re:Hope... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:couple of observations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:couple of observations (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Credible odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
HURD shouldn't have to be any more complex than Linux, and Linux is very complete in comparison. The problems with HURD stem from poor project management, not inherent complexity.
new scapegoat? (Score:1, Insightful)
He continues: It is not our fault, the beta testers keep causing problems, which we then have to fix.
One wonders how all the other software developers manage to get any product out at all. MS Vista is what, two years late. I can understand them saying that the process is crap and we have to retrofit and refactor to make things work. Or the EU requirements mean we actually, for the first time, understand the API. But blaming delays on beta-test? This software was overdue long before the beta testers hit it.
The sad thing is that MS had some ability to produce in the 90's. They wrote some of the best books in the industry. In the span of 10 years they have gotten to the point when they can't even push out an OS, even when all the major features have been removed. Pitiful.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Every month that goes by without Vista is another month for Linux to improve, and is another month for Apple to work on Leopard (and maybe beat Vista out with it). Point is, MS has competition, which is picking up speed. MS wants to cut that off as soon as possible, and regulate them back to 1-2 percent each.
Re:Vista or Mac ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Sneer if you like (Score:5, Insightful)
Right there is why Microsoft is the most successful software company in the world -- respect for developers.
It's all well and good to laugh at Steve Ballmer sweating like an ape on a stage and shouting about developers. It's fine to feel smug and superior using Mac OS or Linux (I'm using both write now myself).
But Microsoft has always respected the work of developers coding to their platform. Backward compatibility is a religion at Microsoft, by all accountts. Which is good because they're, um, a platform vendor.
Sounds simple, but it is amazing how often this is screwed up. Apple is notorious for breaking old programs that didn't interpret the Mac API just right -- or that relied on a technology fad Apple pumped and abandoned (OpenDoc, QuickDraw GX, Publish + Subscribe, etc etc).
Apache Foundation did the same thing moving from httpd v1 to v2 -- PHP took quite a long time to move over and at one point was telling people not to even try using it with v2.
Firefox seems to do it on every release with its extensions.
Backward compatibility might not give warm fuzzies to the systems programmers -- it is hard, inelegant work. But it is a boon to users and application programmers.
I only use Linux on the server, where I don't run into backward compatibility issues, but from what I understand the drivers often have to be rewritten from release to release.
I'm not in love with Windows or Microsoft, but I will continue using their OS becase of the sheer range of CHOICES in terms of software and hardware, and the fact that all my old stuff can migrate to a new machine.
So go ahead, laugh at Microsoft, har dee har, "u r d3layed AG@1N!" For your purposes -- programming, running a server -- Linux may be the best. Or Mac OS X for that plus video editing, publishing, and other tasks and price points that don't require the full diversity of Wintel.
But for most computer users, Windows offers wins because of its compatibility with an incredibly array of cheap hardware and an incredible back (and forward) catalog of software. Microsoft knows this, and THAT'S why they are going to wait until Vista is just right. Yes they screwed the pooch, but they are attempting something that neither Linux nor OS X can touch.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:2, Insightful)
I upgraded to an apple. I'm already enjoying features that microsoft has been promising for years.
I guess that's the reason it needs to come out quickly, marketing can't hype something that everyone has seen on their friends
apple.
Re:Credible odds? (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends. Do you think his charity is enough to make up for all the harm Microsoft has done to the economy over the years, between the predatory business practices, viruses, stifling non-Microsoft technologies, etc.? I'd say it's entirely possible that, if Microsoft had never existed, we might be so much more prosperous today that all that money would still be going to charity, and more.
Re:Sneer if you like (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, Microsoft can do ths if they want, but it hurts the industry when Microsoft can tell devs what, for whom and how to develop software, or suffer destruction at thier hands. (Unlees you're IBM or Oracle sized, and have enough resources to fight back.)
Soko
Re:If Apple is really smart ... (was:Doesn't matte (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I admit I'm a huge Mac fanboi and would be just fine never touching another Windows box in my life, but Apple would take many tears and years to integrate the hardware support that Windows has. One of the reasons I love Apple, "Don't do it all, just do what you do damn well."
As a self-proclaimed Linux fanboi . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
You want corporate evil? Look at fellows like Carnagie and Rockefeller. There's a couple of great examples of the "robber baron", and we still name civic centers and auditoriums after them. Gates isn't even a blip on the radar next to those two. Granted, he's beyond obscenely rich, and there's no mistaking his business practices for anything resembling fair, but he really is quite tame by comparison to some of America's more revered/despised business leaders of the past.
American history is replete with such men. It's the inevitable result of the free-enterprise system.
Re:Credible odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh there will be... (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on whether they actually work significantly better or not.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but they're all Bill's bitches anyway. They'll pay up, and he knows it. Is this flamebait? I don't think so. I think it's absolutely true in at least 95% of all cases. People just can't seem to ween themselves off of Windows.
Re:Credible odds? (Score:5, Insightful)
The linux driver situation is not a mess. You just bought a product where the developer doesn't care about you, the customer.
There is no technical reason why the camera doesn't work in Linux. It's not the job of OSS developers to be on the leading edge of every device on the planet. If your device manufacturer doesn't want to write drivers and doesn't want to document the interface how is this a failing of Linux?
btw with libgphoto a lot of USB cams work just fine in Linux [including the Canon Powershot series].
Tom
Re:Pitiful? (Score:3, Insightful)
- Alan Perlis
It was as true then as it is today.
Re:If Apple is really smart ... (was:Doesn't matte (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As a self-proclaimed Linux fanboi . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
No, what I'm trying to say is that Microsoft -- and Windows in particular -- has harmed the entire world's economy because of all the costs associated with cleaning up after the various and sundry viruses that exploit MS's poor-quality programming, all the costs associated with writing dirty hacks to support Windows' flaws (e.g. the extra effort required to write a web page that works in IE), and all the costs in terms of lack of innovation because Microsoft stifled so many markets due to its monopoly.
I'm saying that those costs were so great that Bill Gates' charity can't make up for it -- Windows has done more harm than the Gates Foundation can possibly do good.
That was old Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
As for Apple not having respect for developers, which companies ships every OS with a copy of the development tools? Just because they are a little more agressive API wise does not mean they do not support developers.
And Linux of course is the original "I liked the product so much I wrote it myself" kind of system that is by developers, for developers. If Linux has a problem it's that it only truly respects developers and other people are allowed to tag along for the ride!
Re:If Apple is really smart ... (was:Doesn't matte (Score:3, Insightful)
-matthew
Re:Credible odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Credible odds? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's how to make any comment that may seem of any degree insightful seem completely foolish and the blabbering of an uber-dedicated fanboy that gets a chubby at the site of Tux.
It's amazing to me how people are so willing to make themselves look like complete assholes with a single sentence.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
It's XP for Goodness Sake (Score:2, Insightful)