Windows Vista Delayed Again 539
Trenty writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista yet again. Jim Allchin told analysts that the OS would not ship in January of 2007, which is a 1-2 month delay. Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year."
Pre Sale (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year.
Not really all that odd. I believe it's called a pre-sale. People do this on eBay all the time, selling items they don't yet have, but will send along when they get them.
In the software world, we've had a vendor offer us a new product, which we may actually like, at a 75% discount if we sign up by September. The product isn't entirely finished yet and it would likely be two years before migration, but the pricebreak is clearly meant to ensure they have some income. I have no idea what their books look like, but suspect this move is the result of a dire need of revenue, so it makes us go "hmmmm..."
Where do you suppose Microsoft would like to enter the income for these early sales? Revenue recorded early is revenue you can't record later. I rather doubt they are turning over a Special Bug-ridden Business User Version early. They'd be flayed in the Information Trade press. (Then again, it's probably happened a few times already, which could explain how little attention CIO's pay to these magazines, they just scatter them on their desks to look Connected and Managerial.)
Re:Pre Sale (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pre Sale (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the DRM (Score:2)
Re:It's the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike with XP, the home version isn't just the business version with some newtorking functions taken out. It has some extra (DRM-crippled) multimedia stuff that businesses don't get.
Re:It's the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Err...so what version do people in the high-definition video business buy?
Re:It's the DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Macs, duh.
=tkk
Re:It's the DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, but if they want to watch the videos in HD format, they will have to buy a separate player or another computer with Windows Vista.
DRM and the HD HDMI restrictions are part of the HD media formats, and have nothing to do with Microsoft. Microsoft is providing the ability for their OSes to play the media, and unless Mac or Linux also make the same concessions, they will also not be able to play the content in true High Definition.
(Your post was funny, but since it was popular thought this would be a good place to stick these facts. People think that Windows is 'crippled' by DRM and HD HDMI standards, when the movies themselves ship with copy protections, Windows is so far the only OS offering support for them.)
It is like this, regular DVDs have region and DVD copy protection, it is just all DVD players came from the factory supporting the decrypting of the copy protection, and even though it has been hacked and bypassed, 99.9% of the when any of us watches a DVD on a computer or a home player, we are still using the Copy decryption technologies installed in both the players and the computer software.
Same will be for HD DVD and other media. Vista will support the new copy protection, just like the new stand alone players will. So Vista actually 'adds' in the ability to play and decrypt the newer standards. Where people are calling Vista crippled, it is actually the opposite, as it supports the new formats. PERIOD.
Re:It's the DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
really??
why is there none in mpeg4? I have lots of full resolution and HD quality content in mpeg4 format, as well as Divx flavor and Xid Flavor.
They have no DRM in them and work perfectly for a HD media format. Hell I even have a set top box that plays them well to my HD TV.
Oh you must mean the NEW Hd formats they are going to shove at people to hide the fact that non DRM restricted formats already exist.
Kind of like the losing attempt to
Re:It's the DRM (Score:4, Funny)
Missing digital media/entertainment features (Score:3, Informative)
Not if they want Media Center functionality, DVD video authoring, Movie Maker HD, and other "home" features that are left out of the "business" versions of Vista.
Apparently, the only versions of Vista that will be available with a Volume License Key ("business versions") will be missing features that most pirate
Re:Missing digital media/entertainment features (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that it really matters either way. I predict a 99% chance that illegitimate copies will be widespread before February 2007, a 90% chance within a week from release, 75% chance within 24 hours, and 50% chance before the actual release.
Re:It's the DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey! (Score:4, Funny)
Hey look everyone! There's not going to be volume licencing for Vista!
Now you have a source - that's how the internet works my friend.
Explanation: Testing Is Exponentially Complex (Score:3, Insightful)
More to the point, if a computer program is B bits in length, then testing it requires time that is O(exp(B)). If the new version of the computer program doubles the length of the ori
Vaporware (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pre Sale (Score:2)
Re:Pre Sale (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, it reminds me of an interesting story. What happens when a company doesn't want to wait for MS to ship them the final version of an OS (say... Windows 95)? The answer is in this fun little entry in The Old New Thing [msdn.com] weblog from a Microsoft employee.
Re:Pre Sale (Score:2)
Re:Pre Sale (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason it's not odd is because the "security tweaks" are almost certainly going to be changes in the default configurations of things like user permissions, firewalling, workarounds for specific pieces of software, etc. Businesses are (or should be, at any rate) going to change these default settings to suit their own policies and env
OEM vs upgrade pricing (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it has a lot to do with not wanting to sell before Christmas. Many people who are buying new PC's for the kids will do that at Christmas, and you'll see a lot of "Vista Ready" PC's being advertised. However, many of the new games that come out starting next year will use DirectX 10, which will only be available for Vista. This will create a lot of kids whining for an upgrade to Vista next Christmas.
Why sell it now (at OEM pricing, around $50US) when you can sell it a few months, maybe a year, later at upgrade prices (at least $100US). They even get to keep the 50 bucks they made selling the OEM copy of XP.
The PC makers like the idea because it will boost PC sales in the early part of the year, a traditionally slow period, but probably won't seriously impact Christmas sales.
Re:Hey.. look at the bright side (Score:2, Funny)
No it isn't.
A relevant has big ears and a long nose.
Re:Pre Sale (Score:2)
1. Assuming that your preferred set of guidelines are the One True Way. The rule you are referring to is specific to American English. American English is different to Commonwealth English in more than just spelling, there are quite a few grammatical issues on which the two versions of the language disagree.
2. Pendantry for the sake of pendantry. I'm all for encouraging sensible and correct use of language, but seriously....that was petty. Even the most diehard grammar nazis must
Gee, go figure (Score:4, Insightful)
Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:2)
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:2)
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:5, Funny)
#Please be kind, o lameness filter.
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, these are typically different divisions and Microsoft is rather a large corporation.
Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?
Probably, but usually to everyone's mutual regret. I think the right time is when it's ready and not a moment sooner.
Did you hear about the Wembley Stadium roof collapse yesterday? Would they rather have that thing completed on time, filled with 100,000 people and then have the roof drop 1 metre?
Massive failure on Microsoft's part is taking a toll and they really have a lot at stake this time, after promising XP would be bug free and the best security ever, just before 1.04e7 bugs and security holes were revealed and exploited. Make Wembley look like a tempest in a teapot.
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:2)
Given how many security updates come out the first day that they do release something, would you really want them releasing any sooner?
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:2)
Very interesting... (Score:2)
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, all the time.
They are called "press releases."
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:3, Insightful)
I call hijinks. They probably need more time f
Re:Gee, go figure (Score:3, Interesting)
Less and less relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the thing is, I use to be an MS fanboy but with the rapidly changing environment of security issues and such, who can wait _years_ before considering other alternatives?
-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net]
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it this way. Although some may not consider Vista relevant now, they will several years after it has launched. Like Windows XP and Windows 2000 before it, Vista will be preinstalled on all new computers, and vendors will slowly deprecate their support for older Microsoft operating systems.
As long as the executives at Microsoft are capable of maintaining their OEM agreements with the popular brand name manufacturers, Windows will always be relevant.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft has had 10 very long years to think about the internet. Vista is what they've come up with as a result of it. Developer's of
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copy and paste from Wikipedia:
* DCE RPC
* An object-oriented User Interface
* X.500 Directory
* X.400 Messaging
* Content Indexing
* Object-based file system (see WinFS)
Those are what Cairo was supposed to be, as announed in 1991. It was even demoed in 1993, but not in an even slightly usable form. They managed to accomplish the directory by taking LDAP and writing a custom schema and tools. Messaging was accomplished by their email system (Exchange), which used previously established standards. They do half-assed indexing. There has been over 10 years of security problems with their RPC implementation, and it's still not fixed. They have nothing resembling the object FS, and cancelled the attempt, as we all know.
NT3.x brought the DCE RPC, NT4 brough the UI and messaging. Win2000 brought the directory, and eventually the indexing. XP/2003 brought nothing more than revisions to those existing components, and Vista is no different. The things that *mattered* have been cut from the platform.
Do you really believe that Vista, something that realistically amounts to security fixes, a new and more annoying UI, and a few toolkits that exist elsewhere, is a bigger release than W2K? I hope not, because that's asinine. I can confidently say that AD was far more important than *ANYTHING* new in Vista. XAML/WPF is another MS copy of existing technology, and one that doesn't even really exist yet. Even if it doesn't suck, it would certainly be many years before it mattered. People like being able to use their computers without requiring internet access, and the entire concept would not allow that.
Anyway, you need to think through things more, and look at past performance. You can't trust anything that MS says until you see it yourself. Every "revolutionary" technology that was so heavily pushed by MS propoganda has been dropped eventually. The current ones are DirectX and
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really think that, then you need to do some more research. *Real* research, as well, not reading press releases. Vista has had a *lot* of work done under the hood.
Anyway, you need to think through things more, and look at past performance. You can't trust anything that MS says until you see it yourself. Every "revolutionary" technolog
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not as much talking about vendors as technologies. MS comes up with their own versions of things, pushes everyone to use them, and then they drop it from something shinier. The non-MS part of the world has been using things called "standards", and they have been doing so far longer than Windows ha
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
So... Just like very other update to a mature platform, then ?
I'm not as much talking about vendors as technologies. MS comes up with their own versions of things, pushes everyone to use them, and then they drop it from something shinier.
So... They're just like everyone else ?
The non-MS part of the world has been using things called "standards", and they have been doing so far longer than Windows has existed, let alone been used.
Really ? What's the standard API for a "unix" GUI application ? How about using audio devices ? Which API should I use to make sure my hardware driver compiles on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and OS X without modifications or special cases ?
We have POSIX as an API standard, and that's been around for a long time.
And is basically useless (not to mention largely ignored) for anything except trivial command line applications.
Heck, it's not at all uncommon to find trivial open source "unix" applications that only work on x86 Linux machines with particular versions of glibc.
Most "cross platform" unix source code doesn't compile on a wide range of platforms because of "standards", it does so because of the amount of work done by things like autoconf and make.
Jeez. One of the biggest hurdles to wider commercial adoption of Linux is the sheer volume of different APIs (many of which all do essentially the same thing), and you're here trying to say there's no such problem at all ?
MS has had no less than six APIs that I can think of, just off the top of my head.
And "unix" has dozens (if not hundreds). Your point ?
They tried to have their own networking protocols, their own email formats, APIs, and on and on.
So... Just like every other commercial vendor ?
They have all been problematic, and largely dropped for the standards that were already there. In that regard, yes, I can think of "vendors" that it doesn't apply to.
Such as ? Certainly not Apple, Novell or IBM. Maybe Sun, but the intersection of markets between Solaris and Windows is vanishingly small.
You act like Microsoft come up with something, then run away from it the first chance they get just to screw everyone over. Yet things like Win32, MFC and DirectX have been around for over a decade, and will *still* be in legacy support 5 years down the track, if not longer. Heck, Vista will still support Win16 on 32-bit x86, an API that's around twenty years old.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
You won't believe how amny times some of my less computer-knowledgable friends or clients are afraid to apply a Windows Update patch because they (rightfully) fear that it will break more things than it might fix.
With you "advising" them, I certainly could believe. The fact is, however, Windows patches break things quite rarely. Much less frequently, in my experience, than updates to the average Linux distribution.
(You could believe, if you stopped blindly ignoring every argument against your favorite
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, Vista is real; I've seen betas of it, too. SQL Server is *finally* getting to a point where it is at least comparable to things like DB2. I suppose y
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Informative)
And this may be on the decline.
http://www.silicon.com/software/os/0,39024651,3911 7247,00.htm [silicon.com]
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2004/10/will _att_ditch_windows.html [oreillynet.com]
http://news.softpedia.com/news/South-Korea-Could-D itch-Windows-11302.shtml [softpedia.com]
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184234,00.html [foxnews.com]
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, we have the "release early, release often" philosophy of the Free Software Movement as well as the "release often enough to keep things interesting" tactic from Apple. These two tactics make more sense in this new era of software construction, testing, and distribution.
Users have grown accustomed to more frequent releases by software groups and companies they respect. These releases also satisfy an obvious, common human desire: instant gratification. As more and more users grow used to and satisfied with these accelerated release timetables, these multi-year release schedules used by Microsoft (and Adobe, while we're at it) look more and more comical.
Recently, Gates admitted the faux pas of allowing Internet Explorer to stagnate. I believe they have similarly misstepped with Windows. By the time Vista not only comes to market, but comes to be used by the majority of PC users (and don't kid yourself, you know that will happen), it will be very difficult to catch up to the psychological success of the multiple releases of Linux and Mac OS X.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:2)
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, patch Solitaire in Windows, you have to reboot (okay, slight exaggeration), leading to downtime ranging from minutes to hours (in the case of extremely large databases)
Patch anything but the kernel(and modules) in Linux? Just keep chugging along, perhaps restarting a single process or two, and a fairly transparent experience from the user perspective.
There is a difference.
Also note: downtime due to patches, maintenance, etc., is not counted as "downtime" as defined by Microsoft - just the rest of the world. So when you read downtime/uptime comparisons from Microsoft, ignore them. They redefine the terms.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
If rebooting a machine causes you problematic service downtime, your environment has fundamental problems that need to be addressed.
Patch anything but the kernel(and modules) in Linux? Just keep chugging along, perhaps restarting a single process or two, and a fairly transparent experience from the user perspective.
The difference b
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft's biggest problem is that they're coming to realize that their operating system just plain was not designed with some of today's realities in mind. As a result, they end up undertaking massive reengineering projects instead of solid incremental updates.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Interesting)
3. Dealing with thousands of Linux whackos like you
Nowhere did I say I was a Linux whacko. I don't use Linux (for many of the reasons you cited, actually). I use Windows XP almost everyday, and I like it. I also use Mac OS X (which I love, rather than merely like). But that's the problem: you see, Windows XP is good, not insanely great mind you, but good. Windows 95 was worth the wait compared to the mediocrity of Windows 3.1 (and don't get me started on 3.11's "networking support"). XP is pretty fast, reasonably stable (I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen XP blue screen, and those were mostly due to crappy drivers for el cheapo hardware), and its development tools are excellent.
So, whereas when Apple releases yet another yearly release, I'm excited to try it and see all the nifty little gadgets they've put in there this year, when Microsoft waits three, four, even five YEARS to release another version of Windows, I'm thinking I'd better be blown-away. This rarely happens. In fact, all of the features that would have blown me away (*cough*WinFS*cough*) are steadily removed from the shipping OS every time the release date slips.
So, there's the problem as I see it. By waiting so long to make a new release, they build up excitement while at the same time watering down the release so much that it's quite anti-climactic when the product finally DOES ship. I still like Windows, I just think they're screwing themselves here.
13. Idiots (you fall into this group, too!)
Assuming I'm a "Linux whacko" becuase I submit a post critical of Microsoft release practices? Hmmm, no comment on this one.
Re:Less and less relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's got to be about the stupidest thing I've seen on
By what standard is Windows a mature product compared to any other OS? They release updates and fixes every MONTH and there are like 15-umpty "versions" of Windows in the wild right now. The MSKB is FULL of "bug reports" and stupid workarounds for things that SHOULD have been fixed long ago.
By any rational measure, OS X is every bit as 'mature' as Windows; just ask the millions of people who use it everyday in demanding production environments (I'm not one of them).
Comparing commercial release schedules to OSS is largely nonsensical, because the latter has none of the pressures and/or responsibilities of the former.
Since when is OS X an OSS project? And even if you can somehow claim it is, Apple is a fairly large commercial enterprise with all those pressures and responsibilities you mention.
I ws just reading this today... (Score:3, Insightful)
"It would be an understatement to say that OS X is derived from NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. In many respects, it's not just similar, it's the same. One can think of it as OpenStep 5 or 6, say. This is not a bad thing at all - rather than create an operating system from scratch, Apple tried to do the smart thing, and used what they already had to a great extent. However, the similarities should not mislead you: Mac OS X is evolved en
When is XP not good enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
After working *so* hard to get corporations to upgrade from Windows 95,98, and Windows NT to Windows XP... It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.
Regardless of how you define "thin client", a desktop running Windows XP fits that bill quite nicely. IE6 is good, Firefox is available, everything is going browser based. Even *if* Microsoft tried to withhold a future version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP users, there will be Firefox and Opera. If microsoft tries to require non-portable components on the client side of their web components, they're going to cut off mobile users, OSX users, Linux, etc.
How exactly can Microsoft make Vista a compelling upgrade other than releasing new game titles that will not run on Windows XP?
Certainly, they cannot cut off security updates on Windows XP at least for the next decade or so.
Re:When is XP not good enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
MS has made it clear they will support older operating systems with security patches for at least 5 years after they discontinue selling it.
Businesses buy new computers on average every 4-5 years, if for no reason other than it is cheaper than maintaining the old hardware. Cost to maintain vs. new is one reason. Depreciation rules are another.
They will cut off XP update in 6 to 8 years. They will cut off all non-critical updates (bug fixes) in 2 to 4. All of this is published on their site, their policies for End of Life products.
My house is 50% Linux, 50% MS right now. We will not be making the transistion to Vista. By the time games won't run on XP anymore (5-6 years from now) I expect they will on Linux, or I simply won't buy the ones than don't.
So I really don't care when Vista comes out.
Re:When is XP not good enough? (Score:2)
It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.
it's actually quite simple. MSFT EOL's the software, and support for XP. for a business, that means everything.
Dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
Dupe (Score:5, Funny)
-1 Dupe.
Re:Dupe (Score:2)
The real reason -- (Score:5, Funny)
Vista (Score:2, Interesting)
And if anybody asks I never said that.
Better (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better Holes (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, keep in mind that they openly admitted that they stopped development halfway through to rewrite the entire OS and still attempted to make a deadline! That to me says that they had to cut corners on development and on testing and I'm willing to bet their are GAPING holes as a result.
Let us do what again? (Score:3)
Buy OS X?
Install Linux?
Install BSD?
There's all sorts of options that involve more or less instant gratification.
Official link (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing odd about this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
When a product is ready to be shipped Microsoft releases it immediately through MSDN subscriptions. It's products are always available for download to registered customers a month or more before it ends up on the shelves. Round that time of year I doubt they would be wanting to go to the expense of pushing it to the stores round Christmas.... I mean it's not like anyone out there is going to buy a copy of Vista to fill a christmas stocking.
This doesn't surprise me at all. A staged release of a system like Vista is only sensible. I'd want to know about every little possible glitch or issue on installation of the system before, mum, dad, grandma and grandpa start installing the thing.
Re:There's nothing odd about this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't MS want to get Vista out in time for Christmas? There are two big PC shopping times... back to school (August) and Christmas (December). They'll never get it out by August, and never said they would. But getting it out in November would be just in time to make a big blitz about "Buy a new computer with Windows Vista to put under your tree this year." The OEMs would love this, and MS could get massive sales.
Frankly, by November I don't think you should buy a new computer until Vista comes out and is pre-installed (Wintel only, if you are buying for Linux or a Mac, this doesn't apply).
If anything, I think this would HURT MS and the OEMs.
Izzard (Score:5, Funny)
I upgraded grandma to Lindows (from win98) (Score:2, Funny)
Such a pity for investors (Score:3, Informative)
Surprise... Surprise... Surprise... (Score:3, Insightful)
Odd coincidence (Score:5, Informative)
The Wall Street Journal reported [wsj.com] that before the stock market opened today
Microsoft shares were down as much as 3% in after-hours trading.
You'd think that Microsoft's investor relations department would try to co-ordinate two announcements that might affect the stock price. If they deliberately staggered the announcements to reduce the effect of the second one, Microsoft might be in violation of securities regulations.
In any case, investors should view Microsoft's future positive announcements with suspicion since they could simply be a precursor to a negative one.
Pig in a Poke (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Ubuntu (Score:3, Funny)
The only thing they might of missed is that Ubuntu was always delivered on time, but windows....
Not so odd (Score:4, Insightful)
The corporate guys will serve as an extension to the beta testing. If corporate test installs find anything, Microsoft can fix it and roll the fix into Vista before the final release.
Even if Microsoft had not slipped the final date, the corporate customers would still spend several months before rolling it out. They will probably be happy to get Vista earlier rather than later, so they can start the evaluation process.
The last customers who should get the OS are the home users, who want something that will Just Work right out of the box.
steveha
Comparisons are looking worse... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the meantime the Linux side of things continues to move along. At the present rate I would expect it reasonable to find Xgl or AIGLX along with Beagle and similar as standard in distributions released around the end of this year, along with a more Cairo-ised GTK and a steadily improving GNOME. I don't know anticipated release dates for KDE 4.0, but I don't believe it's too far away (compared the the Vista release), and certainly promises to be impressive. A lot of Vista's claims to superiority are going to be already present in Linux distros before Vista gets released.
Certainly this has to be a worrying trend for MS. The Linux desktop used to be well behind and playing catch-up. While it could still use some polish in some areas, as far as new features are concerned Linux has pulled up to level pegging - that implies that the Linux Desktop is improving much faster, and Linux pulling ahead is simply a matter of time. In the meantime Apple has been managing a much faster release cycle and doesn't seem to be having any problems staying ahead of MS.
Jedidiah.
Re:Comparisons are looking worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Comparisons are looking worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much every player worth noticing has been ahead of MS all along. I mean hell, GEOS did everything Windows 3.1 did and more, including scalable fonts before anyone even came up with a way to do that on windows period, and yet GEOS got clobbered - because they couldn't sell it. The problem with keeping ahead of Microsoft has never been one of technology, but mindshare, and thus market share.
Re:Comparisons are looking worse... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now Placing Bets... (Score:3, Funny)
A) Duke Nukem Forever
B) The Infinium Phantom Console or
C) Windows Vista!
Re:Now Placing Bets... (Score:4, Funny)
My bet.... (Score:2)
Not shipping in January 2007? (Score:4, Informative)
Growing Old Waiting for Longhorn (Score:2)
API compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-M
"So there we have it - this appears to be the first release in which they simply started dropping APIs."
"And, therefore, the first time for which we can categorically state that Wine will be more compatible with Windows applications than Windows itself."
"Not to mention that they're handing a near-fatal blow to OpenGL support, too."
etc.
Re:API compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, that's by design. DirectX is not cross-platform, at least not to the extent that OpenGL is. So this is yet another platform lock-in play by Redmond. Color me shocked.
Marketing Graphics (Score:3, Funny)
They may wish to think about changing this image. Appropriate, it may be, but not the best marketing image...
OSX Comes along again (Score:2)
OSX has released several versions since XP, and has been offering more and more of the features that Vista promises. It seems like MS has been trying to keep people hyped for the last few years, but at some point people are going to stop and realize that Apple is offering all of the features of Vista *now* and not X months from now.
Re:OSX Comes along again (Score:2)
MS is slower to release things, but they don't charge for service packs.
-bZj
Look on the bright side - this is great news (Score:4, Funny)
The date they will stop patching your copy of XP just got pushed back two months.
There are further delays down the road (Score:2)
As things get increasingly complex, the time to plan, develop, and test increases at an even faster rate. The code base is getting incredibly huge and complex. Unfortunately, the people at Microsoft undestimated just how complicated their plans were. In the end, they had to keep portions of legacy code they set out to irradicate, such as the registry or the boot system.
There's a few other delays down the road that are currently being overshadowed by the OS d
my guess for the contest (Score:2)
-bZj
Release the insecure version first? (Score:5, Funny)
I know! Let's sell the less secure version first to businesses who actually profit from their computers! What an great idea!
*Microsoft T-shirts and Xbox games to all*
And the winner is... (Score:5, Funny)
Top 10 Reasons Vista was delayed: (Score:4, Funny)
10 - Waiting for Roswell Alien Technology
9 - Will work better when Bird Flu is World Wide
8 - Oprah has not done the book review yet
7 - Apple Dual Boot XP still needs work
6 - Courtney Love needs one more rehab
5 - Still Can't remove Sony Root-kit
4 - Bush is still president
3 - http://onlytherightanswers.com/ [onlytherightanswers.com] has NOT given thumbs up yet
2 - Silva Brown said WAIT!
1 - Moore's Law, It's too slow right now