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Cutting Prices Won't Save Windows Vista | |
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| Time: 14:56 EST/19:56 GMT | News Source: ExtremeTech | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Microsoft's recent announcement of a price cut for Windows Vista illustrates the desperate position the company is in. By all reasonable accounts Vista has failed and Microsoft is desperately trying to prop it up and put some lipstick on a very nasty and very flawed pig. Unfortunately, it won't work. | ||
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| #1 By 9264 (69.176.21.30) at 3/14/2008 3:06:39 PM |
| Ah, the smell of fresh FUD in the morning. Isn't Vista bashing out of style yet? |
| #2 By 88850 (221.128.180.134) at 3/14/2008 3:28:54 PM |
| Won't it be great fun to torture the author of this article? Just kidding. ;) |
| #3 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 3/14/2008 3:37:07 PM |
| Well I like Vista and have done even more since SP1 - awaiting mooresa fainting. |
| #4 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 3/14/2008 4:01:03 PM |
| ;-) I'm watching you Byron... |
| #5 By 75046 (201.52.225.19) at 3/14/2008 4:39:31 PM |
| It seems the desperate position here is from the FUD... I´m really really sick oh it. |
| #6 By 89153 (75.157.154.187) at 3/14/2008 6:37:54 PM |
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Well, the reality, especially for the Enterprise, is that Vista is hardly getting adopted so far:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Vista/Desktop-OS-Hold-the-Vista/ "In a survey conducted by Ziff Davis Enterprise Editorial Research for eWEEK of enterprise IT professionals, just 2 percent of respondents said that Vista was the primary desktop operating system at their companies, while 92 percent indicated that XP was their primary desktop OS." |
| #7 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 3/14/2008 6:38:11 PM |
| This article should be classified as top quality flame bait. What a pile. |
| #8 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 3/14/2008 7:22:59 PM |
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#6
Well the reality is that enterprise adoption of Vista is not surprising in the least. How many migrated the majority of their systems to XP before SP1 was released? On the consumer side Vista adoption is continuing on a steady pace regardless of the bad press http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10 I think what is most scary is the 0.33 percent are still using Windows Me |
| #9 By 143 (65.221.158.226) at 3/14/2008 8:02:34 PM |
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I can see why IT isn't picking up Vista, XP is solid as OS goes.
Microsoft will have to run a major scare campaign against XP. I still think Steve Ballmer dropped the ball big time letting a broken product out the door. He should have waited until Vista was completed. |
| #10 By 9264 (69.176.21.30) at 3/14/2008 9:51:07 PM |
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#8
What are things like the Wii, PSP and iPod doing on a list of operating systems? |
| #11 By 2138 (81.183.96.143) at 3/15/2008 12:05:49 AM |
| after beta testing vista and having some complaints about it, is all par for the course but vista grows on you after awhile just like xp, etc... the world can no longer have it on silver much less gold platter. stop crying and move on and just learn and have patience. yes i like xp but it has rather grown into boring even with sp3. |
| #12 By 89153 (75.157.154.187) at 3/15/2008 2:34:20 AM |
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Here's the problem. By the time Vista even reaches the same market share as XP, 7 will most likely already be out by then. XP has a *huge* market share. It will take years before Vista is even near it. Imagine the headache that's going to cause everybody, especially MS, when 7 comes out, and supporting 3 different operating systems for a huge number of users and having to deal with 2 big market shares, XP and Vista, and the ever-growing 7 market share. After all, you seriously don't expect the majority of systems to be running Vista in 2 years time? That's laughable at best.
Vista to me is like Win2000 but in a slightly different definition, ie. it'll be somewhat adopted but by the time it even gets near to XP's market share, its replacement will be there waiting to eagerly replace it and be a much better product that Vista ever was. So we may even see the following effect: For the next 2 years, Vista's market share will grow but based on current growth numbers, it'll be nowhere near XP's market share even in 2 years. Then, once/if 7 comes out in 2010, 7 will take market share from both XP and Vista users. What are you left with? XP will have had and will continue to have a greater market share than Vista ever had/will have and 7 will eat away at both products' market shares, and Vista will be quite easily forgotten. |
| #13 By 2201 (78.32.103.51) at 3/15/2008 4:50:05 AM |
| #12 I think that some of what you say is true, but that's a lot to do with the fact that XP was out for over 5 years unopposed (when normally a new version of Windows is released after 2-3) so XP has had time to build up the sales. It's hardly to do with any perceived weakness Vista has compared to XP. If "Windows 7" took 5-6 years to come out, Vista would be in the same position as XP is now. |
| #14 By 81201 (87.10.60.108) at 3/15/2008 5:04:49 AM |
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this news is pure FUD.
Save it from what? Vista sold more than 130 million copies... This post was edited by suy on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 07:47. |
| #15 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 3/15/2008 10:15:54 AM |
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#12
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11 If you look at the above numbers in two years Vista will have significant market share considering current adoption rates. Even if adoption continues at the 1 percent per month since release with the result that XP loses roughly the same per month by February 2010 Vista will roughly have 37 percent market share vs roughly 50 percent for XP. If Vista sees a mild bump in adoption to 1.5 percent per month it will have surpassed XP by then. I think you could see adoption pace increasing with the release of SP1 and the fact that XP should leave the retail channel completely by the middle of this year. I never said that Vista would have the majority of systems. If MS is able to get 7 out in 2010 and then continue with a 3-4 year schedule you will see most businesses and consumers skipping releases. XP has had an extremely long period in the OS world to build it's market share with no real direct competition. The result will be you will see the last two windows releases spreading the bulk of the desktop market share between themselves. This is as long as MS is able to stick to their release plans. In the end it doesn't really matter to MS as long as it is windows releases that continue to dominate in market share. Whether you are buying XP, Vista, or the future Windows 7 MS is still getting your dollars. |
| #16 By 89153 (75.157.154.187) at 3/15/2008 11:22:23 AM |
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kaikara, do you really consider those numbers impressive?
Look at: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/prnewswire/access/200145511.html?dids=200145511:200145511&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Oct+01%2C+2002&author=&pub=PR+Newswire&desc=Microsoft+Windows+XP+Captures+20%25+Market+Share+on+the+Internet+in+Less+Than+a+Year&pqatl=google In less than a year, XP had 20% of the market share and surpassed 98 soon afterwards. XP was competing against a huge number of 95/98/ME systems which, combined, had a v. long period of time to build market share and yet XP was able to do that in less than a year. An OS, especially one that isn't free, can then be considered a failure in my opinion if it hasn't even surpassed it's predecessor's market share given a generous 3 years of time before the newer version comes out to replace it. Much like WinME turned out to be the failure it was. Now, I'm not saying Vista is even close to being as bad as WinME in terms of the OS itself, Vista isn't bad, but WinME didn't surpass it's predecessor's market share either... This post was edited by Flint2 on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 11:27. |
| #17 By 2231 (72.5.151.4) at 3/15/2008 11:31:38 AM |
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Some people here don't know what sold and adoption mean. Both imply a choice. Consumers have little choice, business does.
It's only going to get worse for Microsoft in the next year because of the economy. Businesses are going to tighten budgets, which means IT projects get delayed until 2009. For business it's about the bottom line. How will Vista increase revenue or reduce expenses. If the IT people can not make the numbers work then Windows 7 is the next stop. |
| #18 By 89153 (75.157.154.187) at 3/15/2008 11:47:04 AM |
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It's going to get worse for Microsoft on the consumer side too because consumers *do* have a choice now.
What I mean is, those $299-499 inexpensive laptops are starting to become extremely popular, such as the EEE and the 25-30 other models coming out later this year based on Intel's Atom just do not have the horsepower or enough space to run Vista. If they did, do you really think MS would promote XP on the EEE with Asus? Now, you may be saying, how is this bad for MS since they'll continue to get Windows users via the EEE and similar devices too? Well, XP is going bye-bye by early 09 in terms of system builder licenses. Then what? Vista still won't run great on those devices, Linux will be the preferred OS of choice by OEMs on those devices and MS will be left out of an ever-growing market for the next 1.5 years once XP is gone because they couldn't make Vista work well on devices that don't have a lot of power. Until 7 comes out of course, because as MS said, they're working on making 7 work on those kinds of devices: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/05/asus-and-microsoft-working-an-eee-targeted-version-of-windows-7/ Even if you look at current laptop sales on sites such as Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=amb_link_4718092_5?ie=UTF8&node=565108&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=0VMZVJGFDXBH25HRJ7F4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=344014001&pf_rd_i=565108 only 6 of the top 25 run Windows as the built-in OS that comes with the system thanks to devices like the EEE and Apple. This post was edited by Flint2 on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 11:50. |
| #19 By 28801 (71.58.231.46) at 3/15/2008 12:55:20 PM |
| #18: Do you actually believe that people keep Linux on those EEEs? |
| #20 By 89153 (128.189.250.243) at 3/15/2008 2:04:43 PM |
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rxcall, what they keep or don't keep on it is not the point and not all consumers know how to install an OS from scratch, let alone install an OS on a system that doesn't even have a cd/dvd drive.
The point is, MS will not have an OS that will work well on those devices (by MS's own admission) that can be preloaded by the OEM or bought from a retail store after early '09 once XP is gone. So even if folks wanted to install XP after they bought their EEE, they won't be able to after June this year if they haven't bought a retail license of XP for it. That leaves consumers with the only Windows choice of Vista for at least 1-1.5 years after XP is gone. I don't know about you, but I definitely would not want to install Vista on EEE-like devices. So, in more ways than one, Vista is the wrong product at the wrong time for MS. It's not suited for the extremely popular inexpensive ultraportable market nor is it doing as well as XP did in the same period of time (that "steady pace" for Vista will help it *not* surpass XP by the time 7 is out just like WinME never surpassed Win98) nor does it really contain a major benefit for enterprises to adopt it immediately which they aren't doing yet. This post was edited by Flint2 on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 14:16. |
| #21 By 3746 (72.12.161.38) at 3/15/2008 4:02:26 PM |
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I never said whether the Vista adoption numbers were impressive or not. I was showing that you were wrong in your evaluation that Vista was not going to come close to XP's market share numbers in the next two years. The XP introduction was in a completely different market than the Vista release. Both consumers and businesses were begging for a better OS and XP provided that. With Vista's release you have MS competing against themselves with and extremely stable and mature OS in XP. Vista with is poor introduction, press and marketing has had an uphill battle. I personally feel that Vista is a solid release especially with the release of SP1 and many of my clients are completely happy with Vista. The main problem with Vista is that it is hard to recommend it as an upgrade to a current XP system. When I am asked I say leave as is and if you buy a new system then get it with Vista.
I do agree with most of your saying. I just think that the Vista release has been done ins a completely different market then it was 6 years ago with XP. If MS does get new releases out every 3-4 years then you will probably not see one OS from MS dominating like XP did in market share. In the end unless a OS emerges that competes with MS and take a more market share most OS dollars will still be going to MS. #17 How have things gotten worse for MS? They continue to make record profits with no sign of slowing down since the release of Vista. Take a look at the numbers. It doesn't appear that the Vista release has hurt them at all. http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/microsoft_q2_2008_by_the_numbers.html |
| #22 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 3/15/2008 8:28:28 PM |
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schwit - "It's only going to get worse for Microsoft in the next year because of the economy."
The economy was on the low-side of average from 2000-2003ish... and msft's revenue/profits advanced as usual during that time. |
| #23 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 3/15/2008 9:20:27 PM |
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#23: Unfortunately what is coming will be much worse; last Friday MSFT closed at $27.96 and the investment bank Bear Stern drop 50% after admitting they were experiencing "cash shortage".
Watch BBC International, it is very interesting. |
| #24 By 92283 (64.180.201.131) at 3/16/2008 1:20:03 AM |
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"Asus issued a statement predicting that its soon to be released Windows XP powered Eee PC will break the sales record of its Linux counterpart. Asus plans to release two XP versions of the Eee PC with varying price tag"
http://asus701.blogspot.com/2008/03/asus-predicts-that-windows-based-eec-pc.html |
| #25 By 65179 (221.128.181.47) at 3/16/2008 2:41:46 AM |
| What people don't realize is that XP is an exceptionally good piece of software for MS. Yes, it had its bugs and fundamental security flaws, but with XPSP2, its design, features and stability are exceptionally satisfactory. It raised the bar for the next version of Windows. For 9x users again, it was a HUGE difference in the quality of the OS and it tweaked the right parts of Windows 2000 and improved them. MS got it absolutely right with XP after their first superhit Windows 95, which UI wise was great. So when the next OS comes, it HAS TO BE better IN ALL ASPECTS than XP, users don't like making compromises like "this feature no longer available, that feature killed, this broken". They want a superset of the previous OS. Vista is not that. In fact, I fear whether MS *CAN* come up with a decent OS now because the people that really knew Windows in the 90s...so many of them are now gone. Meanwhile, Apple got it all right with OS X 10.2 onwards including the UI and that's why everyone's raving about them. It's not that Vista's feature set is bad, and the typical issues - drivers not available, bug ridden, instability, low compatibility can be resolved but fundamentally the architecture has become bloated, the design has seen removal of existing Windows features and the UI is simply horrible according to me. That's why it is failing. I don't think anyone will agree but I think XP will dominate the OS scene even after Windows 7. They have to start afresh from the Server 2003/XPSP2 codebase, not kill any features, not redesign features for absolutely no reason, add back what people are requesting for Vista, and add all the best well received parts of Vista, then maybe the next Windows will again be a hit. I've given up on future Windows versions because anyhow Vista's going to be the foundation/basis/starting point of development and MS will go back when the sun rises from the west. |
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