Vista 7 Coverage a Mixed Bag on Release Date
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2009-10-22 17:04:59 UTC
- Modified: 2009-10-22 17:04:59 UTC
Summary: Headlines about Vista 7
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Consumers Won't Pay $120 for Windows 7 Upgrade
Will home users pay that price? I'm betting they won't. True, some Microsoft diehards will line up on October 22 to grab the first copies of Win 7, but most consumers will spot the price tag and walk away.
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Apple takes a few shots at Windows during WWDC09
During this year's WWDC, Apple took the time to talk up Snow Leopard, the successor to Mac OS X, but also made sure to talk about Windows. Apple's Bertrand Serlet made a point to say that the company loves and is proud of Leopard, so to show that the next version built upon the previous one, the company called the operating system Snow Leopard. Serlet called Windows 7 "just another version" of Windows Vista, noting that the user still has to deal with DLLs, the registry, disk defragmenter, and so on. He emphasized that Microsoft has dug quite a big hole with Vista and is trying to get out of it with Windows 7, at which point the screen showed the rather harsh quote: "Vista has failed to catch on with mainstream computer users, while businesses have shunned it outright." On top of that, he said that Windows 7 has "even more complexity" since it is "the same old tech as Vista" and is "just another version of Vista."
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Microsoft's roadkill on the journey to Windows 7
Windows 7 starts out on the wrong foot
Although it's too early to fully measure the impact Windows 7 will have on the third-party market, it's already off to a bad start with its heavy-handed dismissal of third-party video codecs. Third-party codecs cooperate with video compression standards that Microsoft's own video applications, such as Media Player, were heretofore loathe to support.
But Windows 7 adds some new codecs to Microsoft's quiver, and where these collide with third-party products, you won't be surprised who comes out on top.
Windows 7 preempts third-party codecs in Microsoft's own applications, such as Media Player, by using its own embedded codecs whenever possible. This is a major change from XP and Vista operation, where users could override Microsoft codecs globally. Although users can circumvent Windows 7 codec usurpation with some effort, the process is not intuitive and decidedly less convenient than the old behavior.
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The 7 deadly sins of Windows 7
Likewise, power users soon learn that their ability to hack Windows 7 to make it work the way they want is often limited by the closed, black-box nature of its proprietary code base. These users see how easy it is to custom-tailor Linux and even Mac OS X, and they feel that twinge of jealously. They want what these other platforms provide, and soon they find themselves coveting their neighbor's OS.
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Cloud giants take shots at Windows 7
The latest round of comments could further indicate that following the troubles of Windows Vista, competitors may be sensing blood in the water with Redmond's latest efforts. The remarks from IBM and Salesforce.com come after Apple suggested that it would be gaining users following the release of Windows 7.
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BBC Breakfast Talk Up Windows 7 Dismiss Rivals
A few points that came to mind:-
* I don’t recall such a review of OSX Snow Leopard when it came out, BBC biased towards Microsoft?
* Will there be a similar review of other OS releases this month/year such as Ubuntu and others?
* Why focus so much on the touch elements if most computers don’t have a touch screen and it’s a ‘gimmick’. Perhaps it just makes good telly, even if it’s somewhat misguided
* No mention of the pain users will have upgrading
* No mention of the cost
* No mention of the fact that OSX is cheaper, instead focussing on the cost of Apple hardware. Isn’t this an OS review, not a hardware review. I’d bet that Sony touch screen Rory used isn’t exactly cheap
* ‘little community’ building Free Software you say Rory? Dismissive and unnecessarily Patronising
* ‘don’t want to bother with that sort of stuff’. I find many users don’t want to ‘bother’ with viruses, malware and broken software, but they do, on Windows
* Ubuntu isn’t ‘out next week’. The latest version is. Ubuntu has been around for 5 years (this week). What we’re doing is no different to Microsoft shipping a new release of Windows, and Apple shipping a new OSX. It just so happens ours is free
Rory, please feel free to come along to the Ubuntu Release Party next Thursday 29th in London, and you can meet some of the great people who help put Ubuntu together.
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Microsoft admits Windows 7 security ad isn't 'sincere'
Microsoft is set to launch an advertising campaign promoting the security€ of Windows 7 that even its own executives admitted was less than sincere.
During the Windows 7 launch event in Sydney this morning (see photo€ gallery top right), journalists were shown a number of advertisements€ that will feature in an upcoming television campaign - including one€ touting the operating system's security capabilities.
The advertisement in question features an elderly gentlemen with what€ looks to be his grandson. They are playing with a very grand toy castle€ and talking about IT security.
"A while back something just popped into my head: 'My PC should have more€ security'," said the grandfather. "Like 50-foot castle wall-type€ security. Next thing I know, whammo! There's Windows 7. Now it keeps all€ my personal info safer and I don't have to worry about bad stuff getting€ through. Victory is mine. How's that for secure?"
[...]
"Don't you worry that [the advert] might just be misleading a few people€ into not buying antivirus software?" Ross asked. "Because you're still€ going to have to, aren't you?"
Putt responded by saying consumers should get "more sincere guidance"€ from a third party.
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Brand power can fix rogue AV issue: Microsoft
When asked if whitelisting legitimate security products - so rogue security applications would be automatically blocked - was a possibility, Strathdee explained that this would be "an enormous amount of work" and is made more difficult in countries that have a large number of relatively unknown security vendors.
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Comments
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-22 23:26:19
First ad is about a "Windows phone" ("carry your Windows around with you"). It's full of happy-looking people in a park doing uninteresting, unrelated stuff, and a girl on a bench calling someone from her "Windows phone".
The second ad is about Windows 7 and unintentionally very ridiculous. It's about a girl on the train with her laptop, talking about how "it" doesn't crash (a word was used with the primary meaning of "airplane crash", so I supposed she was very afraid of flying). After I noticed it was rather about her laptop, I got a glance at KDE with two Dolphin windows and an mplayer-ish window showing two romantic baboons at night. And all the talk about how the laptop will never crash again :-) Finally a solid Linux ad I thought, could need slightly better acting though. Suddenly I heard her say something about "Windows 7", at which point I was honestly surprised. The following (and final) line from her "I'm a PC and created this myself" made me burst into laughter.
End user marketing: botched. Badly.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-22 23:39:03
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 00:37:12
Besides of the ads, there was a short interview on another channel with a few fanboys that told me nothing new about Windows culture (buy it for the "kicks", even if it's just a service pack).
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-23 00:46:11
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-23 02:12:51
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 01:13:30
As for the selling points, it seems everyone here is at least rudimentarily informed about Windows/Vista 7's nature as a paid for service pack, but hey it's new, so everyone has to get it.
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-23 02:22:04
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 14:09:28
Yes, the ads are misleading in that they overstate their case. I expect at least as much backlash from this than from Vista, because a lot of buyers will be really disappointed, especially in terms of software/driver compatibility and a security model that can still be exploited by automated attacks.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-23 15:10:20
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-23 15:26:34
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-24 19:14:35
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-24 20:42:35
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-25 00:05:22
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-25 00:23:48