02.22.10
Randall C. Kennedy is a Scam, But Vista 7 is Still Bloated
Summary: Randall Kennedy fooled his own employer (IDG), so his over-the-top ‘reporting’ will be no more; but the claim that Vista 7 is a pig remains in tact
THE reality behind Vista 7 remains unchanged, even after this revelation which will cost sensationalist Randall Kennedy his job:
Editor’s note: The person quoted in this story as “Craig Barth” is actually Randall C. Kennedy, an InfoWorld contributor. Kennedy, who presented himself as the CTO of Devil Mountain Software, no longer works at InfoWorld. Given that he disguised his identity to Computerworld and a number of other publications, the credibility of Kennedy’s statements is called into question. Rather than simply remove stories in which he is quoted, we have left them online so readers can weigh his data and conclusions for themselves.
Let’s remember what Groklaw’s Pamela Jones wrote about Randall Kennedy two weeks ago: “Is he Rob Enderle’s son or something?” Kennedy is attacking GNU/Linux quite a lot too and he lies/trolls in order to do this.
Gregg Keizer was fooled repeatedly by Kennedy:
The Florida firm that last week said most Windows 7 machines exhaust their physical memory, and as a result take a performance hit, defended its data and conclusions after naysayers dismissed its findings.
“Everyone thinks that they’re a [Windows] performance expert,” said Craig Barth, the chief technology officer of Devil Mountain Software, a performance metrics software maker. “They look at their PC and say, ‘My PC doesn’t do that.’”
As a bit of background, Vista 7 was shown to be too bloated as early as 2008 and even last year (it is even slower than Vista sometimes). Kennedy merely reiterated claims, but he relied on a benchmark of memory which got covered in many places like this one.
A Microsoft spokesperson told InternetNews.com that the company had no comment on Devil Mountain’s latest report.
Microsoft had no comment, i.e. it did not deny the allegations when approached by its own booster/journalist.
There is a parallel here involving the leak of E-mails about global warming. Just because there was an alleged scandal does not mean that the actual claims are magically being falsified or that the hypothesis gets refuted; in fact, Vista 7 has been a resource hog for quite a while and various journalists pointed this out and showed it empirically, albeit differently. Maybe there is no “Memory Problem” per se, but there certainly is a speed/performance problem. Microsoft boosters like Preston Gralla are probably among those who would deny and then assume that just because the messenger was fake the results too are invalid (like confusing causality and correlation). It’s natural to think that if the claim comes from a fictitious source, then that also means that there is no memory problem in Vista 7 (well, Gralla is also attacking UNIX/Linux and Macs over security this week while pretending to be “just curious”, which is a common tactic of Microsoft boosters). Windows is demonstrably less secure.
Despite some other reliability problems in Vista 7, Microsoft has its share of partners who are pushing businesses to adopt scarcely-adopted and scarcely-tested software. Microsoft is paying other parties to impose this it upon businesses (without success).
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) released several non-security updates for Windows 7 and its server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 Release 2 (R2) two weeks ago.
The main purpose of four of those patches was to improve stability and reliability of the two operating systems. Unfortunately for an undetermined number of users, one of those updates broke their systems rather than make them more stable.
Windows can never be as reliable as UNIX/Linux. Windows was just built so poorly as a shadow of something that was built more properly, sometimes correctly. █
‘While both Microsoft’s and Apple’s systems were graphical, the guts of the two were completely different. McGregor told Gates as much.
‘”How are they different?” Gates snapped back. “They both draw fucking lines on the screen, right? They both put things in windows, right? Mac wrote a windows thing, you wrote a windows thing, they ought to be able to run the same stuff together.” Which is when it became clear to Eller that Gates still didn’t have a clue as to how the Mac system worked.’
–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
clayclamp said,
February 22, 2010 at 2:36 pm
I was wondering over the weekend how you were going to spin this, but this exceeds all expectations. You never fail to disappoint.
You’re so freaked out that even your grammar decided to take a vacation.
Robotron 2084 Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Yeah, and he even ripped off the climate change e-mail comparison I made at the start of the year:
http://boycottnovell.com/2010/01/01/syndrome-of-taboo/#comment-77446
I suppose I could be flattered, but I have a feeling when your goal is to post 6 or more anti-Microsoft articles PER DAY it becomes necessary to start recycling. Even using items from people you don’t particularly care for.
Danielh said,
February 22, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I know he is an inflammatory sensationalist but then again i cant help myself wondering. Microsoft must hold a serious grudge against that guy. The timing of the revelation was all to convenient to be a fluke.
The problem was his message and since it couldnt be refuted in numbers they did a character assassination on him.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Yes, Microsoft blacklisted him ages ago.
“I receive an e-mail from Julie McCormick at Waggener Edstrom in which she extends a “special save-the-date” invitation to attend a “unique, invitation-only” event being hosted by the Windows Client team. She labels the subject matter as “confidential”…”
–“Blacklisted by Microsoft!” by Randall C. Kennedy
your_friend said,
February 23, 2010 at 1:54 am
SJVN disappoints. It is nice of him to mention that GNU/Linux is happy in 1GB, often 512 MB while Windows 7 needs 6GB of RAM, it is sad that he does not transfer what he knows and sings Windows praise:
He does not see that something that needs 6 to 12 times the memory is a bloated pig? Why does he malign Firefox as a hog when it works great on 512 MB GNU/Linux systems? Desktop publishing is as old as desktop PCs, with “high end” systems having previously run on Mac Classics. Scribus, Inkscape and GIMP are applications that do everything serious publishers need on any GNU/Linux system. Speech recognition is something cell phones can do. If this is the best Windows has to offer in 12GB, the franchise is really dead.
Robotron 2084 Reply:
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Absolutely false and misleading. Windows 7 does not need 6 Gigs of RAM to function normally. Aside from using Windows 7, I think it’s safe to say you have no experience in desktop publishing, graphics, or video editing.
Take Photoshop CS3 for instance. It uses 51 megs when it’s started. Now let’s load 5 digital camera photos at 3648×2736 each. At 30 megs per image we’re now allocating 264 megs of memory. We haven’t even made any changes yet that will later add to the undo buffer. Change an entire image? Throw another 30 megs in the buffer. Bloated? No. This is what it takes to work with large amounts of data.
It’s not 1990 anymore and we aren’t printing your high school newsletter. Today’s tasks require crunching more data than ever before. Don’t even get me started on editing HD video.
your_friend Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 1:31 am
I don’t use any version of Windows, especially for publication tasks. Neither do the people at Microsoft, they use Macs. I use GNU/Linux and don’t need the gigs of RAM SJVN says Windows 7 needs. Yes, I have edited HD video. Kino, one of the easiest editors around, copies everything up to HD for editing. I’ve run this comfortably in 1GB of RAM on a 1 GHz 32bit processor. The bloat SJVN mentions is just crazy and he should find fault with that kind of performance even if memory is cheap. Microsoft performance lags severely with each release of their OS, as is usual with their upgrade treadmill. The absurdity of that treadmill is more apparent than ever.
Robotron 2084 Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 5:24 am
7 year old news stories aside, not everyone at Microsoft would prefer to use a Mac. Back on point, let’s look at exactly what Steven wrote:
“I recommend a minimum of 2GBs of RAM for 32-bit Windows 7 and 4GBs for 64-bit Windows 7. For choice, I like to give either version at least 6GBs.”
“For choice” is not the same as “required” or even “optimal”. If I were handing raw camera images at 16-bits per channel, I’d want 6GBs too.
Here’s a better question though. How is it you can afford a camera that records video in true High Definition…. yet can’t afford to edit that video on a machine faster than 1 GHz?
your_friend said,
February 23, 2010 at 2:04 am
Someone claiming to be Kennedy had this to say. IDG knew all along? It is difficult to believe a publisher that routinely refuses to call “computer viruses” what they really are, Windows viruses and boosts Microsoft.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 3:42 am
Keizer does not boost Windows; Kennedy does.