It seems, however, that PC makers having been burnt badly by Vista don’t expect Windows 7 to move hardware. I’ve collected a few Windows 7 reviews here. The relevant and worthwhile reviews are here and here and here.

Linux getting competitive with Microsoft is by Linux sellers/advocates helping to bring perception in line with reality. Microsoft spends a ton of money on managing that perception for a reason (it pays).

[Novell and various defenders (eg, of Microsoft) here have definitely done their services for Microsoft's benefit when they generally fail to mention Microsoft problems or downplay them. The other part of their service to Microsoft is in then trying to highlight positives.]

Microsoft’s brand value (eg, perceived trustworthiness and quality) is crucial to the value of Microsoft’s products and business successes (especially moving forward).

An example of brand value to Microsoft:
The key in brand value and in exclusive (“innovations”) is a main part why Microsoft will use WinFOSS to really help Windows without hurting their income and the willingness of people to still pirate their goods. The WinFOSS is intended to help the monopolies be preserved since not everyone wants to pay or steal (duh) and Microsoft can’t afford for Linux to gain serious traction. WinFOSS that Microsoft can leverage most comes from the use of things like mono. [See this http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/25/jose-on-mono/ and the quote here http://boycottnovell.com/2009/01/11/eric-rudder-on-dot-net/ .]

Two minor points: One, where brand is really important is among those that make MSware purchasing decisions. Consumers don’t really make their OS choices (when they do, Linux fairs much better than the alleged market share value of one or few percentage points). Two, the brand value “study” has it’s own set of hidden methods and faults or else limited conclusions.

I would fix this reply up as follows:

It’s possible to “prove” a lot of things ….

I know these people’s hypothesis. I don’t agree with it, and I doubt they have proved otherwise. I don’t want to waste the time to look into the methods, especially when I have found (in cases where I have checked) that so much key information is left off the “studies” in the first place.

***

I don’t know Roy’s views, but the above fixes make the statements a little closer to my views. [I don't really know what motivates researcher X or Y, for example, though I can certainly have my suspicions.]

***

Microsoft and their credibility problem.

No wonder they fear transparency and Linux.

It’s painful when you have to learn about a Microsoft problem for the first time through a virus or malware that caused damage already. .. well, if I didn’t already mind the fact that untrustworthy Microsoft is in control over my information and privacy (were I to use Windows).

Don’t forget independent-but-Microsoft-commissioned ‘studies’ which led to an “outrage”. They set up Linux servers — badly — in order to demonstrate that it was worse than NT. I think they also got sued when they tried something similar vs IBM.

>> The flaws and privacy/security violations of Microsoft products, happening faster, don’t really help my peace of mind.

>> Anyway, with closed source, there can be any amount of cheating. Surely, I don’t expect Adrian K-H or anyone else to have studied all the source code in order to conclude that the benchmark(s) wasn’t (weren’t) gamed.

>> Another note on Microsoft credibility: Unfortunately, perception wins out in many purchasing decisions. It seems a large chunk of MSFT’s value comes from perceived brand value: http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx?langid=1000 . I can’t believe their brand does this well, even considering that you aren’t really going to find ranked highly quality but lesser known brands. Microsoft must be doing a great job passing off the blame on product defects. If people don’t know where MSware starts and stops, it’s easy to think the worse portions of it may not be Microsoft after all but hardware issues or “those evil spyware people”.

Also, at times Roy does fail. That is not news nor have I seen it denied by anyone. Comments usually rise quickly when someone is upset about something that was said. Clarifications and some debate usually follow based on who happens to have been passing through.

I think many key arguments are correct when you look across BN’s posts (based on the limited amount I have looked at considering Roy posts like a machine gun round the clock). Well.. the comments section is here to find the probs.. so let’s get to it.

I don’t know what Roy meant, but I at least partly believe that “statistics can be used to prove anything.” In other words, many of the “studies” we hear about either have flaws or have enough missing details that normal folks with a little experience can figure out that much dirtiness *may* have been involved to lead to the conclusions supportive of the hypothesis the researchers may have wanted to prove all along. Does study X or Y really suggest very much? When studies can’t be confirmed, we’d have to trust on the magical wisdom/honesty of the researcher. [I'm not suggesting anything about the current links or linked authors.]

I’ll say one thing about benchmarks, they can be gamed by anyone with access to the source code through code paths that will never be used for any real workload (eg, because of security issues and because of other assumptions made that won’t fit). The credibility problem Microsoft and any closed source company WILL ALWAYS HAVE is the closed source (whole or bits), the lack of transparency.

Of course, if Windows 7 is Vista dressed with things like speed fixex, then one can understand it would perhaps in fact perform better. It may do DRM better, for example. Maybe these alpha OS versions leave DRM off altogether in a number of crucial cases (gaming the benchmark). Many other things can be left off (including security tests and background activity).

Anyway, with closed source, there can be any amount of cheating. Surely, I don’t expect Adrian K-H or anyone else to have studied all the source code in order to conclude that the benchmark(s) wasn’t (weren’t) gamed.

The flaws and privacy/security violations of Microsoft products, happening faster, don’t really help my peace of mind.

Another note on Microsoft credibility: Unfortunately, perception wins out in many purchasing decisions. It seems a large chunk of MSFT’s value comes from perceived brand value: http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx?langid=1000 . I can’t believe their brand does this well, even considering that you aren’t really going to find ranked highly quality but lesser known brands. Microsoft must be doing a great job passing off the blame on product defects. If people don’t know where MSware starts and stops, it’s easy to think the worse portions of it may not be Microsoft after all but hardware issues or “those evil spyware people”.

While yes, their proof may be flawed, they presumably have some sort of supporting evidence. You can’t write it off without at least examining it.

You’re not contradicting what I wrote.

Hypothesis don’t matter, the facts and the proof do. As a scientist, I would have thought you would have known this.

Obviously if you cherry-pick the facts, you can “prove” any hypothesis (which is basically what you do). However, in order to disprove someone’s hypothesis, you need to look at what facts they do bring to the table and fit them in with other facts that you can find that they left out.

Just because someone has different beliefs than you doesn’t mean you should ignore their facts, because maybe it is you who is wrong. If you ignore their facts, then your argument is no stronger than theirs.

And you label practically anyone who says anything positive about Windows as a “Microsoft fan”, which means that in practice you write off the opinion of anyone who doesn’t agree with your mindset.

That’s fair enough, that’s up to you. But what you’re missing is that your view is completely divorced from reality. Vista was objectively a bad release. Will Windows 7 be? You’ve made up your mind already, and write off anything which doesn’t fit with that view.