10.22.09
Vista 7 Coverage a Mixed Bag on Release Date
Summary: Headlines about Vista 7
• 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.
• 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.”
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 freeRory, 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.
• 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.
• 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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Dennis Murczak said,
October 22, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Eww, today was the first time I saw explicit Microsoft advertising in German TV. Now I know what Americans have to suffer through.
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 Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Do you know how Microsoft develops Windows? We have antitrust material which shows that it photocopies its O/S competitors.
Dennis Murczak Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Thanks. I have news channels running on the other laptop most of the time, so I can report if necessary about what the media do here.
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 Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I’ve noticed a pattern; the selling points of Vista 7 are none, just perceived ones. In Australia they boast “Security!” even though nothing has changed (and they admit this to the local press which accused them of deception). Here in the UK I see on television no selling points, just fluff and “taskbar”.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Yep, Apple once pointed this out. Remember “Redmond, start your photocopiers”?
Dennis Murczak said,
October 22, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Interesting how it differs throughout the world. Germany seems to be especially dominated by diehard fanboyism (regardless of the side), as I can see on the troll infested German-speaking internet and by how quickly you can get into an argument talking to anyone about computers.
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 said,
October 22, 2009 at 9:22 pm
““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?””
Well, even ReactOS will in theory run many Windows viruses, as long as they do not depend on things like security vulnerablities specific to Windows code, as ReactOS is a independent reimplementation.
Dennis Murczak Reply:
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Ironically, viruses would be a quite good code profiling tool for the Windows API part of ReactOS.
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 Reply:
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Not much has changed since Vista, but the public debate was replaced by marketing.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 am
“Not much has changed since Vista”
“and a security model that can still be exploited by automated attacks.”
Well, NT’s security model is actually quite good, as mentioned by ReactOS. And while on this topic, I mentioned before that UAC is a clone of sudo. It even is affected by the same MS patent that affect UAC. Yes, there are a few differences. For example, no timer, at least in the Vista version.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
There is a recent article on slashdot saying that many Windows viruses can run under Wine, another proof of this:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/10/24/1759213/Now-Linux-Can-Get-Viruses-Via-Wine
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Alas, people who open some E-mail attachment won’t run it in Wine and Wine users are less likely to download rogue applications; they use few specialised tools. There are also no admin privileges.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Not only that, but often Windows viruses do less harm running in Wine, for example NT kernel drivers are incompatible with Linux. Which is good, because for the same reasons most Windows anti-virus software is incompatible with Wine. ReactOS will run more viruses, but more Windows anti-virus software should be able to run in ReactOS to protect it.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
This is why GNU/Linux should ideally adapt to Free software and never truly depend on Wine.