Steamd

Last week, I did a few posts regarding Ron Barrett, a blogger on NetworkWorld, did on Windows 7 (both here and here). Now, I stumbed on Ron’s posts purely by accident. I didn’t intend to write thoroughly about his take on Windows 7 but after reading his argument, well, I got inspired. Nothing personal against Ron Barrett. He’s got his opinion and I’ve got mine. And that’s the beauty of the internet. Everyone is free to voice their opinion in an unfiltered manner.

In his most recent blog post, Ron talks about Nvidia Ion, Nvidia’s new technology which was unveiled at CES 2009:

Interestingly, the NVIDIA ION runs on … Windows … Windows Vista Premium to be exact. Armed with the Intel Atom 330 CPU, the NVIDIA 9400M GPU (capable of full 1080p HD) and 7.1 audio. This is a system to keep your (pardon the pun) I-ON.

This is only the beginning. The ION has USB ports, HDMI, dual DVI, 1Gbps Ethernet, 3Gbps SATA (and eSATA connectors) as well as 2GBs of DDR-3 RAM.

The technology does sound interesting. This will definitely help elevate the concept of netbooks and steer them into a different direction. But Windows Vista Premium? The Intel Atom 330 isn’t a speed demon but it does offer quite a bit of power for really small form factors, which is perfect for things like netbooks. But with only 2 gigs of RAM, I don’t see a netbook with Windows Vista Premium being anything but a dog when it comes to performance. Virtually every notebook I’ve seen coming out with Vista on it has at least 3 gigs of RAM, which seems to be a good baseline for performance. An Nvidia Ion board with a max of only 2 gigs of RAM would have me worried. Still haven’t found any details on that so I guess we’ll see.

I am hoping to get a hold of one to test a little further and be able to report back to you in more detail. Perhaps I’ll throw the Windows 7 beta on it and check out how it handles. Maybe for fun I’ll even install Ubuntu on it to try it out, although I am not sure why, it’s not like I can play any of the hottest games with Ubuntu installed.

Yeah, let us know what you find out when you do test it. Personally, I just don’t see how Vista, let along Windows 7, will work all that well with this technology. Honestly, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to play many games on it.  Well, definitely not anything like Far Cry 2 or Crysis. I just don’t think Nvidia designed this technology to used to play high-end games on. 

A typical netbook with Nvidia Ion technology will likely cost around $400. Once you add-on a Windows Vista Home Premium license, that cost will go up to around $500. That isn’t that bad…but if the performance suffers due to the operating system then that’s $500 too much. Better to stick with a $400 netbook with Ubuntu on it at that point.

I’ve worked with too many small form factor notebooks to know that performance generally suffers the smaller the computer gets. I’ve had users with high-end needs insisting that they use a small tablet notebook for advanced 3D CAD drafting only to complain that it’s too slow. These are notebooks that are intended to be used lightly. They’re not meant for extreme power users.

Consider what the use of netbooks are. Most people who use netbooks use them primarily for web browsing, email, and general purpose applications. They’re typically underpowered in an effort to be highly efficient, light, low cost solutions. Desktop operating systems like Windows Vista, Windows 7, and even Mac OS X aren’t really the best candidates for these devices. Linux operating system like Ubuntu can be good candidates simply because you can configure them to run really light with minimal features.

What would work much better is if an operating system were designed around the concept of a netbook. Something really lean and clean with an interface that is better suited for a much small form factor. Doing that would allow applications much more room to make use of the available resources and provide a much better multimedia experience. 

Running a full-fledged OS on a netbook just isn’t a reality right now. The technology just isn’t quite there yet. Unless Microsoft has plans for a netbook version of their OS, the vision of running Vista and/or Windows 7 on a netbook is just that…a vision!

Sounds like the name of a serialized movie series, doesn’t it? Sorry…no Indiana Jones for Microsoft! Buck stops with the Windows 7 beta in my opinion.

So I tried out the beta a bit and found it to be, umm, interesting. That’s really the only word I can describe it with. Compelling? No, not really. Just interesting.

Is it faster and perkier than Vista? Well, yeah, and you would hope that it would be after Microsoft spent the better part of five years developing Vista. Certainly they learned something out of that experience.

The real question is: Is there anything that really sticks out that makes it better than Vista? Well, yes and no. The speed is the part that really makes it better. Other than that, most of the changes are under the surface and thus there isn’t really anything that is really new about Windows 7 yet. Unless Microsoft plans on introducing new features in future builds, not a whole lot to talk about. 

Aside from a bundle of little things scattered here and there, one feature that does stick out is the updated taskbar. I played around with it and concur with Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on the changes with the taskbar: 

Oddly enough, the first thing that you’re likely to notice about Windows 7 is also the bit that I like the least. The new revamped taskbar is visually very interesting (and certainly a lot easier to use at higher screen resolutions that the Vista or XP taskbar), but it tries to do too much and as such comes across as kludgey and counter-intuitive. One failure is that it’s hard to tell the difference between apps that are running and shortcuts that have been pinned to the taskbar. It also incorporates the new Jump Lists feature which acts as a context-sensitive menu for applications. Problem is that there’s very little rhyme or reason to what to expect from Jump Lists, making them awkward to use in the real world.

Yep, that was pretty much what I though. The functionality kind of has a thrown-together feel about it, as if they did it only to compete with Apple. Take a look:

The taskbar gets even more confusing when you have more than one windows open for a given application. The icons used to indicate a stack of windows open for a single application is kind of obvious but still not clear. It took me a few seconds to realize what the hell was going on with it.

The context menus above feel like they’re taken directly out of the Mac desktop. It’s as if they looked at Leopard and said “Why don’t we have that?”.

In the end, I found absolutely nothing compelling that would make me want to switch back to Windows. Nothing. And that’s part of Microsoft’s problem. Unless they scrap what they got and completely start from scratch, they’re never going to have anything that is remotely capable of being highly competitive with the Mac. Microsoft has to re-invent themselves to compete.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who used Windows for well over 10 years. I was also an IT administrator for a couple of architectural firms and have a lot of experience supporting Windows desktops and servers. Two years ago, like many other avid PC users, I was skeptical of how good a Mac really was. It wasn’t until I picked one up and use one for a good length of time till I realized just how good it was. Fast forward to today and I don’t want to use anything but a Mac. Granted, I also use Linux quite a bit but the Mac is my desktop of choice for everyday use.

Microsoft has a lot of work to do to Windows 7 if they plan to catchup with Apple. Personally, I don’t see Windows 7 being all that much better than Vista when it comes out. Doesn’t seem realistic that Microsoft will be able to pull a rabbit out of their hat in less than a year. After all, it’s not like Microsoft is all that good at magic tricks anyways.

In the end, what I learned was that Windows 7 feels more like a continuation on the development of Vista. Which makes Vista more or less an eight-year long beta. Goodie!

I’ll admit it…I’m downloading this one so I can evaluate it. Call it morbid curiosity. I’m very curious if my hypothesis is right and Windows Vista is nothing more than an eight year long beta with Windows 7 being the gold release. Definitely will post up my findings after evaluating it a bit.  ;)

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When OEM’s continue to have a demand for computers with XP pre-installed, it can only mean two things: 1) Either computer buyers are delusional and don’t see the value of Vista (which is what Microsoft believes) or 2) buyers simply don’t like Vista and would prefer to stick with XP till Windows 7 comes out. The reality is that educated buyers are not delusional and know enough about Vista to make an educated decision.  Well, not all buyers, but the ones that truly count are the ones causing problems for the OEM’s…corporate buyers! Personally, this is all just more signs that Microsoft truly needs to re-invent Windows. I honestly don’t think Windows 7 will do it for them. It’ll likely be too little too late. By then Microsoft’s market share will already have slipped by another 5% and will continue in a slow downward spiral.

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Ars Technica takes a peek at Windows 7 and what do they find? You guess it: more of the same. Rather than truly reinventing themselves and rebuilding Windows from the ground up, Microsoft just insists on beating the same ‘ole dead horse with candy colored plastic spoons. I mean, it’s just a mess. Every time I use Vista I’m constantly reminded of how much Windows is like an onion. Peel off a bunch of it’s layers and you’ll find some startling legacy cruft under the hood. I honestly doubt Windows 7 will be all that much different.

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The more and more I look at the differences between Microsoft and Apple, the more I notice how much they mirror politics. I’ve written about this before (The Presidential Election: Mac vs Windows) and the idea that Microsoft is very much like the Republican party still holds water. Take the recent interview Steve Ballmer did for PC Magazine (Steve Ballmer: Microsoft’s ‘Head Coach’). My bullshit detector went off like a bandit and I just kept asking myself, “Am I reading a John McCain interview?” As Obama might say, Ballmer “just doesn’t get it”.

Ballmer was asked if he was concerned that Microsoft could lose some their Windows market share (currently at 90%). Even though PC Magazine already stated that Apple has an 8% market share, he answers with the following:

Today, Apple has much less share than that. They have about 3 percent of the market—a little less than 3 percent of the total market is Mac. We do our job right—not just Microsoft, we and our partners. I mean, because in some senses, the thing that really competes are Windows PCs against Macs. And Windows PCs come in various flavors and sizes and forms and shapes and price points. And some are good and some are less good. I mean, they’re all over the map. But part of the way we have competed successfully with Apple is not just on the quality of our software versus theirs, but the variety of experiences and choice that we and our partners, hardware vendors, device driver vendors, application vendors provide. And I still think choice—choice on price, choice on capability, choice on applications—I think choice is a big deal. And if we do it right, I continue to think we’ll do very, very well. 

Umm…no Steve, Apple has more than just a 3% market share. Apple had a 3% market share two years ago. Where have you been? In fact, since the interview went to press, it has been reported that Apple’s market share will likely reach 10% by the end of the year.

As the Merovingian said in The Matrix, “Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without”. Don’t get me wrong, choice is a good thing. However, when it comes to PCs, choice is an illusion because you’re still settling for the one thing that separates Microsoft from Apple: the OS! Microsoft isn’t doing it right with Vista. I’m not sure if Steve understands that yet or he’s just using the whole choice thing to bullshit us.

When asked to justify the $150 price tag for Microsoft Office, Steve had this to say:

In the U.S., without tax, that’s the price I’ll quote because in some countries, the retailers mark it up, in some cases there’s value-added tax, so I’ll just say—we have basically a $100 product. And most people will own that product before they would buy a new one for three years. If you tell me that for $33 a year I get a product that is more capable, that actually reads and writes documents that other people create, that is compatible with what I might use at work and, oh by the way, everybody’s got a set of features that they really do use extensively.

Problem is, Steve, Microsoft Office costs more than $150 if you’re not buying the Home & Student version. When you consider that the Standard version alone costs over $239, it’s more like $66 a year for most people. And you wonder why people don’t upgrade more often than three years? Make a better product and lower the price and more people will buy upgrades. It’s that simple, Steve. As it stands though, all you’re doing is gouging customers. Office documents are practically a standard and, as such, many people feel they have no choice but to buy Microsoft Office. So much for the argument of choice, huh!

When asked about how Microsoft relates to younger people, Steve mentioned this in his spiel: 

I think the world of social networking is sort of barely scratched, and certainly if you look at it today and say what is—on a global basis—it’s ironic—but on a global basis, what is the most popular social networking offering? It’s actually MSN Messenger.

MSN Messenger is the corner stone of Microsoft’s social networking? Really? Really? What about Twitter? Facebook? So, IM and MSN Messenger are the lynchpin of social networking throughout the world? Wow, Steve, you’re REALLY out of touch. 

Finally, the topic turns to the Apple’s “I’m a Mac” and Microsoft’s current “I’m a PC” commercials:

I think they need a little bit of correction, and you’ll see us be much more vigorous about stating the case for the PC. The truth of the matter is, this is ironic. The PC outsells the Mac 33 to 1—32 to 1. And despite the fact that we don’t sell PCs, we only sell Windows to people who make PCs. And the attack is actually on the PCs, interestingly enough. You’ll see us defend the PC. We’re going to talk about why—look, PCs are better than Macs. That is not something that can be debated. 32 out of every 33 times, somebody buys a PC instead of a Mac. I’m not saying that there are not some things that people like about Macs, apparently there are. But have you ever seen a cheap Mac? No.

Saying that PCs are better than Macs is debatable, Steve. If it weren’t then Microsoft wouldn’t feel the need to spend $300 million trying to convince people that the whole “I’m a PC” thing is just a stereotype. Seems pretty clear that you and Microsoft view Apple as a threat and with damn good reason: they’re making a better product and it’s selling! Regarding that cheap Mac, what about a Mac mini? Granted, there aren’t any cheap all-in-one Mac’s out there…but what if one came out that was priced around $800? Would you be worried then? Umm, yeah, you would.

You know, they like to act like Macs are lightweight, there are much lighter weight PC notebooks. Macs—do they have the best battery power? Of course they don’t have the best battery power. Macs tend to have nice screens, but can you get nicer screens for a PC? Of course. Do Macs work in business? No, they do not. Can you get Macs made in your own country? Because in some countries, there’s a lot of sort of, you know, what do you call them? Import duties? Taxes? You can’t get Macs made in those countries, they make them basically one place in the world, and therefore they get even more expensive.

Never ceases to amaze me the crap that Ballmer comes up with to try and make Macs look like a shabby deal. Apple doesn’t make that big deal about how lightweight their notebooks are. However, the Macbook Air is about as light as they come. And battery power? Nice screens? Come on. Have you even used a Mac notebook for longer than 10 minutes? And taxes? Come on. You can do better than that.

Macs don’t work in business? Tell that to an enterprise shop that switched to Macs! I run my business on a Mac every day. Just because Steve Ballmer says it doesn’t make it so. Saying Macs don’t work for business is a myth and complete bullshit.

You know, there are so many—you know, can you find Macs in—I’m very sensitive to exactly what mouse I have on my laptop. Can you find a range of choices? Of course you can’t find a range of choices. You know, anyway—can you find the applications you want on the Mac? Well, you don’t really get full Microsoft Office. Everything from Apple is available, there are still tons of business applications and there’s games—anytime somebody does client software—over time they’ll do a Mac client. Maybe nowadays people do the Mac clients mostly to save time, but that’s only on the high-volume applications. So 32 out of 33 times people chose PCs, there must be something better about the PC, and that’s a story that deserves to be told. I think it’s a story of choice.

So, you mean to tell me that the mouse that Steve Ballmer is using right now won’t work on a Mac? I’m willing to bet that that simply isn’t true. I bet the mouse he’s using will work just fine if he plugged it into a Mac.

And you don’t really get a full version of Office? If that’s the case, then who’s fault is that? Oh yeah! Right! It’s Microsoft’s cause they’re the ones that created it in the first place!

And there are quite a few choices of software for the Mac. Pick any problem and I’ll guarantee you there will be at least two or three solutions to pick from. Granted, not everything is mainstream, off-the-shelf software but it doesn’t have to be. The developers who write software for the Mac would rather save the customer money and sell them online rather than charging more for boxed copies.

And yeah, there’s certainly a lot more choices for Windows software but that also means there is a lot of crap software too. More choice does not automatically mean better quality. And just because more people choose to buy a PC doesn’t mean that PCs are somehow better. If that were true then more people would be buying BMW’s and Porsche’s and such. People who care about quality, ease of use, and design buy Macs. For may others who simply don’t care or are too scared to go out of their comfort zone, they buy PCs.

It gets worse when he starts talking about Vista:

…market research says people who own Vista like it. People who don’t own Vista don’t like it as much. It’s interesting, it’s not the people who own it who don’t like it. The survey results are quite clear on this. Vista owners are happy with Vista, people who haven’t owned Vista yet wonder about it because it did get some early press and there were issues that we’ve worked through on compatibility.

Guess what, Steve? I’m a Vista owner and I don’t like it. And I’m not talking about early use here when these so-called “compatibility issues” existed. I ended up deleting the image off my hard drive and likely won’t start using it again till I absolutely have to. Who are the people in this market research? Are they people like me? What kind of users are represented in this research? If it’s anything like the Mohave experiment then your research is flawed. Only two-thirds of all businesses use Vista and there are plenty of people who don’t like Vista even after using it for some time.

When people are new to a product, they generally tend to like the interface of their old product. So the third thing people say is, gosh, I was used to XP, it was familiar to me, I’m not familiar—I think the user interface with Vista is a clear improvement, but I’m sure the publication you write for—if you guys change the front page, people don’t like it at first, right? So it takes some getting used to. But as people own it and use it, they like it. 

While that may be true most of the time, a lot of the changes made to Vista are so obtrusive and annoying that a lot of people aren’t “getting used to it”. People don’t want eye candy. They just want an operating system that is easy to use, easy to find things, and just works. While Vista is an improvement over XP in many areas it’s a failure in many others. Good product design is more than just eye candy. It’s about communication and solving people’s problems in an effective manner.

While Vista works for many people, others find it a hinderance compared to XP. I for one didn’t like the changes to the Control Panel. Compared to XP, it’s confusing and hard to find anything. I don’t like the organization and where Microsoft ultimately decided to put things. It’s a failure in usability because, even though I might get used to it, I still don’t like it and will still find it confusing now and then. And I’m a pretty smart guy. I can usually figure out things, others probably won’t. Other people might not be as observant as me. Your average computer illiterate Joe will likely have a hard time embracing and using the new control panel over the old one in XP. If I find it confusing you can be sure others who are less experienced than me will definitely find it to be confusing.

What I got out of this interview is that he probably hasn’t really sat down and used a Mac for any real length of time. If Ballmer and others at Microsoft were to force themselves to use a Mac for 3 months straight, they just might start to learn what it is that makes Macs such a good product compared to Windows-based PCs. Truth is that Apple is gaining ground because they are making a better product. Better design, better integration with the hardware, and a better overall user experience. If Microsoft could reinvent Windows to reflect a better user experience then they might just be able to turn themselves around. But until Ballmer and company starts using competitor products and starts understanding what makes them great then I don’t see that happening any time soon.

As evidenced in the current Presidential campaigns, leadership trickles down and effects everyone involved. It’s clear that Steve Ballmer doesn’t get it. He seems very out of touch with what’s going on with computer and the internet these days. Just like many Republicans, Ballmer and company tend to cover their ears and eyes and only hear and see what they want. One of these days maybe Ballmer will get it. Then again, maybe he won’t. And probably by that time, Apple will have gained a 20-30% share of the market.

Good luck, Ballmer!  You’re gonna need it!

Yesterday, I finally had my fill of Windows Vista and gave it the one-fingered salute by hitting the delete key. I’ve never seen more problems in succession with any other operating system. Just wasn’t worth the hassle. A little bit of background on the issue.

I’m a Mac user and have been for nearly a year now. But I’m also a web developer and still need to use Windows to test sites with Internet Explorer. As such, I use Parallels Desktop to run Windows in a virtualized environment. Upside of this is that I can run both the Mac OS and Windows without having to reboot. I run a copy of Windows XP to test a variety of browsers in Windows as well as my ComicBase comic book database software since there is no Mac equivalent. I was also running a copy of Vista so that I could test both Firefox 3.0 and the latest Internet Explorer 8 beta.

Even before yesterday, I had problems running Vista right on my Mac. By comparison to XP, Vista runs like a dog in Parallels. It’s slow, sluggish, and takes forever to start. Granted, I’m on a Mac mini with 2 gigs of RAM so Vista doesn’t stand a chance of running quite as well anyways. But XP runs quite well and is quite snappy. I just don’t see why Vista couldn’t be the same.

First problem I encountered yesterday was a lovely message telling me that my copy of Vista was “not genuine”:

I know damn well that my copy of Vista is “genuine” because I have a CD that Microsoft themselves sent me in the mail. So I clicked the link, which opened up a page in Internet Explorer, and let it update the Windows Genuine Advantage software and activate Windows. Even now, I have no clue as to why this popped up in the first place. Didn’t make any significant changes to Windows or nothing. Just popped up out of the blue.

Next, I figured I’d go ahead and check for updates since I don’t keep Vista running long enough to allow it to update itself. So off I go into the control panel. Seems like every time I visit the new control panel I have to pause and wonder why it’s a confusing mess. I mean, compared to XP, I feel like I can’t find anything. After that, I end up spotting what I wanted and double-click it.

With Vista, Microsoft no longer uses the Windows Update website. If you try and visit the Windows Update site in Vista all it does is automatically open the Windows Update applet from the control panel. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but it would be nice to have a choice.

One this is for certain though: updates take forever to complete in Vista! It took a while to get a list of the updates required. I’m not talking about just a few minutes here. I’m talking like more than five minutes. I mean, what is it doing that requires that much time just to get a list of updates for my machine? By comparison both my Mac and Linux are lightning fast when it comes to looking up available updates.

Once I do get a list of updates, apply them takes even longer. In this case, there were about 17 updates totaling about 100 megs. The download of the updates didn’t take long but apply them certainly did. Now, I understand that updates can take a bit to apply on any operating system. But the time it takes on Vista is ridiculous. I’ve always had a problem with the way patches and updates are applied in Windows. They even take too much time in XP and almost nearly require a reboot every time. So I let Vista finish the updates and reboot my virtual machine.

Upon rebooting, I was greeted with and black screen with white letters telling me that Vista could not boot due to a missing file and that I would have to use my Vista DVD to repair the installation. Sigh. Lovely. Another 15 to 20 minutes wasted. So I boot in with my DVD, repair the thing, and it slowly boots onto the desktop again.

At first, I didn’t see anything but a black screen with some text in the bottom-left that indicated that my copy of Vista was “non-genuine”. “Not that again!”, I thought. I was completely locked out so…I shut down the virtual machine and restarted it.

This time I got it to boot onto the desktop and, guess what? Another “not genuine” message! Isn’t that lovely! This time it wouldn’t even let me do anything till I validate and re-activate Vista:

Uh oh! Run to the hills! The Vista police are coming to take you away because you might be a victim of software counterfeiting! The Vista terrorists have struck again!

At this point I just threw up my hands and said, “That’s it!” I immediately shut down Vista and deleted the image off my computer. After all, I don’t really need Vista to test Firefox 3.0 and Internet Explorer 8. Another image of Windows XP will do just fine for that task. 

I mean, really…does it have to be this hard and difficult to keep Vista running smoothly? I didn’t even use it that often but when I did it was like pulling teeth with each use. As to when I might use Vista again for testing, I have no idea. That day may not come until it’s absolutely, positively necessary. Until then though I’ll keep using XP for as long as I have to. 

So Microsoft gets an official one-fingered salute for giving me such a bloated piece of crap. Have a nice day.

When I heard that Microsoft has hired Jerry Seinfeld to do some Vista commercials, I didn’t quite know what to think. I mean, how exactly does Seinfeld relate to Microsoft’s core product? This is the guy who had a TV show about “nothing” with episodes talking about the “Soup Nazi”. Don’t get me wrong; I loved Seinfeld. [Don't get me started on talking about the dangers of chip double-dipping.] Granted, they may create some pretty funny commercials and it’ll all be in good fun. But does Microsoft really think they’ll be able to capture the same magic that is inherent in many of the “I’m a Mac” commercials?

Last month, Microsoft posted a website about a project called The “Mojave Experiment”, where they duped a bunch of people into thinking they were looking at a new version of Windows code named Mojave when they were really just looking at Vista all along. The problem with how they marketed The “Mojave Experiment” is that it’s just so blood subjective.

Some of the people who participated didn’t seem all that genuine, nor did they seem like the kind of candidates that most people would care about. Most of them just seemed…well…generic. I mean, which of them were business professionals, college students, power users, and/or information workers? When it comes to Windows users, those are the people you should be concerned about. Granted, your average home user is greatly important, but it’s the movers and shakers in the industry that you should be even more worried about because they’re the ones who recommend solutions to your average user. It just would have been nice to know who these people are and why a solution like Vista is so important to them.

Also, from the very beginning, you hear everyone talking about their initial perceptions of Vista, how they think it’s bad. So right from the get-go you’re hearing negative, negative, negative before you get to anything positive. That’s just bad editing and bad execution. It would have been much better to have heard some positives before talking about bad perceptions. People’s attention spans are small so you have to get to the point relatively quickly.

Another problem with this sort of campaign is that it’s a uphill battle. It’s like the Pepsi Challenge of Windows with Vista on one side and…uh…Vista on the other. Rather than focusing on how to make their own product better they’d rather spend their time and money on trying to get people think that Vista is better than what they think. The thing is though is that, although some of the issues surrounding Vista are just perceived issues, a lot of them aren’t and I think Microsoft knows it. Thus the reason for the Pepsi Challenge to begin with. 

And with Seinfeld on board, Microsoft will spend an estimated $300 million dollars their ad campaign to reinvigorate the public perception of Windows Vista, $10 million of which will go to Seinfeld. As Ryan Tate of Gawker pointed out:

Yes, because if there’s one surefire way to convince everyone Vista is cool, cutting edge and not liable to get frazzled by life’s minor complications, it’s hiring a 1990s sitcom star and professional kvetcher! Who, um, very visibly owned a series of Macs on his show.

Yep, rather than spending the $300 million on developing a better product, Microsoft would rather spend it on having a comedian tell you absolutely nothing about a product that you already know enough about in the first place. Microsoft isn’t just battling perception issues with Vista, they’re also battling perception issues with themselves.

InfoWorld has some interesting statistics about how many businesses are using Vista now that Microsoft is no longer selling XP. According to their stats, Vista is dropped in favor of XP for 1 in 3 business PCs. What’s the reason? As John Gruber of Daring Fireball joked, “They just haven’t realized yet how awesome Vista really is.”

The real reason is a loophole in the Vista license that allows for downgrading to Windows XP. Granted, it still qualifies as a Vista license but at least users can downgrade if they wish.

The other reason is the hardware requirements needed to properly run Vista. Realistically, to run Vista right you really need about twice the RAM of what was acceptable with XP and a juicy processor to boot. Unless you’re running with a minimum of two gigs of RAM and at least a fairly current processor from the last few years or so, be prepared to watch Vista run like a dog. For businesses where performance is critical this simply isn’t acceptable.

Take the architectural industry for instance. There is a growing trend towards the use of BIM capable software like Revit and Bentley Architecture. These programs require a lot of juice to run due to large project files and on-the-fly 3D rendering. As such, available physical memory and processing is critical to ensure that these programs run smoothly. Any major hiccups and you run the risk of your workers sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Time is money so the more efficient they are able to work the better.

Current 32-bit operating systems can only handle a maximum of 4 gigs of RAM. Now, when you put that in perspective with the overhead taken up by an idle copy of Vista running compared to XP you can see the problem. My own personal copy of Vista takes up a little over 380 megs of physical memory, and that’s with it running nothing but antivirus software. What about Windows XP running the same antivirus software? A little over 190 megs. That may not seem like much but it is relative because a running program can take up not only the necessary memory needed to run itself but additional memory required by the operating system for additional resources and sub-system overhead (video, audio, etc.). As such, running something like Revit in Vista might be a completely different experience when running it in XP. The resources required in Vista could skyrocket due to the extra footprint of the video subsystems needed for 3D rendering alone.

So what’s the solution? For starters, a faster computer with more memory. Another step up would be 64-bit processing which would allow for up to 16 gigs of RAM and plenty of processing power. But this is an added expense, one that many companies aren’t willing to partake in just yet.  It’s one thing if you’re an architectural firm and already have equated in the expense in your budget. But not every company is like this and thus the need to go to a 64-bit platform simply isn’t in the cards. So what do you do? You downgrade until such a time when it is in the cards. 

For Microsoft, the reality of the situation just hasn’t quite hit them yet. If they had released a version of Windows that was more powerful than XP, more secure, but just as efficient things probably would have been different. More companies would have been more keen to upgrade. But as it stands, companies are taking the safer route and only upgrading on an as-needed basis. As such, it’s no surprise that only 2 out of 3 business PCs are running Vista.

Who knows. Maybe next year we’ll hear that 2 out of 5 business computers are running Leopard.  ;)

Recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described Vista as “a work in progress” at an annual Seattle event (InfoWorld, Ars Technica). I don’t know about you, but I find that statement quite disturbing. Let’s take a look at what Ballmer said and see if we can translate it a bit:

“Windows Vista: A work in progress.” [Laughter, applause.] “A very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from. Certainly, you never want to let five years go between releases. Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on? Because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles. The design point, what you should be targeting. We can’t ever let that happen again.”

Translation: Windows Vista: A failure in progress. A very important piece of works because, let’s face it, we never get things right the second time or fourth time. Why would the sixth time be any different? Actually it’s six years between releases, but who’s counting? Kiss my ass if you don’t like it. I know it took a long time but, you know, it’s hard to design this stuff. We can’t ever let anyone know that we don’t know how to design anything other than shit.

“Vista is bigger than XP, and it’s gonna stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn’t get bigger still.”

Translation: You upgraded and went from fat to obese. We know that. But diet and exercise won’t make it any smaller.

“So the desktop business, it’s our heart, it’s our soul, we continue to drive forward from this foundation.”

Translation: We know we can’t keep this up. So, we’re gonna try and buy up companies that aren’t a good fit for our core business, share a different philosophy, and does nothing but hurt the consumer. Three cheers for Microhoo! Woo-hoo!

Regarding the search market…

“There’s an opportunity to knock the socks off in terms of innovation.”

Translation: There’s an opportunity to kiss our competitors good-bye and innovate by stealing from them. Cause, you know, that’s just business.

“It’s virtualization time for Microsoft…We’re gonna make sure we democratize virtualization.”

Translation: We may be late as hell in the game but we’re gonna do for virtualization what Hillary Clinton has done for the Democratic party. We’ll lie, cheat, and steal our way to the top!

Imagine if you bought a brand new car, took it home, and within the first few weeks you noticed problems and annoyances. You filled it up with gas twice already after only driving a couple of hundred miles. Two of the tires have slow leaks. A weird burning oil smell keeps coming out of the A/C when you turn it on. The engine light keeps flashing at you telling you that your engine requires attention. The radio doesn’t play any CD’s except those distributed by Sony.

Now, imagine you took this car back to the dealership and was told that your car was a “work in progress” and wasn’t actually fully tested nor completed when it rolled off the assembly line. Would this be an acceptable answer for you? Would you put up with it? Didn’t think so.