Vista - will it fail ... or not ?
The latest major public beta of Microsoft Vista has generated quite a number of reviews - so I will not go the same way - but from them there have been quite a number of 'opinions' from people that have almost no clue - I speak about people that either imply that they spend 99% of their time on Macs (or eventually Linux), people that have no idea what a huge scale beta means or generally how computing in a real enterprise is done - one of the most pathetic is here - huge and useless.
Let's first settle claims about failure or about OSX 'superiority' - if one year after the launch Vista will only have that pathetic 2.5% OSX has it will certainly be a failure, but until then the jokes are on OSX !!! Also people should seriously question any 'expert' making such claims - you will certainly see that laughable opinion among the MacFans that can't handle two mouse buttons but anybody with a little experience (and brain) knows that the superior operating system is the one that MOST PEOPLE are using on THEIR (existing) hardware and which runs THEIR (existing) programs! (and not something that would require buying expensive yet inferior or overheating hardware and ultimately will make you boot XP to play your games :) ) And before closing that subject a few links - first a brilliant parody of the new Apple ads, then a very funny reminder that modern Apple hardware is not only overpriced but also sucks and finally a very good take on the entire Apple philosophy based on their history!
And now back to Vista - the most important point is that the latest public beta is certainly a step into the right direction - hardware support is definitely better (but obviously far from perfect), the security alerts are FAR less intrusive than before and generally things seem to be going in the right direction - the main complaint is that things are just a little late and this beta should have been ready months ago!
There are also things that I would also like to see improved - for instance I would like tighter resource management (using 1 GB of RAM just because it's there is not a good enough reason), better notebook support (Aero should not mean that the power usage in the graphics card should become bigger than the one in the CPU) and better default support for advanced users - maybe an idea would be to add one initial option to the setup so that people could go to a Custom setup and get less dumbed-down defaults. And let's not forget - better API documentation!
Another important suggestion would be to use the huge pile of Micro$oft money and buy a few small companies with "power user toys" that should be added as optional features in the higher-end versions of Vista - most advanced Windows users would enjoy things like file dialogs extensions, clipboard history, advanced options for tray icons, a quick and small Windows equivalent of QuickSilver, virtual desktops and last but not least an easier way to see all windows tiled - the new Win+Tab looks cooler than Expose but looks might be deceiving - so why not buy such an existing tool - there are quite a few available for XP - and adapt it to the desktop composition model in Vista !!?? Also it might be an idea that all but the 1-2 lowest level retail Vista versions should contain MS Works or even a very-very basic MS Office - AppleWorks is no threat but on that segment OpenOffice is already an important competitor for Microsoft and generally the more expensive Vista versions should provide a slightly better value for money!!!
So the bottom line is that Vista will very likely NOT fail - it might eventually disappoint some people but definitely less than for instance the Apple products of 2006 - where the high expectations generated by the usual media frenzy were not met by the subpar execution of the actual products - so far nothing says overheating, overpriced and non-standard notebook better than a MacBookPro :)
However (unless some major goodies are added inside) Vista will also NOT be the MAJOR hit Microsoft might hope - it will mostly come preinstalled on the new high-end computers but low-end systems and certainly older computers will more likely use some older version of Windows for the remaining of their life!
Let's first settle claims about failure or about OSX 'superiority' - if one year after the launch Vista will only have that pathetic 2.5% OSX has it will certainly be a failure, but until then the jokes are on OSX !!! Also people should seriously question any 'expert' making such claims - you will certainly see that laughable opinion among the MacFans that can't handle two mouse buttons but anybody with a little experience (and brain) knows that the superior operating system is the one that MOST PEOPLE are using on THEIR (existing) hardware and which runs THEIR (existing) programs! (and not something that would require buying expensive yet inferior or overheating hardware and ultimately will make you boot XP to play your games :) ) And before closing that subject a few links - first a brilliant parody of the new Apple ads, then a very funny reminder that modern Apple hardware is not only overpriced but also sucks and finally a very good take on the entire Apple philosophy based on their history!
And now back to Vista - the most important point is that the latest public beta is certainly a step into the right direction - hardware support is definitely better (but obviously far from perfect), the security alerts are FAR less intrusive than before and generally things seem to be going in the right direction - the main complaint is that things are just a little late and this beta should have been ready months ago!
There are also things that I would also like to see improved - for instance I would like tighter resource management (using 1 GB of RAM just because it's there is not a good enough reason), better notebook support (Aero should not mean that the power usage in the graphics card should become bigger than the one in the CPU) and better default support for advanced users - maybe an idea would be to add one initial option to the setup so that people could go to a Custom setup and get less dumbed-down defaults. And let's not forget - better API documentation!
Another important suggestion would be to use the huge pile of Micro$oft money and buy a few small companies with "power user toys" that should be added as optional features in the higher-end versions of Vista - most advanced Windows users would enjoy things like file dialogs extensions, clipboard history, advanced options for tray icons, a quick and small Windows equivalent of QuickSilver, virtual desktops and last but not least an easier way to see all windows tiled - the new Win+Tab looks cooler than Expose but looks might be deceiving - so why not buy such an existing tool - there are quite a few available for XP - and adapt it to the desktop composition model in Vista !!?? Also it might be an idea that all but the 1-2 lowest level retail Vista versions should contain MS Works or even a very-very basic MS Office - AppleWorks is no threat but on that segment OpenOffice is already an important competitor for Microsoft and generally the more expensive Vista versions should provide a slightly better value for money!!!
So the bottom line is that Vista will very likely NOT fail - it might eventually disappoint some people but definitely less than for instance the Apple products of 2006 - where the high expectations generated by the usual media frenzy were not met by the subpar execution of the actual products - so far nothing says overheating, overpriced and non-standard notebook better than a MacBookPro :)
However (unless some major goodies are added inside) Vista will also NOT be the MAJOR hit Microsoft might hope - it will mostly come preinstalled on the new high-end computers but low-end systems and certainly older computers will more likely use some older version of Windows for the remaining of their life!
posted by cool_stuff_or_not at 06:42
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