- March 18, 2009
- Posted by: admin
- Categories: Blog, Business Dynamics, Enterprise Software
It has been a dark couple of years for Microsoft in the desktop operating systems business. The uncontested leader in that market for close to two decades, the company sullied its reputation
n with the delivery of Windows Vista, which proved a crashing disappointment from the moment it stumbled out of the starting blocks. Despite expensive marketing campaigns and the sermons preached by top Microsoft executives about its advantages, IT shops clung to Windows XP.
But with the first betas of Vista’s successor, Windows 7, trickling out in late December, new hope has risen. Given what appears to be an OS with vastly improved speed and performance, support for a greater number of devices, smoother installation and a sexier interface.
However ppl have different opinions such as:
Vista was not that bad while others say that ppl easily get pleased by Microsoft.
Whats your opinion?
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The original article: http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=2632
11 Comments
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More like Microsoft’s last gasp in my opinion. Why do you think Bill called it a day?
Ive been using Windows 7 for 2 months now, and it has performed very well they made alot of improvements and nice features. I do think that IE8 does need some more work.
I think Linux is a very good OS also, but for corporate settings I prefer Windows OS
I played around with Windows 7 for all of a minute, I basically saw some of the new features of the GUI, so I am by no means an expert. I really think we are stuck with Windows for now. Until Linux can sell itself as user friendly as well as easy to install and upgrade, Mac’s drop in price (a lot), or Apple develops an OS that can be installed on a PC. I think we are locked into Windows. Hate to say it (and yes I know the Linux can be easy to install and upgrade, but people don’t believe it)
Hi Ali,
There is nothing revolutionary in Windows 7 . The Beta version suggest the same. Actually this should have been a Vista Service pack release rather then a one more OS. This will leave lot of customers unhappy who have moved and burned their fingers with Vista. I am hoping MS will give free update to enterprises who have invested in Vista.
SLED 11 Beta looks fantastic alternative and has revolutionary features and can easily help corporate to have one deployment from Data Centre to Client. For consumers Ubunto is fantastic option.
Snow Leopard from Apple yet again is in class of its own even at beta stage and will keep mac. loyalist happy.
So over all MS has big challenge at hand. Hope they can survive the on slots from Google on Search,ADs,Apps and Mozilla (Firefox) on browser in short term and Linux Distro in slightly longer terms.
Lets hope they can get the pricing right to attract current XP users and get Vista customer a exceptable upgrade ideally Free of cost. Finally hope OS deliveries on all the promises which Vista failed.
Was Windows 2000 redemption for Windows 9x? Was Windows NT redemption for Win 3.1? Was Dos 5.x redemption for Dos 4.x?
All of those examples show a positive evolution of Microsoft’s OS software, but they all have their own issues that might require some kind of redemption on its own. Frankly, it’s my feeling that Microsoft’s current technology model is flawed beyond salvation.
The game is changing!!
I agree with Mick Sharpe, I guess this will be Windows Last desktop OS or at least as we know them until today. With more and more applications being serve by Internet/Enterprise computing clouds, the simplification of the user interface at the client side (less power needed and costs going down) and the raise of thin client computers such as Netbooks and mobile devices such as iphone, Blackberry etc.
Today kids at least mine do not complain about running their videogames using different client platforms such as Wii, Xbox or Sony PS. They do not really bother using a OS/X, Windows or Linux indistinctly most times side by side as long as they can reach their software apps usually in the cloud via a web browser. Those kids represent the future customers of technology and for sure they will not even question about the OS but the access availability to the services they will be demanding.
I think the question for developers today is what are we going to use in the data center to run all those SAAS applications and make customers happy. Is it Unix, Windows, Linux or any new OS tailored to maximize grid computing capacity that is to be seen.
Do not get me wrong Microsoft will still be in business for long time the question is if the Desktop OS will be really relevant in the near future.
Just a personal opinion here!
Fidel Vanegas
Windows 7 is being designed for performance. They’ve taken out a lot of bloat so far. Early builds run fantastic on an Atom processor and 512mb of RAM. There is still a lot of work to do. IE8 is really buggy as of yet and can crash the whole OS. Microsoft, in later builds, gave users the opportunity to turn off IE8. This improved thing quite a bit, but there’s still a long road to travel. I’d say it’s definitely the OS to watch right now.
The world does not need yet another operating system. When all is said and done an operating system exists to run programs. It is the programs that you run that matter. Not the operating system.
Microsoft have fooled so many people for so long. It has parallels with the story of the Emperors New Clothes. One day everyone will realise they aren’t doing anything new.
Their business model of releasing a new version of Windows every 2-3 years has to be unsustainable.
A lot has been said already – mostly negative. I certainly don’t think this will reverse the decline in Windows sales, though it may make a few enterprise network admins happier that there is a less bloated upgrade to XP.
Having installed Windows 7 Beta both as a standard install and in a virtual machine running on XP, it does seem to be a more efficient build than Vista, but that’s not saying much. Go back to 2000 or XP Pro and watch your apps really scream.
Knowing Microsoft, the deal-breaker will most likely be the pricetag. The market will no longer bear a hefty price tag for what many will perceive to be “Window dressing” (yes, I made that one up). In this economy, they will need to implement “Economy pricing”. I don’t think it’s the cash cow that Microsoft hopes it will be.
Mickysoft – (you can guess my opinion straightaway) made a hash of vista – nothing new nothing nothing – same old XP with extra dross in the form a gui which is so unusuable that I have to turn into classic look and get rid of the tons of annoying junk it comes with.
Windows 7 – cant see it being any better if microsoft cling to the same GUI (which they seem to be doing) as vista has.
Why do I use vista – I had no choice I bought a pc which came with it- I clung to XP on the laptops for as long as I could.
But for many years I have used Linux and boy it rocks if you know what you are doing – and its ironed out lots of issues, still few more to go – Question why pay for Microsoft when you can get Linux free which WORKS.
No….