I’m an admitted Microsoft fan. I recently, for example, lept to their defense some folks claimed their premature death. But this, this news of Microsoft “phasing out” Windows XP by the end of the year?
Sheer inexcusable lunacy.
Angus Kidman, courtesy of APC (courtesy of, funnily enough, a Microsoft partnered site, ninemsn.com), brings us these idiotic tidings, wherein by early 2008, Microsoft’s contracts will require to sell only Vista-loaded machines. Whether this means they’re also phasing out retail versions of XP remains to be seen.
Vista has its raft of issues, and for many, demonstrates no clear benefits over XP, particularly with its beefy hardware requirements.
This is a clear example of what may seem like a “smart” business decision by some bone-headed managerial types, but a colossally bad marketing maneuver — particularly since it seems like the majority of its audience, from early-adopters, to mainstream users, don’t particularly care for Vista in spite of its huge marketing budget (in fact, I can’t seem to avoid its signage as I walk through Staple every day to get to the subway). In fact, you can pull up all kinds of link proof, but the real proof is in its anemic sales numbers.
I am struck speechless by this seemingly unilateral maneuver to (seemingly) screw over PC users by removing choice in their options for a Microsoft OS. Yes, those mac-heads can start crowing now, if you like. But I just have a hard time fathoming what kind of business sense this will make. If this blows up into a PR disaster (and my PR funny bone is tingling — I think it might), then all of the forced sales Vista will have with new PC purchases won’t make up for all the wasted marketing dollars, and net flattening in over all sales.
Ugh.
I think I need to lie down or something while I wait for Don Dodge, Scoble, or Dare Obosanjo to try and explain this.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:26 pm | Permalink
I’m lazy to do the research, but it’s quite possible that they did the exact same thing with Win98.
I think that this post by you, a self-admitted Microsoft fan (btw, I’m a Windows user too), only shows how unhappy you’ve been with Vista. When Windows XP came out, I was happy to ditch Win98. Now, I’d rather Microsoft never released Vista because I don’t want to make the switch. Maybe it’s me getting older. But then again, maybe it’s because WinXP had a number of clear and very important advantages over Win98, like the new Task Manager, while Vista has a lot of acronyms but little actual improvements over WinXP.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:28 pm | Permalink
Oh, and one other thing; this is probably just standard marketing fluff by Microsoft. They’re trying to convince the world that Vista is all they need. They’ll extend the option to buy WinXP by another half a year or so, and all will be happy.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
My understanding is that Windows XP was a HUGE improvement over Win 98 in its stability, driver support and all of that. Vista, in spite of the billions spent in development, only offers an incremental increase in benefit.
As for Microsoft’s bluff — that may be the case.
I should disclose that I’m looking to buy a new PC, and am NOT looking to *have* to buying a Vista enabled machine.
Cheers
t @ dji
April 12th, 2007 at 12:43 pm | Permalink
Well, I’m one of those weirdos who claim that the desktop OS is not nearly as important now as it was 6 years ago. Switching to a Mac wasn’t an option for me then. Nowadays, I work on the web anyway. Just give me Photoshop, a good programmer’s editor, and a good file manager, and I can use any OS.
As far as Vista as an improvement over WinXP goes, it’s a complex matter; I’ve written an extensive analysis a couple of months ago, and I spoke to some people from Microsoft about it. Personally, I don’t see bundled applications as part of the OS. And since I use Blackbox for Windows as my shell instead of Explorer for years now, the beautified Vista shell, I miss that part of the fun too. Then I’ve turned to stability and driver support, which seem to be pretty much the same as in WinXP. And then I turn to everything else, which, as fun as it may be, is not at all crucial for me, and I feel cheated.
April 12th, 2007 at 1:32 pm | Permalink
I gladly switched from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, but somewhat reluctantly left Win2K for WinXP. Vista? Yuk.
April 12th, 2007 at 4:54 pm | Permalink
My new laptop came with vista, Best Buy does not sell any other os. I hate it, you meed at least 2 gigs of memory just to open programs in less than 2 minutes, it is also the same as XP in many ways except has security you do not need or want and cannot disable easily.
My favorate and why everyone hates Microsoft, I have vista home premium and can only upgrade to Vista Ultimate for $400.00. That way I can share files on my different computers as I did and do with XP, (only the ultimate version allows this).
i would never buy a vista machine again!
April 12th, 2007 at 4:58 pm | Permalink
Actually it’s not Bill it’s Steve. In any case, this could be MS’s undoing–not just ours. This will open the doors for Google and countless others.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
[…] This is a clear example of what may seem like a “smart” business decision by some bone-headed managerial types, but a colossally bad marketing maneuver — particularly since it seems like the majority of its audience, from early-adopters, to mainstream users, don’t particularly care for Vista in spite of its huge marketing budget (in fact, I can’t seem to avoid its signage as I walk through Staple every day to get to the subway). In fact, you can pull up all kinds of link proof, but the real proof is in its anemic sales numbers. Source: Bill, Sweet Jesus Say it Ain’t So! […]
April 12th, 2007 at 5:23 pm | Permalink
just another reason to move to linux, I saw that Dell is going to start preloading laptops and pc’s with a linux option.
What is it that we need vista for anyway? which programs do we need that will only run on vista and not on XP ot Linux?
April 12th, 2007 at 6:16 pm | Permalink
“Yes, those mac-heads can start crowing now, if you like.”
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
I can still vividly remember the VP Dev of a client fuming to me over morning coffee about w2k being phased out - he hated XP and the cycles that migration would burn. I think I’ll send him a box of donuts tomorrow.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:22 pm | Permalink
I can’t believe what I’ve just read. I hope this is wrong.
To be honest, if I had to go out and buy a laptop this afternoon, it would be a mac. You can’t help but get frustrated with MS sometimes.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:50 am | Permalink
Microsoft can do anything it wants to do - including screwing it’s customers. Why? Because they can. and they need to. MS is desperate. They can’t compete fairly. Never did.
Just bend over and take it.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm | Permalink
Alright so I bought a Dell 1505 it came preloaded with Vista DOA failed to boot on the very first try….I spent 3 hours between remote chat and customer service…still wouldn’t boot properly.
I told them to take back thier computer…I didn’t want anything to do with it.
I got a “mattebook” mac and I love it. I use zoho for editing spreadsheets and docs and Gmail for just about everything else.
I miss some features but overall the sub 30 second boot times on my mac are a breath of fresh air.
and I was a diehard XP and Sony Vaio fan…I actually had and Ipod and sold it.
Now I am on the apple train…sort of…I still think that the iphone is gonna get spanked by Nokia, HTC, heck maybe even motorola.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
[…] pwnage Google-styles is the the latest in a series of negative/ not-positive publicity, what with Microsoft’s decision to force Vista upon unsuspecting users in the upcoming year. “Master of the Known Universe” is a title that was owned by Microsoft from 1985 - […]
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:18 am | Permalink
[…] But as a follow up to Microsoft’s contracts stipulating that new PC’s to be sold in 2008 will *only* be allowed to ship with Vista, it seems like Dell is intent on making IdeaStorm more than a pretty “Digg Clone”. […]
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:16 pm | Permalink
I’ll say straight away I’m a Mac user and don’t like any version of Windows I’ve tried. So some of you can switch off right away, no offence taken. To those of you struggling so hard and wondering about Macs - what would it take to get you to consider one? I mean, it’s not hard. they work pretty well. That’s it. It really is. It’s not a reality distortion field, chronic insanity, a wish to burn money, an obsession with style… It’s because our Macs tend not to get in our way very much. They tend to do what we want, pretty much all the time. There is nothing else to it. Honest. And look, you can always run Windows on it if you really don’t like OS X. You can run both at the same time if you like. And the Terminal command-line. If you dislike Steve Jobs, don’t tell me you like Bill Gates. At least Jobs hasn’t been found guilty of deliberately breaking other people’s software and putting them out of business. I mean, given a choice between supposedly egotistic genius and convicted corporate bully, are you SURE you know where the moral high ground is? Hey how long did you spend activating Windows altogether? You don’t have to activate a Mac. No-one disables your OS when you install a new hard drive. I promise, we are mac diehards because we simply cannot understand why you live in a wet muddy ditch when you don’t have to. If you do, your apps will run more smoothly in Parallels than on Windows, apparently. Oh hell. Just make friends with a Mac user, try their machine and see what suits you. Then you will understand why we can’t understand why you stick with Windows (and complain and suffer). Anyway, honestly, good luck with Vista. Really, I mean it.