Vista 7 Coverage a Mixed Bag on Release Date
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2009-10-22 17:04:59 UTC
- Modified: 2009-10-22 17:04:59 UTC
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 free
Rory, 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.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Daniel Pocock: "I've Gone to Some Lengths to Demonstrate How Corporate Bad Actors Have Used Amateur-hour Codes of Conduct to Push Volunteers Into Modern Slavery"
- "As David explains, the Codes of Conduct should work the other way around to regulate the poor behavior of corporations who have been far too close to the Debian Suicide Cluster."
- Ex-Red Hat CEO Paul Cormier Did Not Retire, He Just Left IBM/Red Hat a Month Ago (Ahead of Layoff Speculations)
- Rather than retire he took a similar position at another company
- Linux.com Made Its First 'Article' in Over and Month, It Was 10 Words in Total, and It's Not About Linux
- play some 'webapp' and maybe get some digital 'certificate' for a meme like 'clown computing'
- The FSF Ought to Protest Against UEFI 'Secure Boot' (Like It Used To)
- libreplanet-discuss stuff
- GNU/Linux Reaches 6.5% in Canada (Including ChromeOS), Based on statCounter
- Not many news sites are left to cover this, let alone advocate for GNU/Linux
-
- Journalists and Human Rights Groups Back Julian Assange Ahead of Monday's Likely Very Final Decision
- From the past 24 hours...
- [Meme] George Washington and the Bill of Rights
- Centuries have passed since the days of George Washington, but the principles are still the same
- Video of Richard Stallman's Talk From Four Weeks Ago
- 2-hour video of Richard Stallman speaking less than a month ago
- statCounter Says Twitter/X Share in Russia Fell From 23% to 2.3% in 3 Years
- it seems like YouTube gained a lot
- Journalist Who Won Awards for His Coverage of the Julian Assange Ordeals Excluded and Denied Access to Final Hearing
- One can speculate about the true reason/s
- Richard Stallman's Talk, Scheduled for Two Days Ago, Was Not Canceled But Really Delayed
- American in Paris
- 3 More Weeks for Daniel Pocock's Campaign to Win a Seat in European Parliament Elections
- Friday 3 weeks from now is polling day
- Microsoft Should Have Been Fined and Sanctioned Over UEFI 'Lockout' (Locking GNU/Linux Out of New PCs)
- Why did that not happen?
- Gemini Links 16/05/2024: Microsoft Masks Layoffs With Return-to-office (RTO) Mandates, Cash Issues
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 16, 2024
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 16, 2024
- [Meme] Never Appease the Occupiers
- Freedom requires truth. Free speech emancipates.
- Thorny Issues, Violent Response
- They say protests (or strikes) that do not disrupt anything are simply not effective. The same can be said about reporting.
- GNU/Linux in Malaysia: From 0.2 Percent to 6+ Percent
- That's like 30-fold increase in relative share
- Liberty in Liberia? Windows Falls Below 10% and Below iOS
- This is clearly a problem for Microsoft
- Techrights Congratulates Raspberry Pi (With Caution and Reservations)
- Raspberry Pi will "make or break" based on the decisions made in its boardroom
- OSI Makes a Killing for Bill Gates and Microsoft (Plagiarism and GPL Violations Whitewashed and Openwashed)
- meme and more
- People Who Defend Richard Stallman's Right to Deliver Talks About His Work Are Subjected to Online Abuse and Censorship
- Stallman video removed
- GNU/Linux Grows in Denmark, But Much of That is ChromeOS, Which Means No Freedom
- Google never designs operating systems with freedom in mind
- Links 16/05/2024: Vehicles Lasting Fewer Years, Habitat Fragmentation Concerns
- Links for the day
- Links 16/05/2024: Orangutans as Political Props, VMware Calls Proprietary 'Free'
- Links for the day
- The Only Thing the So-called 'Hey Hi Revolution' Gave Microsoft is More Debt
- Microsoft bailouts
- TechTarget (and Computer Weekly et al): We Target 'Audiences' to Sell Your Products (Using Fake Articles and Surveillance)
- It is a deeply rogue industry that's killing legitimate journalism by drowning out the signal (real journalism) with sponsored fodder
- FUD Alert: 2024 is Not 2011 and Ebury is Not "Linux"
- We've seen Microsofers (actual Microsoft employees) putting in a lot of effort to shift the heat to Linux
- Links 15/05/2024: XBox Trouble, Slovakia PM Shot 5 Times
- Links for the day
- Windows in Times of Conflict
- In pictures
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 15, 2024
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 15, 2024
- Gemini Links 15/05/2024: 50 Years of Text Games
- Links for the day
- Ebury is Not "Linux", That's Just the Media Shifting Attention (Microsoft in the Hot Seat for Total Breach Right Now)
- Seems like it may be a Trojan
- Links 15/05/2024: Growing Tensions Between East and West, Anticlimax in Chatbot Space
- Links for the day
- [Video] 'Late Stage Capitalism': Microsoft as an Elaborate Ponzi Scheme (Faking 'Demand' While Portraying the Fraud as an Act of Generosity and Demanding Bailouts)
- Being able to express or explain the facts isn't easy because of the buzzwords
- Richard Stallman Talk 'Delayed'
- "Repousé à une date ultérieur. Du au congé, il n'était pas possible de l'organiser bien dans le temps disponible."
- Links 15/05/2024: Toll on Climate Change, Physical Assaults on Politicians
- Links for the day
- [Meme] Free Society Requires Free Press
- The Assange decision is now less than a week away (after several delays and demand for shallow 'assurances')
- CyberShow Goes "Live"
- The CyberShow has a similar worldview (on technology and ethics) to ours
- Latest Status of Site Archives (Static Pages)
- article listings are reaching a near-final form
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 14, 2024
- IRC logs for Tuesday, May 14, 2024
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- Today's Talk by Richard Stallman Going Ahead as Planned
- That talk will be in French
Comments
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-22 23:26:19
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
2009-10-22 23:39:03
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 00:37:12
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
2009-10-23 00:46:11
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-23 02:12:51
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 01:13:30
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
2009-10-23 02:22:04
Dennis Murczak
2009-10-23 14:09:28
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
2009-10-23 15:10:20
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-23 15:26:34
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-24 19:14:35
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-24 20:42:35
Yuhong Bao
2009-10-25 00:05:22
Roy Schestowitz
2009-10-25 00:23:48