07/24/2007, 11:00am, EDT
Tuesday, July 24thWindows Vista harmed by success of XP?
Sales of Windows Vista may, paradoxically, be hampered by the very success of Windows XP, writes one technology columnist. An observer with the Microsoft-focused Redmond observes that during July 20th's quarterly earnings call, Microsoft substantially altered its predictions for OS sales during Fiscal Year 2008: Vista revenue is expected to fall from 85 to 78 percent, while XP revenue should actually increase from 15 to 22 percent. Respectively, the two should shrink and grow by about 50 percent.
This view is echoed by George Shiffler of the Gartner research firm, who notes, "Our market data suggest Vista has had very limited impact on PC demand or replacement activity. We don't see Vista having a significant effect on these going forward unless Microsoft becomes much more aggressive in its marketing efforts."
Leading PC builder Dell, meanwhile, has retained Windows XP as an installtion option on some of its systems, despite having originally followed other companies into going Vista-only.
The reasons for this, however, may have less to do with driver and compatibility issues than simple satisfaction with the state of XP. "With each new version of Windows," says analyst Matt Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft, "it gets harder and harder to find features and improvements that will drive upgrades."
Rosoff highlights the fact that in the days before XP, an upgrade from Windows 95 to 98 or 2000 would bring with it significant improvements to stability and security. Under XP, however, the business and home operating systems were united under a single, more reliable codebase, which was cemented with the release of Service Pack 2. Vista features such as Instant Search can be important, Rosoff muses, but not enough of a reason to spend money on an upgrade. "There's not that much you can do in an OS," he comments.
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since Windows is a large part of the Microsoft revenue foundation... what happens if they can't convince PC users to use Vista?
how about Windows Vista hurt by it's excessive crappiness and lack of innovation?
What these manufacturers, especially the asian ones, simply don't get, is that it's not about featuritis - they could release a product with less features, but with a superior user interface, and be a winner.
Instead, I'm willing to bet this crap is based on Windows Mobile, or the usual asian designed crap interface, which makes the phone, essentially, useless.
I'm just glad, for Apple, that their competitors in the markets they enter are invariably idiots.
they finally got use to the clunker XP, and dont want to have to update their whole computer system to use this new "garbage".
Microsoft has lost touch with the end users, if they ever had it in the first place.
and They changed things for the sake of changing things.
And these are the complaints that came out with OS X, and the OS 9 crowd was chastised for just "not moving with the times". And Apple also changes stuff for the sake of changing stuff ("Hey, let's get rid of the toolbar and add a sidebar!" "Hey, now let's change the way the sidebar works!").
The biggest problem with Vista is not the drivers (that's a problem for all new OSs, like, say OS X) but the complete lack of full compatibility with a lot of existing software. And we're not just talking the old copy of Othello for Windows v3.1! The worst that I've seen in MS themselves. Almost all older versions of MS software is not compatible (that's what you get for using all those shortcuts and optimizations tied to the underlying OS!). Hell, some current MS software isn't liked either. But that's also what you get when you decide to completely change the underpinnings to improve stability and security (yes, and it is more stable and secure, but that's not saying much).
The next big killer is the same reason Office isn't as big of a seller as it used to be. There's NO REASON to upgrade. The additions/benefits to the OS don't outweigh the cost/effort/troubles. But this is the same trouble all developers face. Apple, with Leopard, has this problem. There's very little in Leopard that's 'must have' to a lot of users. Sure, you'll get those who'll update immediately (just like you have those who had to get Vista immediately). But after that? (On Apple's side is that there won't be any option to get Tiger with a new computer, unlike getting a new PC with XP vs. Vista).