Ballmer: 'Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better'
Summary: It seems Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has finally thrown in the towel. Vista's biggest cheerleader seems to almost have given up trying to convince anyone who hasn't yet upgraded to Windows Vista that waiting for Windows 7 is a bad idea.
It seems Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has finally thrown in the towel. Vista's biggest cheerleader seems about ready to give up trying to convince anyone who hasn't yet upgraded to Windows Vista that waiting for Windows 7 is a bad idea.
"Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better," Ballmer said, according to my ZDNet blogging colleage Larry Dignan's report on Ballmer's annual on-stage Q&A with Gartner analysts at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo.
(Gartner, for its part, surprisingly is telling corporate customers there are some real reasons to consider upgrading to Vista now, rather than waiting for Windows 7.)
Ballmer also shared his two cents on Yahoo. Microsoft buy of Yahoo right now might be good for respective shareholders of both companies, Microsoft is not currently engaged in acquisition talks with its one-time takeover candidate, Ballmer said.
As I -- and many other Microsoft watchers have noted -- Microsoft is in a tough spot with Vista/Windows 7 positioning right now. In less than two weeks, the company will be touting a pre-beta build of Windows 7 at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Microsoft is proclaiming that Windows 7 will be a major release of its Windows client, but comments like those made by Ballmer today make that a tough proposition to defend.
As Microsoft officials reemphasized via a posting on October 15 on the company's Engineering 7 blog, the Windows team is not showing potential customers features that might not make it into the final Windows 7 product. (One of the Windows 7 dev team's new rallying cries is "Cutting is shipping!") The way that Windows 7 is being built seems to imply that the product could ship at any time, as no untested code is part of any of the milestone builds.
My contention remains that -- as hard as it is to believe after years of Windows slip dates -- Windows 7 is closer to shipping than many people think. While Microsoft's public positioning as to when Windows 7 hasn't changed, I have heard from customers that Microsoft is privately telling them it's coming in the latter half of 2009.
All of these factors combined, no doubt, make it tougher for marketing/sales folks to convince customers who haven't yet upgraded to Vista that they should do so now.
I doubt we'll see any ads featuring the latest Ballmerism on Windows 7 being Vista with some tweaks. But "Windows 7: Vista done right" is kind of catchy.... Or there's always "Windows 7: The Anti-Vista."
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Talkback
Here's a suggestion
My family member watched Oprah show yesterday, and mentioned that the topic was about "rude behavior". Funny thing is that in their poll 80% of the people believe that rude behavious is a national problem, but 99% of them that they were not rude.
I can bet you will have at-least 75-200 comments (with some/lot of 'rude' comments from small group of people that don't use the product or have strong disliking towards the company) on this blog post, but want to be proven wrong.
Here's something you can try - Try to do some blogpost without mentioning 'Windows' or 'Vista' or 'Windows 7' in your title and the first five sentences, and then see how many people provide comments.
You must really..
Vista Ultimate, Just Worthless "Trash"!
I have a 2MG DSL that is on all the time, so I guess you are asking why I am bringing up all these facts? For 5 years Windows XP Pro SP2, Windows 2000, even that ancient Windows 98SE SP1 & that had IE6 booted up to the internet within 20 seconds! Just as soon as I connected the cat5 ethernet cable, I have a 4-port LinKsys router. The point I am trying to make no mattwe what OS syter from 98SE with the FAT32 to XP PRO SP2 the IE6 -or- IE7 was able to easily configure a simple network in a relatilivily short time!
Vista Is a nightmare, the 1st time I installed on a 300GB Seagate I had no idea what I was going to be in for! After 12 hours of fighting this software, I would not allow me to open basic folders! When I tried to open for example 'Documents and Settings' I was warned I did not have the authority to open them, so as I attempte a second time it kept shutting the computer down to keep me from having access to my own computer! So I called Tech Support and it took Microsoft 4 hours just to get on the Internet! I still had to change out that 300GB Hard Drive to a 1TB (1000GB) SATA and start all over again. Do you think it made any difference HELL NO!!
I tried to program Windows XP PRO SP2 64-bit which I had no problem what I call "Seeing" the Internet and went through all the XP SP2
64-bit updates thinking I would make it easy and just update to VISTA right! WRONG! When it came time to update frome Windows XP PRO SP2 64-bit to VISTA Ultamite 64-bit the Update option was cancelled! and it went to a full install, there was no way around it it just a piece of trash! I was just about to tosh it in the Garbage.
But after I installed Vista Ultimate I again could not even get on the inerternet, I workerd on this for about 20 hours a day for over a week! It kept trying to set up a 'USERNAME' & 'PASSWORWD' account over and over again ! My router & my service provider does not reqiure such 'COMPLICATED' B.S.! The Vista software cold not see any Internet Connection , But 6" away my older Pentium 4 with trusty Windows XP PRO SP2 was operating without a hitch. I am at the 90 day limit on my softway where Microsoft would chrge me $125.00 per hor to fix this crap! My DSL Service provider had a heck of a time also so after about 1 1/2 weeks of my $1,000.00 computer not being able to access the internet because this Overlly Combersome Software Vista Ultimate with it's EXTREME SECURITRY FEATURES THAT WILL NOT EVEN ALLOW ME INTO MY OWN COMPUTER!!!!! I went and purchased the latest LINUX OS System. then about 2 days later all of sudden for no reason IE7 just popped on the inetenet and I started all my Updates!
I really think that the setting called 'Protected Mode' has something to do with it, it's located in IE7 Browser. But I agree Microsoft should SHUT UP because a couple of there Tech got 'REAL SMART with me & this after I have been up messing with 'Screw-up' now come to find out I not the only one!
This piece of s--t called VISTA is an out of control Nuclear Reactor running HOT! It's like putting all the features of a Semi-Truck into a small Volkswagen campact car and wonder why people complain! Microsoft should keep commercial Servers separate.
There is an Acronym that goes back 100 years , it is; "K.I.S.S." {keep it simple stupid} what it means no matter how complicated things get , or systems are, networks or even life itself keep the application or layout as simple as posible, the word 'Stupid'in the phrase is said by the person who is doing the work at the time & it is only meant to keep anyone from geting an inflated 'EGO'!
But this Vista is Really Trash, I came within 1 day of smashing and throwing it in the dumpster. The User Account setting I had to disable because it kept shutting down my computer 30 times a day! 1 1/2 to even 'SEE' ANY INTERNET HUB even though it was right there at all times! I would not wish these troubles that I went through on anyone and again I tell Microsoft to just shut up or put up! They say they use VISTA but are they not Biased? There Highly Skilled to deal with all the 'Hidden' "User Account" Security features that took me 2 weeks to find out about because Microsoft did not want me to know about the "User Account" setings and I forgot to mention when you first install the software there is an 'Hidden Administrator'. So you see this is the advantage that Microsoft has that it took me 2 weeks to 'Dig Thru' MDSN Library to find out about this. the Basic Consumer would not have a Clue! Throw VISTA IN THE TRASH CAN Or DUMPSTER! It Does Not Belong In The Home Period!
ROFL
U should learn to use your software b4 U trash it. Thanks for the story I will be laughing about it all day long. If you have been building systems for that long and had that many problems with something as simple as an OS like Vista than I hope you are not building professionally.
um
Um, did you happen to notice that Mary Jo's blog section is titled "All About Microsoft"?
What exactly do you think she's going to write about? and what do you think might be the headline theme?
In The Eye Of The Beholder
Looks like first post was correct.
First post didn't mention the fact that Mary does come up with lot of articles, but for some odd reason all the readers on her blog focus only on mundane topic of operating system. That seems fishy.
Here we are in the 21st century and could be talking about innovative topics like robotics, speech recognition, artificial intelligence, auto-code generation and infrastructure automation, but ton of folks are just still talking about any/some silly operating system product.
We all spend mayebe $30 or $50 on the operating system during our our pc purchase, and lot of people forget about it. Every single citizen in US or other country spends way more money on entertainment (mp3 players, downloading music, movies, games, etc) and other activities (restaurants, enrolling kids in all sorts of extra-curicular activities, etc) than the operating system (Vista or Apple), but lot of people are talking about it as if some company owes them big time.
Final points
Complaining about something doesn't help, and most of folks seem to do just that here. We could use hardware vendors(Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) or call Microsoft Support for any issues. If we really want to help someone, then we could offer solutions to others instead of complaining.
Have you ever wondered why none of the journalists never provide strong-negative report or constructive coverage about products coming from IBM, Google, Sun, Oracle, RedHat, SAP, etc. They all seem to focus on Microsoft. Isnt that fishy too?
RE: Ballmer: 'Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better'
Willing to forgive MS for Vista... IF...
Now THAT would work.
There is nothing to forgive
I Forgive Loverock For Being A Lifeless Moron
You forgive Loverock - Why?
Pay?
Rudeness Scale: 8
(1 least rude, 10 most rude)
Call me a MS Shill
Loverock is Steve Ballmer?
It is easy to imagine that he ...
With circa 2005 (or later) hardware and 2GB of RAM, Windows Vista SP1 runs very well. If your hardware is older than that or you have only 1GB of RAM, then you should expect some sluggishness.
Exactly what are you suffering from?
YES Free Upgrade
atleast for people who buy it in 2009
define better -
++ XP has than a 1/4 the code base of Vista. A show of hands of who wants to their O/S to page with the application ?
Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure
by John. C. Dvorak
1) Market confusion. There [are] simply too many versions of the OS for sale. Who needs all the variations? It's stupid?plain and simple.
2) Code size. I've got two words for you: TOO BIG. Enough said.
3) Missing components. Yes, WinFS.
4) Laptop battery-life drain.
5) HHD fiasco.
6) Bogus Vista-capable stickers.
7) Missing drivers.
8) Conflicting advice. Some people said that you should get anew computer only with Vista preloaded and not upgrade. Others said upgrades were fine.
9) XP mania. You'd think that the world was in love with Windows XP.
10) Mediocre rollout. The company seemed almost sheepish or embarrassed by Vista. This sent the wrong signals to users and may have made them hypercritical.
11) Performance. You're not supposed to deliver a new operating system that's been in development for more than four years yet performs worse than the previous OS.
Even now, Microsoft is touting Vista as a "success". How much faith can we really put in its declaration that Windows 7 will be any better?