Windows 7: The information lockdown continues
Summary: When is Microsoft finally going to start sharing information on Windows 7?
When is Microsoft finally going to start sharing information on Windows 7?
After all, if the Redmondians stick to their own oft-quoted ship target of 2010 for the operating system, that is just two years away. For developers two years isn't a whole lot of time when trying to make decisions about whether or not to build a new product that will be designed specifically to take advantage of new features and functionality in a new Windows release. And for IT managers struggling with deployment plans (as in deploy Vista now or wait two more years for Windows 7), that window on the next version of Windows isn't overly wide, either.
When Microsoft customers and partners were seeking information about Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, some Microsoft officials defended the company's new "translucency" (vs. transparency) policy. By sharing too much information that was subject to change, Microsoft wasn't doing its customers and partners any favors, the translucency backers argued. But not everyone on the Windows team thought the new rules were good for Microsoft's constituents. Microsoft needed to dial back its translucency hard-line, they said (privately -- since they didn't want to be seen bucking the powers-that-be).
It's been almost a year since Windows/Windows Live Engineering Chief Steven Sinofsky made the new information-sharing policy clear in a Microsoft-internal blog post (a full copy of which I'm running on the site for my Microsoft 2.0 book).
I'm hearing increasing dissatisfaction from Microsoft customers, testers and other sources typically in the insider track that Microsoft still hasn't shared any Windows 7 information. The silence is deafening -- and disconcerting -- they say. As was the case with Internet Explorer 8, the issue isn't whether Microsoft's Windows client team is sitting on its hands, doing nothing; instead, the worry is that Microsoft is moving full-steam-ahead to build a Windows 7 that won't have a whole lot of input from outsiders. After the compatibility and marketing nightmares that have plagued Vista, one would think Microsoft might be interested in letting its users have more sway on what they really want from a new version of Windows.
Do you need Windows 7 information from Microsoft beyond the ship-date target? If so, what do you need to know sooner rather than later?
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Once burned
My notoriously unreliable crystal ball predicts that the first anyone sees of their next platform will be when it goes beta.
It's just a Vista diversion tactic
Maybe you should read the article before posting your troll.
'xactly
Hmm
You people get a life will you. Computers are a waste of time.
LOL (Suckers!!!)
Message has been deleted.
Sooner, but I agree - not as soon as Vista.
Regarding this article:
I want to know a few things about Windows 7 as soon as possible. Is it 64 bit-only? Is it modularized? Are they handling backward compatibility using virtual machines instead of legacy code? Are they selling one feature-complete SKU instead of multiple crippled versions? If the answer to any of those is "no," I will start mapping out my transition to OSX sooner rather than later.
Transition to OSX
Nonsense
Each and every product it has introduced recently was
late, over budget and a mess.
Can you say Vista, Zune, Xbox, WinMobile, Spot.
Note that there are no successes (produce a profit) in
that list.
This is a lazy, sloppy, undisciplined crew that could not
care less about its products.
Who but an unruly mob would have produced Vista?
Mostly MSFT resembles the hoard of townspeople
search for Frankenstein but without any knowledge
that they produced it.
Proof of ignorance
Your description of Microsoft's developers and architects and engineers is totally and unequivocally ignorant to the core. <br><br>
You don't mention the huge successes such as SQL 2000, 2005, Biztalk, Sharepoint, Microsoft Office, Windows server 2003, windows server 2008, Office for Mac 2008 (sales soaring)
and to call Vista a failure is to say 200 million users is a an utter failure. Any Linux distro or Apple who does nothing but PC/OS for the most part, hasn't reach numbers that high in 20 years, yet Microsoft did it in months. <br> <br>
And please, none of the "forced upon people" B.S. There has been a clear choice all along but this time the choice was emphasized like never before. The large anti Vista movements orchestrated by people like you all over the web and elsewhere, like Apple and Steve Jobs doing hour bits on anti Vista propoganda at popular Apple events. <br><br>
Somebody was very very scared of Vista. Unfortunately, it's growing now and business uptake has risen steadily since the SP1 announcement. I can testify to that just in this one location of the world as all large employers of the area have moved or are now moving to Vista. What a failure it's turning out to be. My gosh. <br>
If the hardware vendors would have had the drivers ready, Vista would have been hugely and wildly popular much sooner than it is now becoming. To say the driver and software issues from 3rd party vendors didn't play the major role in problems is totally irresponsible. <br>
How easy it is for the have nots to spend all of their time pointing out how terrible the "haves" are. But when it comes down to it, that's why they are the have not's. Because they have nothing to offer except hateful and ignorant words and behavior. Nobody wants anything to do with them. that is why Linux distros cannot, i mean literally CAN NOT Give it away.
Unbelievable
I just don't know what to say except ask you, how much is Microsoft PR group paying you to say things like this when all the news is just the opposite.
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-3515_22-202100.html
I'm sure you'll just blow this off as tripe. Because you refuse to accept the fact that Vista is not doing well.
Vista not doing well.
I can't find a link the the actual survey, and the 390 people that bothered to respond might not be a very accurate view of what the development community is thinking.
Without more info on the survey, it's as valid as me stepping outside and asking the first 400 people to walk by.
don't see a problem with validity
I know 10 people who have purchased new computers with Vista installed, 7 have since changed to XP or 2kpro. Of the remaining three, two have never owned a computer before so have no real experience to base an opinion on , and the third believes the maker knows what works best for their product.
My opinion of vista went from "Hey, this is neat!" to "this is nowhere near as good as it could be" from experience, not from reading opinions.
Asking the first 400 computer users who walk by your door for their opinion is more indicative of satisfaction with an OS than classifying new PC sales as 'satisfied users'
Gasoline prices are outragious, but going by sales, I'm sure the same marketers could twist it to mean paople are satisfied with fuel prices because they buy it.
ken.
doing great
Vista not doing well.
Microsoft claimed 140 million copies of Vista have been sold. While that number is impressive, it is still a very small percentage of the entire PC industry. That number also does not show how many PCs were purchased with Vista and removed and XP installed. I've done it to many myself and I personally know several small, medium and large companies that are doing just that. There have been numerous stories about this practice in the past year or more.
Further more, if a company has a product that it is selling like hot cakes, do they cut the price of that product? No. If people are buying at that price why? The reason a company will cut the price of a product is because they need to increase sales do to poor sales or competition, and I don't see PC's lined up at Best Buy or anywhere else with any other OS installed on them other than Windows. So we can eliminate competition as the reason why MS cut the price of Vista.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9882510-56.html
This is proof that Vista is not selling well. It doesn't matter if you compare it with OS X or Linux. It's how it's doing in the market that it is targeted. It's adoption rate has been less than stellar.
Vista doing very well.
No, not a very small percentage. If we assume the reports from last year are correct, this year we'll hit 1 billion computers in active use worldwide. 140 million represents 14% of that, not exactly insignificant, particularly when compared against the marketshare of OS X and Linux.
Companies change the price of products for many reasons outside of the two you've listed. Which of the two reasons given explains the almost 50% price cut of the iPhone well within it's first year? Poor sales?
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11
See that green line going up, while the blue line goes down? That's Vista replacing XP. Now if you look really closely, you can make out the red line that represents the "explosive" growth of OS X. Linux falls into the "other" category and is next to impossible to see it's share.
@rtk
This leaves me scratching my head. Let me see if I have this straight. You say Apples nearly 7+ percent is small, but 14 percent is not.
While it may be nearly twice the size of Apple's market share, it is still tiny compared to XP's market share. The link you provided is not a good indication of what the market really looks. For example my wife works at a very large corporation in the midwest. They have thousands of XP boxes that are not allowed to surf the internet. I know for a fact this is quite common among corporations. It is that way where I work as well.
What link you provide shows more of the consumer market looks like, and like a said before most consumers buy a PC with Vista installed and couldn't tell the difference between any OS.
It would be nearly impossible for Vista's market share to not grow because it is installed on every machine at Best Buy, etc. This also shows that Vista's adoption rate is at the same rate as hardware upgrades. People are not rushing out and buying Vista to install in existing hardware.
"Companies change the price of products for many reasons outside of the two you've listed. Which of the two reasons given explains the almost 50% price cut of the iPhone well within it's first year? Poor sales?"
This is an exception, this caught everybody off guard. Like many reports on this said, the move Apple made is almost unheard of.
@ Axsimulate
Yup, 14 is double 7... and that 14 was achieved in half the time and under a cloud of Anti-MS FUD the likes of which the world has never seen.
So yes, Apple with it's billions in US politician style advertising and the unquestioned support of the Goatbergs of the world only gaining 7% is very small compared to Vista's uptake.
re: iPhone's price drop[i]This is an exception, this caught everybody off guard. Like many reports on this said, the move Apple made is almost unheard of. [/i]
I think you've got it backwards, the reports were about the shock that the apple faithful would pay such an incredible gross margin to Apple. Once they fleeced the true fanbots, the price was reduced to entice the more "average" user.
No exception, not unheard of at all, particularly from Apple.
Unbelievable??
Then why did they go to those measures to try and stop or slow adoption? For sh*ts and giggles?<br><br>
You are unbelievable. <br>
390 Australian developers eh? I won't discount it, but developers don't always have that choice. How can they continue to target XP, when their clients or businesses start rolling out Vista? Is that a legitimate question, or is that Unbelievable as well? <br><br>
My experience, and that would include the largest employer in the city with developers in the hundreds, who will be coding for Vista since they are rolling it out now. They might continue to write code for XP i suppose, but since there will be no more XP clients in house, that would be rather silly wouldn't it?
<br><br>
A large number of large companies rolled out Vista or started the process in late 2007 and early 2008. <br><br>
You and zdnet.com will have a huge surprise when the next rouind of Vista license numbers come out.
<br>
Believe what you like. Go by the stories you find are helpful to your dislike of Microsoft. What do i care?
Who cares what you care?
I'd love to know where you get your information from though. My own experience and observation says that Vista is no traction at all corporately and has yet to show any. There are a number of reasons for it but they seem to boil down to the actual cost of rolling it out similar to the support costs of rolling out Office 2008 which, whether or not you like it are huge. So they stick with XP and wait for Windows 7.
Nor do I see a move to Linux or Apple desktops though I know they are being more seriously tested by those who will ultimately make those decisions.
Your speculation that the developers in the study are somehow misguided is just that. Speculation. The developers that you so easily diss are a lot closer to what their market wants than you or I are. I daresay they're likely more repsonsive to it, too. As you say, they like to get paid.
Nor is this some kind of religious devotion to an OS which you are as guilty of with Vista as those you accuse people on the FLOSS side of an argument of being.
In the end the market will decide, as it always does.
Microsoft has gotten an earful from its business clients about Office 2008 and Vista. I'd wager they've been listening too. And all or a lot of that is going into Windows 7.
Meanwhile they would do themselves a favour by being "translucent" instead of silent about what's coming.
Oh, and what do you care? You seem to care a lot to judge by all your posts here defending MS and its products.
ttfn
John