Glad to know that Steve Jobs and Linus Torvald are now running MSFT.

Between that news and the f*ck*ng Vibrant ad, I've probably bought my last pc with a MSFT o/s, and read my last of your columns not through an RSS reader.

I've already purchased two retail copies of XP Pro and two of XP Media center. I've reinstalled one neighbor's XP after after he purchased a Vista upgrade. You can say what you want about a Vista economy and better drivers, applications, etc., but Vista really does suck eggs.

One of the biggest releases and news stories in the digital realm happened today and it didn't involve Microsoft. Along with one of the biggest downloads and bittorrents maybe this decade, Ubuntu 8.04 was released today.

Interesting that Ballmer makes that statement about how XP "might" be extended on the same day. Nah....just a coincidence...yea thats it...

Ralph's observation is significant:
"Along with one of the biggest downloads and bittorrents maybe this decade, Ubuntu 8.04 was released today."

This new version of Ubuntu will install very easily as a FOLDER on the same partition as Windows. A briliant way of getting a Linux foot in the door without the need for geek or even semi-geek skills to install Linux.

This will be an open invitation to the user to try Ubuntu (and Linux) and therein lies the opportunity for Linux to greatly dissipate the impact of Windows on the user's machine.

Nobody has mentioned this so far as I know, but my guess is, Apple and/or Sun and other Microsoft competetors are likely quietly funding Ubuntu and helping it become the Linux distro of choice. The reason, of course is to damage Microsoft which would lead to their own gain.

The Vista "push" has been key in Mac sales increasing 58% in a single year. That's LOTS of customers leaving, and I think it's because MS has been preventing Windows XP to even be offered in retail stores.

There are TONS of lower-end notebooks which run Vista badly, and MS looses customers by giving those machines no alternative. People go to the big box store, see that they have to spend almost $1000 in order to get a notebook which runs Vista decently, and many of them run over to the "Apple" section of the store. Even more of them say, "heck, I can't spend THAT much money-- I'll just wait a couple of years for hardware to catch up with Vista's requirements". The big-name OEM, the big-box store, and Microsoft all lose a sale in this process.

Paradoxically, I hear that MS is *CREATING* a version of Windows XP to run on ultra-low-end notebooks (OLPC, Asus, etc.).

You're almost certainly proposing the right choice for Microsoft-- but only because the Vista is utter S***T and can't compete. So Microsoft has to ram it down people's throats, even though they loose quite a few customers in the process.

BTW, this post came from Linux on recent "Windoze PC" hardware: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Minefield/3.0pre

I never touch the S***T which the computer came with, from the store. It's got a "Vsta-Ready" sticker, but it totally can't handle it. And I don't need UAC nagging me every time I update or modify something.

Mac Sales increased 51% (2.2 million) from previous 1st quarter not year. Apple said 50% of buyers are new to Mac. Therefore, that would be 1.1 Million new users in the 1st quarter this year or 4.4 million new Mac users in 2008 (forecasting). While MS sold 100 million of Vista last year alone. I highly doubt MS has to worry about people moving from XP to Mac when the installed base of Vista alone is 5 times bigger the the total Mac installed base.

Funny how people bash Vista because it requires to much new hardware so they buy a Mac instead. Or the interface of Vista is complex and they move to Linux/Mac. If you like XP, then stick with it. I'm surprised that theres still a high demand for a 7 yr old OS (XP) But the demand for OS 10.5 (leopard) has dwindled.

It has taken the *nix community 3 bloody decades to get to a point where they can even start to challenge MS. At least MS came up with something that home users could start to use at a decent price point, that didn't involve proprietry Mac hardware or didn't result in plugging in a VT100 and hacking a termcap...talk about open-systems; X/Open standards, don't make me laugh. What a joke, Unix Wars result, feeble. The chance was there then to stop MS and all failed. Best piece of software on the Mac in those days? MS Word. No wonder they took over, no competition. Show some respect *nix boys.

As an APPL Investor, I wholeheartedly agree with you Joe, let's ram Vista down their throats, like it or not. The next Mac wave hits when people realize that while XP works good, they're still ultimately in a dead-end road.

I am a small computer business and had nothing but trouble with Vista. Its heavy, bloated, slow and I lot of my time and expense has gone into fixing issues with Vista. Why should I sell Vista when it cost me not MS.

Yeah Joe, that makes sense. Pull the plug on the smarter, superior, popular, mature, small foot-print, low resource hog OS for the inferior, bloated, slow, resource sucking, slow (yes I meant to say it again) slower than XP even on a high-end system.

Microsoft needs to poop-can Vista ASAP and go back to XP until they can get a modern OS up and running. One that is leaner, faster and less complicated. In the mean time, we will exist just fine on XP until then. Better than with Vista, that is for sure.

"Funny how people bash Vista because it requires to much new hardware so they buy a Mac instead."

Too much new hardware requires too much new $$$$$. That is why I, as well as many others, have stuck with XP.

It isn't the new hardware that drives people to the Mac since it is downright silly to spend a barrel of money on a whole new system when a lesser amount will suffice to upgrade their present system. Methinks it is that Vista runs things slower and doesn't have any killer new functions.

According to both IDC and Gartner, the Apple/Mac worldwide market share is still in the "Others" category, behind at least five other companies.

Neither MacOSX nor Desktop Linux is a serious threat to Windows.

I look forward to getting a new Vista-preinstalled computer, and have no interest in sticking with WinXP.

Joe;

Just a thought, even though MicroShaft is planning on ending support for XP, so what? What's to keep other companies out there from doing the same. Even now, there is still new software that is being developed for the W2K and XP versions.

If Redmond kills support for one of the best OS's out there, it may not stop the hardware and software market from completely ending things for XP.

I always thought, least in the real world, supply and demand is the name of the game, right?

Are you nuts!, are you concerned about your MS Shares or the poor long suffering MS customers.

I support approx 800 computer through various small business and single users Vista is costing them money full stop. Bugs, crappy drivers, slow and some software simply will not run.

The training in small businesses is an issue, a classic example is in the hospitality industry with a high staff turn over 1-2 hours training on XP mainly on the software to run the business. 2-3 hours with Vista and weeks of support calls "How do I do this?", "Where do I find..."

Get of your high horse and into the trenches and find out what is really going on.

Mailbox01-- thanks for fixing my incorrectly remembered Apple Sales increase. I'd SWAG-ed it from memory, you the man!

I'm 100% with Bernie-- it's not that Vista is TOTALLY un-usable, it's rather that the more expensive hardware to run it decently doesn't look like a good value for lots of customers. Not at all, they feel like MS is trying to rip them off.

JohnJ: Well, if you feel that the money for a powerful Vista-based box is well-spent, then you're gonna like it. But other people are quite price sensitive (as you see from other comments).

IDC and Gaertner count sales for revenue, not installations. So their Linux numbers are absolutely bogus, most Linux users never paid for it and never even provide tracking information to the sources of their downloads. Even those that do pay for it usually put their licensed-for-money "Enterprise" software on many boxes, even though they only get official support on a limited number of machines.

You're right that MAC sales are still a tiny minority-- BUT, over 50% in a single quarter? That's very dramatic change, and the "We killed OEM XP Sales" date hasn't even happened yet. Only the retail "big-box" stores are stuck with only Vista right now... but that's gonna change, very soon.

Windows market share falling from say, 98% to 92% (these are NOT real numbers) would only be a loss of 6% revenue-yielding customers for Microsoft, they'll still make $Billions and not be "threatened" in a financial way. But that would constitute an increase in "alternative OS mindshare" of 400%, and that's a real threat: When LOTS of people start to actually see viable alternatives in action at their neighbors houses, as my neighbors and customers now see at mine, it could turn into an avalanche, because Vista really is a product people don't like.

Quoting Joe;

"Retiring OEM XP will benefit customers. The Windows XP ecosystem is enormous and well established. Microsoft's channel needs to move on to Vista."
----------------------------------------------------
Excuse me, but I think Bob Maine has nailed it. Also, I think that Bob was the one who kept asking what does Vi$ta do that XP cannot? Nobody would answer that question, Joe, including you.

So here is my question Joe, "which customers will befit when OEM XP is retired?"

The only answer I can come up with, is the ones that because of it, decide they have have enough of Microsoft and move to alternative Operating System and Office suites.
--------------------------------------------------
Speaking of Alternative OS, here is a post of possible dark clouds on the horizon for M$.

Forget the Courts — Apple May Fight Mac Clones With Tech

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2008/04/apple_psystar

Quotes from the link; "Apple may have a hard time shutting down the new maverick Mac-clonemaker Psystar, say legal experts.

Psystar, a Miami-based IT services company, started advertising the $400 OpenComputer this week. It's a generic PC that comes with Leopard, Apple's latest operating system, pre-installed.

And while Psystar may be violating Apple's end user license agreement, or EULA, by doing this, legally there's not much Apple can do about it, says Raj Abhyanker, a patent lawyer who used to write patents for Apple.

"Basically, when people go to a store or download software, they have a license with Apple to use this patented software on their computer. But breach of contract is one of the weakest forms of legal disputes," Abhyanker says, referring to EULA violations."
--------------------------------------------------
Mac OS X at some point will have to be sold for ordinary PC's, as shown in this article. It will create more rats deserting the ship of Micro$oft. It also may prove that EULA's, are not enforceable.

My point is this, if Microsoft retires XP in June and forces consumers to buy only Vista computers, then many people will skip buying a computer until Windows Seven arrives. While this may not be the majority of consumers, it will be enough to put the OEM companies in a serious depression. Also look for Apple and Linux to increase desktop market share, which is already happening.

Personally, I hope MS does retire XP.

So the answer is to provide MS customers with a faulty OS rather than a stable one? I have never seen a company treat its customers like dirt the way MS has.

This is a conundrum. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I can't help but think of the recent HD DVD, Blu-ray debate.
Warner Bros. essentially decided it by dropping support for HD DVD. They initially supported both, hedging their bets. Then they saw that this decision prolonged the war.

Retiring XP has its benefits, but I think it benefits the industry more than it benefits the customers. Customers that bought Vista Capable computers appear to have been mislead. And people who bought low end computers with Vista installed are requesting XP. The unintended consequences of this is that there is a large base of hardware that is ripe for Linux. Linux will bring this hardware to life.

Vista has put a serious dent in the cheap PC market. I can't help but think that some of this was planned. To the industry, these were lost leaders, they're not making any money on the low end. Vista renders much of that market obsolete. The unintended consequences of this are that it makes the Mac worthy of consideration. Slam me if you want, but the number bear this out.

Vista has caused third-party vendors to render some of their products obsolete. It's one thing to be late with a driver, but in some cases, particularly the all in one printer, fax, scan devices, the vendors are publicly stating they will never provide Vista drivers. The unintended consequences of this is the list of vendors I will never do business with again. Shame on you.

Marketing got Microsoft into this problem, so I disagree with Joe that marketing will get them out of it. Buyers are much more savvy today. The Internet provides a wealth of information not previously available. It will take more than a marketing campaign to convince people that Vista is not a pig in lipstick.

So am I predicting the demise of Microsoft? No, that would be foolish. But market share has changed, at least a little. And the general publics perception of Microsoft has changed a lot. Meaningful change cannot occur until Microsoft and its most loyal followers admit that they have a problem. Ballmer views Vista as a work in progress, and Andre Da Costa has had no problems with Vista. We are not there yet.

My solution would be this. Put the hypervisor that almost made it into Windows Server 2008, into Vista, along with a free copy of XP Pro, pre-installed, ready to go. Customers have choices, Microsoft can sell Vista. Apple essentially did this to bridge OS 9 to OS X. This buys Microsoft time to figure out what to do to Vista. But first, they have to recognize they have a problem.

RE: JohnJ looking forward to getting a new Vista computer

ricst29 is right, I am sure JohnJ will love it on his new, probably high-end computer. But I will bet that if his Vista installation were wiped and XP or Linux put on that same system, it would knock him off his socks when he experienced the difference in performance. But he will probably never find out and will be quite happy with Vista.

But that does not make Vista superior. To be honest, if we had Vista back in 2001 and then Microsoft came out with this new, lean, low-power requirement OS, we would probably be impressed. Well, maybe not impressed, but at least not as disappointed as we are in Vista. Come on folks, this is 2008, we should be looking to conserve our resources. Our computers should be using less power not more. And they could, if the OS didn't require so much.

Microsoft to Abandon Vista, Fast Track Windows 7?

http://www.osnews.com/comments/19675

Quotes from the link;

"TechRepublic's Jason Hiner predicts that Microsoft is aware of its blunder and will respond by making a release of Windows 7 ahead of schedule (primarily by overhauling Vista and calling it Windows 7, it seems) in order to encourage its enterprise clients to upgrade directly from XP to Windows 7."

Yeah, but are they going to take some of the bloat out of Vista to make 7? If not, I don't know if 7 will even do much better. Maybe Microsoft will be more aggressive and coerce businesses into 7. We shall see.

The most interesting thing about all of this is that Vista has given Windows xp a public image facelift.

What used to be known as a substandard OS with Fisher-Price makeup, which is insecure by design (service can interact with desktop anyone?), resides in DLL hell, hosts countless spyware and other risks and slows down to a crawl after adding and removing a couple of applications over a few months due to registry bloat is now suddenly regarded as the nimble, speedy, secure and all around wonderful OS to end all OSes...

@SR

You have it a bit wrong. MS Word is one of the worst pieces of Software available for the Mac. These days Scrivener, Mellel, Nisus Writer and Pages run rings around it. It may be okay for my secretary, but not for me.

If Microsoft doesn't want to sink into irrelevancy they need to drop Vista and drop it now.

@whatever: Right on the mark. Just what I said 7+ years ago. Instant sainthood for bloatware.

Whatever: All I want is an OS that works. That means one that loads fast, closes fast, runs programs and games without problems, and leaves the DRM to those who should care about DRM. VISTA fails in all these items and that is why VISTA sux.

I know that history will show Vista as the second biggest mistake in Microsoft's Operating system. First and foremost is MS Me.

Nonetheless, as one being into computers since 1983 with a VIC 20, then 64, and jumping right into the 80886 XTs' and so forth. It seems to me that the best Operating System that MS has ever come out with was Windows 2000 Professional in considering a nimble and least of the DRM crap on any NT platform.

Over the years it surely seems that Redmond has become a monolithic slug of disapointments and poor development and design implementation that has costed the PC industry billions of dollars in slackware and an underacheiving matriarch that forces a two-fold front, one is forcing the world in a constantly degrading realm of performance and quality that is a shadowy reflection of "What could of been." Then there is the lazy and meddling crutch of relying on the Hardware industry to design more powerful and expensive equipment to run the bloated and terrible software.

Yet people in general play this idiodic game of continuing to support the Microsoft way of life and tolerating the once talented software company to continue to regurgitate the refuse as I mentioned with each passing generation of their operating system and other applications.

Still people hope for a better operating system from Microsoft and I am forced to believe that the IT community has a very short memory in Microsoft's horrid track record. With bated breath, so it seems, many wait until Windows 7 is released, and when it does, many will play the Service Pack waiting game. Let's face it, this game has been played since 98SE and continues to be the most popular among those forced into a life under the reign of Microsoft.

IT companies, support, and even the media has made collateral billions of dollars in the service support, marketting, and third party crapware -- None more prolific than the Anti-Virus and Malware companies who charge an annual extortion fee for a lackluster attempt to protect Microsoft's PCs.

The state of personal and corperate PC computing is in a terrible condition and still new threats are developed daily by script-kiddies and the like -- Imagine what a real organized cyber-terrorist or community can actually achieve if they put their minds to it.

For years, America (government) has been dumbing down its citizens through the pathedic public school system and using the media as a harlot to entertain and sensationalize rather than inform. We have, more so than not, idiots and incompentencies in government and in the corperate world that allows theives and crooks like Enron to continue to rape the land. Microsoft in their incompentencies, has decided many years ago to outsource to second and third world countries -- I personally think Bill Gates is doing his part to undermind the public by these means through his inability to steal anything worthwile or bullsh*t his way in brainwashing and dazelling empty promises -- Yes Bill, get the f*ck out and let your stooges continue the Microsoft legacy.

Bill with all your billions predicated on your successes, why not do something really freaking profound like pour your riches into the upcoming generations of youth that will someday run corperate and government America through bolstering and supporting an improved American public education system. Now there's something that Congress should congradulate and praise your name and legacy that would be worthwhile before the Chinese own everything!

The advent of MS Vista has caused great pain for the makers of OEM computers. As the fastest growing computer makers, are now Apple and white box makers.

So bearing this in mind, its time for a little rebellion from the OEM's;

Dell Will Offer XP Past Cutoff Date

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/25/183253

Quote from the link; "news that Dell will be offering Windows XP pre-installed on their computers past the June 30 cut-off date. Computers purchased with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate past June 30 will come with a copy of XP Pro. Dell plans to simply install that copy upon request to save users a step. Perhaps this will help Microsoft officials make up their minds about another extension."

On second thought, it also sounds like a price increase, somehow to get XP Pro from Dell. Still, it shows just how bad the market is reacting to Vi$ta.

Even the average Joe understands that Vista is crap. My best friend, who is hardly computer savvy, was looking for an inexpensive laptop for his son, who is going to university in the fall. He wanted to avoid Vista because of its bloat and resource demands. He found the best candidate at Dell Canada: the Vostro 1400, which is currently on special till May 1st...

1.4GHz Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM
160GB 5400rpm hard drive
8x DVD burner
WinXP w/SP2
$629 Canadian

With a 14" screen, this machine is suitably portable for a student. My friend just ordered it, and he's very happy. WinXP will run lean and mean, and there'll be no compatibility issues whatsoever.

The important point is this: the only retailer he could find that offers WinXP on a laptop was Dell, and it had to be the business-oriented Vostro. (He lives in Vancouver.)

If you're looking for a WinXP PC, better get it soon before WinXP is no longer available *anywhere*...

Oh, I should clarify: this is WinXP Home Edition, w/SP2, preinstalled on the laptop. No Vista license.

After June 30th, WinXP Home Edition may no longer be available from Dell.

VISTA WILL GO DOWN AS THE BIGGEST OS FAILURE IN MICROSOFT HISTORY

I have to disagree with Douglas S. Taylor who stated that ME was Microsoft's biggest mistake in OS's. Vista will go down as the biggest OS failure in Microsoft history.

Yes, even more so than Me. Do you know why?

For starters, Me was more of a minor upgrade, many power users went with Windows 2000 and within a year XP was out. ME was so bad though, that even with a small user base, the press on it was horrendous. As far as the quality of the OS itself, ME was/is the worst ever from Microsoft.

The reason Vista will go down as the biggest failure is because it was meant as a major release to last for years, had a huge hype, and took 5 1/2 years to release and does very little more than XP. And it is slower on even high-end systems than XP. Believe me, Microsoft did not put in a small fraction of the amount of money and time into ME as they did into Vista. But Vista was supposed to be so much more than it ends up being. And everyone knows it now. Why would anyone move to Vista now, knowing you aren't getting much more than XP and you are getting a big hit to your performance?

So, although Vista is not a bad OS; it is stable, secure, decent performance, modern. And although ME actually was/is a bad OS; it's the expectations and the time and the money that make Vista the biggest failure, especially when it appears to be a step down from XP.

The few defenders of Vista, such as Paul Thurrott, all bring up the same lame laundry list: the GUI, Windows Media Player, Windows Photo gallery, Windows Mail, the Sidebar, Windows Search, the security. OK, the GUI is just eye candy, it does not allow Vista to run programs that XP cannot. Windows Media Player, Photo gallery and Windows Mail can all be installed on XP. The Sidebar and search can be bested by Google's version, but most people don't want that thing taking up desktop real estate anyway.

I know that Windows XP was a mess in the beginning, but since SP2, it has matured into a much more stable and safe OS. Just keep XP updated, keep good anti-malware updated, use an up-to-date internet browser and practice safe computing habits. If you don't, Vista's not going to save you.

The problem with Vista is that it just doesn't do much of anything more than XP, and the trade-off is a slower system, added cost, and for some... nightmare incompatibilities.

So here we are, almost 7 years after XP's release, and we do not have a Windows that can do a whole lot more.

A little history on why it took MS up to 7 years to make a new (Vi$ta) operating system. First there was XP, and it was not so bad. It did have some drivers problems at first, but nothing like the problems of Vista.

The development of the next version of Windows, Longhorn based on XP code, started right away. But then came along the Blaster worm, which had a huge impact on most users computers. The Blaster worm probably affected 80% of the computers in use running XP at that time. The Press and the Government were very vocal about the lack of any real security in XP during the Blaster Worm problems and shortly thereafter. So much so that Microsoft, put most of the engineers working on Longhorn on working on SP2 for XP, in order to improve sercurity and stop the Governments from mandating it. So in a way, SP2 was the result, of something good, coming from something bad (blaster worm).

Microsoft never really intended to make SP2 for XP that good, I believe. They would have just wanted to release another OS, and made more money, but the blaster worm, and government oversite, got in the way.

The second thing that delayed Vista, was of course, the drastic incorporation of massive DRM into Vista, due to agreements between Hollywood and Bill Gates. This DRM made a complete rewrite necessary, and the code base changed at this point to rewriting 2003 server code from XP code, and renamed the project from Longhorn to Vista. About 14 months before Vista became Gold (so to speak). So Vista really was rushed out, and really only had a 14 month release cycle, if you really followed it, and that and the DRM in it, is at the heart of the problems in Vista.

@chips

You are exactly right on with that. That is the actual true history. Microsoft tried to cover it up in the beginning when they scrapped the original Longhorn and did the restart. I don't remember the exact history, but they came out with some new build of Longhorn with a new first digit, starting with a 5 I believe, at some event. What was noticed most immediately was that the sidebar was gone. There was all this speculation that the sidebar was being taken out of Longhorn. It's just that they couldn't ready a new version that would work with the new build for the event. Eventually it was caught on that Microsoft did something drastic and they had to come clean. Then they worked on a weaker, more mundane sidebar to port into the new Longhorn (Vista). Probably for the better since the sidebar was a huge memory hog. Can you imagine Vista hogging MORE memory?

chips, I want to thank you for jogging my memory about this history. I have been too hard on Vista. Since Microsoft, in reality, only worked on it for 14 months. When you rush an OS out that quickly, I suppose you have to expect one that is inferior to the previous one. Sorry Microsoft. Here's hoping 7 is your lucky number!

@Bob Maine :
"I have been too hard on Vista."
----------------------------------------------------
No you have not been. Enough people should say we are mad as heck at MS and we are not going buy it anymore. Then, and only then, might they start to change.

What Microsoft needs to do is "pull an Apple" and create a new version of Windows, using Linux as the kernel. This would plug them into a post-XP support system for 3rd party software, which IMHO Vista will never have.

OK, so, what options are still out there for xp and laptops?

By the way, for a mammoth company whose products have such an impact in so many industries, health, financial, etc. a premature, half-baked, sub par product just doesn't have many excuses. They have the resources, and to combine it with the almost hostile-like takeover offering the average consumer a highly manipulated lack of choice, and in the process volunteering them without their consent to hundreds or thousands of dollars to get another system up and running, not to mention the incompatability with so many other programs, drivers, etc.? The public would do well to advocate their power of choice and refuse to switch, enough people do so and the wakeup call will come,.... YOu'd think it would be simple enough cutting losses or damage control, reconnecting with market demands for both personal and business use. We're one idea and one company away from somebody responding to the growing demand, and I'll be glad to see it arrive.

Balmer makes my skin crawl just listening to his rhetoric..his head is so far up he sees daylight and thinks the sun is shinning..to wit..he quotes stats saying "everyone is buying Vista...this shows they WANT it"...when the fact is MS is forcing people to buy it...this is worse than faulty logic..it's pure evil..imho
(note to Yahoo stock holders: resist with every fibre of your being..do not sell out to the evil empire if you value everything near and dear to you)...personally I'd be happy with some of the MS OS's if they would just stick to making decent products and not try to rule the world and shove crap down people's throats...and stick to software..get out of the news business...a conflict of interest for sure...I'm going to need therapy if Vista asks me one more stupid time to allow me to view all processes...