Well, I guess Bill Gates has given up on Vista haha

[SkittleLinux18]

Windows 7 Announced!

[valan]

Also in the news:
A future version of the Linux kernel will be released in the future.

Articles like that are pointless, imo.

[elija]

Also in the news:
A future version of the Linux kernel will be released in the future.

Articles like that are pointless, imo.

Actually they are not pointless, well not from the businesses point of view
anyway. IBM were very, very good at this in the 1980s. When their competition
were due to release something that was better than the IBM product of the
day, they would release their "strategic direction" - note not even a product.

Back then, IBM was so big that potential buyers of the competitions kit would
wait and see if it would be compatible with the IBM thing. After a year or so,
when IBM would "abandon the strategy"

It even worked in the PC market until Compaq beat them to the 386 and
making history.

It seems to me that MS are using the same old ploy here.

[techieMoe]

I too see this move as just a bit of sabre-rattling, however the interesting thing to note is that it's not in response to a competitor's product. They're actually encouraging their customers to forgo *their own product* for another one coming in to replace it.

Microsoft is their own worst enemy these days. The sheer weight of their legacy applications and operating systems is dragging down their innovation. They really should split the business up and try to become more agile. But that's just my two cents.

[elija]

Competition can be internal and external. I think they are worried
by the at best luke warm reception of Vista driving people to Linux.

Lets not forget that traditional MS Partners like Dell among many
others are now offering Linux on their products. The Mac is also
slowly gaining Market Share.

[Manchunian]

He, he. I'm just thinking about the teachers in my college that have had a hell of a time re-wrting all their courses because of the change from XP to Vista, and who now have the daunting prospect of having to start again from scratch! This could be the final nail in Microsoft's demise: people will not accept its agressive force-buy tactics for much longer, I'm really sure of it.

[clanc43]

I'm one of those driven from Vista... an unbelievable resource hog. (1.1 GB ram startup, 25 gb install on hdd) and it still crashes, locks up, is not very compatible, and you have to buy all new everything to get it to run. Thanks for nothing microsoft. I've used thier products since DOS 2.0 and it took vista to drive me away. I doubt if they will ever be the same again.

Clint

[jayd512]

Also in the news:
A future version of the Linux kernel will be released in the future.

Articles like that are pointless, imo.

Actually, the newest kernel just got released:

Linux Today - 2.6.25 is Out

[SkittleLinux18]

I really like what everybody has had to say on here - not that any of you need my approval. I seriously think that Microsoft knows they messed up with Vista. The same thing happened with WindowsME. It was so bad that they quickly had to release XP.

(Or was it Windows2000 they released to recover from WinME before going to XP? I don't remember, but I am sure you all know the exact time frame I am talking about and everything that happened.)

Anyway, I agree with the strategy that was mentioned above. To add to it, competition is not the only thing needed for statements like these in this article. Whether internal or external, I believe that this is correct. Furthermore, stocks and other market shares are enough to bring about "strategic movements" from Microsoft.

Secondly, look at the economy in the United States. I'm sure many of you live outside of the US and because of it may not know the gravity of the situation. It's not good. Our economy here in the US has not been this bad since the end of the depression. Many economists are even saying it's worse than what we saw in the 1970's. To make matters worse, they believe we're only in the 4th inning of a 9 inning ball game. A lot of companies have had to come out with cheaper products, services, and sales. My point isn't to turn this into an economy thread. Rather to say that Microsoft is probably doing this because they want to do something similar. A more simplified OS would be work better than Vista and would also be less expensive. The type of product that saves face at Microsoft and is marketable in such a struggling economy.

I realize that Microsoft is an international business. That does not change the fact that the company will still suffer greatly if sales in the US are way down because of our rapidly-growing recession.

[cousinlucky]

Rather than saying microsoft shot itself in the foot with Vista I would say that microsoft " poisoned itself " with Vista and its plan to drop support for XP.

Not only is microsoft's reputation being ruined by Vista; but the retail computer makers are seeing their computer sales fall because of this operating system fiasco.

I'm sure the folks at Apple are quite grateful for the new business!