HP's Fury At Vista Capable Downgrade

More documents are coming out in court proceedings over the Vista Capable debacle. Internetnews.com has good coverage of HP's fury over Microsoft lowering the requirements for a Vista Capable sticker, at Intel's request. "Intel officials may have been pleased that Microsoft lowered standards for obtaining the company's Windows Vista Capable logo program sticker, but the same can't be said about HP's execs. 'I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the [device driver model] requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,' said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft executives]." PCPro.co.uk follows the trail of accusatory emails inside Microsoft from there: "HP's email prompted then Microsoft co-President, Jim Allchin, to send a furious email of his own to company CEO Steve Ballmer. Allchin's email suggests the decision to lower the requirements was made in his absence by Ballmer, following 'a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO].' 'I am beyond being upset here,' Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive, Will Poole, in a rather erratically typed reply to Allchin."

SUSE laptops

[Enderandrew (866215)]

Many users don't feel comfortable doing an OS install themselves. HP in the past used to sell laptops with SUSE preinstalled. If you're pissed at Microsoft, a letter won't do anything. You're still preinstalling Vista on every computer.

Offer a new line of openSUSE laptops with all the hardware configured and working out of the box (wireless, webcam, etc) and that will send a message to Microsoft.

Re:SUSE laptops

[by Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one thing - make it VISIBLE (*cough*Ubuntu*cough*)! If there isn't sufficient marketing push from %OEM%, no matter what you offer pre-installed it'll never gain sufficient foothold against Windows, not even enough to send a message to the MS execs.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

If you're pissed at Microsoft, a letter won't do anything. You're still preinstalling Vista on every computer.

I totally agree. HP sells more Windows boxes than any other single vendor, and MS still fucked them they like they do all of their business partners. HP was neutered by Carly, they need to grow a pair back start getting self-sufficient again. They've clearly been fooled (at least) once now, will they let themselves be fooled twice?

What really fucking sucks

[Moryath (553296)]

When the vendors are starting to play the "Vista yay" games while everyone else is rolling back Vista to XP at first opportunity.

Example: NVidia fucked over the consumer by making their newest stereo3D drivers not just Vista-only, but also by removing LCD shutter support (meaning you're limited to color-distorting anaglyph red/blue glasses, or really crapass zalman monitors).

check it out [nvidia.com].

Next time I upgrade, unless they fix this, NVidia will not even be considered.

Re:What really fucking sucks

[phanboy_iv (1006659)]

Vista is getting support instead of XP for the same reason XP got support instead of Windows 2000.

It's next in line. What did you expect?

Microsoft can and will make you move forward. Forward being a relative term when we're talking Microsoft.

And I'm perfectly aware of the reasons not to use Vista. Which is why I removed it from my computer.

Re:What really fucking sucks

[erroneus (253617)]

A non-OpenSource operating system of any origin or maker is prone to being end-of-life'd leaving people very much obsoleted out of the use of otherwise very good hardware. To some degree this is also true of OpenSource software, but not nearly to the same degree.

In terms of sheep numbers, Linux supports more hardware than any one Windows version. But starting with Windows and every closed-source-only vendor out there, it is at their individual discretion to decide whether or not they want to continue to support any given OS at any time of their choosing ultimately making their old hardware unusable at a moment's notice. If every hardware vendor who does not publish their specs or have open source drivers available decided to pull driver support for WindowsXP, you could whine and complain all day long but there is little you can do about it while you are under their control and influence due to the closed source nature of their drivers and software. "But they would never do that!" you say? Yeah they would at the very moment they believe it would be to their advantage to do so. They don't exist for your pleasure, they exist for your cash. It really is as simple as that.

Open Source is more about being free from a single vendor than anything else as far as I am concerned. I don't compile tarballs... not any more. I pretty much get all binaries and use those as they are these days. But in the event that one Linux distro displeases me too much, there is always another out there.

Microsoft on the brink

[Nefarious Wheel (628136)]

Year after year, I maintain the feeling that Windows is teetering on the brink. The immense army of Microsoft's R&D organisation is employed to add "differentiators", i.e. more features, rather than less, so you'll always have planned obsolesence. This is inconsistent with getting the price per unit down to where it's competitive in the TCO equation they're selling to. At the Enterprise back office, it's still perceived by most of our customers that a Windows server solution is easier to plug together in a scalable way with the fewest possible high-end engineers. Because of this perception (aided by a very good single-source support portal in MSDN with a lot of expensive polish) many of our Enterprise customers see a Windows desktop -- at whatever level of evolution -- is the client of least resistance. This amounts to a lot of technology knitted together with a glue consisting of 1 part content, 1 part support, and 1 part marketing polish.

As far as overall quality and ease, well, you and I know different.

To make Linux prevail across the Enterprise will require a differentiator, something that can compensate for the immense marketing engine that is MSFT. This will have to be not just a convincing alternative, but a convincing argument that is driven home.

A couple of holdouts keep MSFT on the cliff instead of off it. A diminishing yet prevalent feeling of product consistency across the board (reinforced by their consistent portal graphics, I kid you not), the immense momentum of the installed product base and the fact that the users' home devices can run World of Warcraft on that platform and no other.

The cost equation is at present very much in favour of a Linux desktop + **Nix back end. Unless we somehow counter that marketing engine, however, we'll never be able to give the beast that last push over the cliff. And we'll need to do it in some other way than they do -- remember, it took a year-after-year consistency for Volkswagen to break the tailfin aristocracy of the 1950's car makers. Of course by that time planned obsolescence had reached absurd levels and people were ready for the change.

Maybe that's our marketing message -- "Do you really need the tailfins? Or would a simple, economical desktop do the job?"

If any marketing types out there have the links, it would be great to see some of the old VW beetle adverts. Inspirational simplicity.

Re:Microsoft on the brink

[atraintocry (1183485)]

Year after year, I maintain the feeling that Windows is teetering on the brink.

Reading a lot of Slashdot will do that to you :D

Re:SUSE laptops

[by Anonymous Coward]

They've clearly been fooled (at least) once now, will they let themselves be fooled twice?

There's an old saying in Redmond - I know it's in Palo Alto, probably in Redmond - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - I can't get fooled again.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

That could just come right back to bite them on the ass, because it might just piss off Microsoft, and the thing is, Microsoft holds all the cards.

Only because companies like HP voluntarily hand their cards over to MS.

Somebody has to take the lead, and while they may suffer for it in the short term, the long term looks a whole lot brighter without being beholden to one company that holds are the cards.

Most Linux users are happy to install it themselves, and most people who want a pre-built computer complete with OS and software want one that works just like their old one,

You are definitely describing yesterday's market. Nowadays many, many users are happy with a fully functional web browser. Not a majority, yet, but a significant minority. Look at just how well the linux-based netbooks have been selling as just one example.

Re:SUSE laptops

[thepotoo (829391)]

I hate to be the one to bring reality into this little discussion, but for HP to dump Windows and start selling Linux (or any other OS) instead is really, really stupid.

I admit, I'd buy one. You'd probably buy one, too. But almost everyone else in the known universe wants Windows on their computer. Those that don't are buying Macs. This means that if HP wants to stay alive, they need to sell Vista.

I especially like this piece:

while they may suffer for it in the short term, the long term looks a whole lot brighter

I'd like to see the company that could actually look that far ahead. Investors demand short term profits, and especially in the computer world, a couple of bad years might be enough to kill HP altogether.

It's the unfair result of Microsoft's lock-in, but for the foreseeable future it seems to be pretty much an all or nothing Windows vs. Linux (OK, Dell has Windows vs. [hidden on the back page behind a sign reading "beware of the penguin"], but you get the idea).

Re:SUSE laptops

[King_TJ (85913)]

I think you're right, but the big name hardware makers all wanted that "symbiotic relationship" with Microsoft. EG. You supply the OS/software, and we'll supply the hardware. Together, we'll both PROFIT!

It may not be all "love and roses" these days, with Vista not living up to its promises and all. But can you really imagine HP, Dell, or any of that lot suddenly coming out with their OWN operating system, this late in the game, and doing a decent job of it? You know the ONE company who had a shot at it, right? That was IBM, with OS/2, but they blew it too - out of greed, and the attraction of the "simplicity" of just letting Microsoft handle it for them instead.

Say what you will about Apple, but they're the last standing hold-out from the era when all "personal computers" ran operating systems designed by and supported solely by the same companies that made the hardware. (Commodore, Atari, Tandy/TRS-80, etc. etc.)

Re:SUSE laptops

[zappepcs (820751)]

That won't just send a message to Microsoft, it would also send a message to the population in general. That message being: Microsoft is fucked, and we have your solution right here. No need to pay the MS tax, we have Linux pre-installed for just a few dollars more, you can sign up for our Linux class. It takes 4 hours for orientation, you get a free training CD, and 3 months support for $75.00

If they do any two or more of the things I've just hinted at, MS might have a really bad year. Redmond is blowing it. They have no back-out strategy from the strong-arm tactics they have been using on manufacturers and retailers. If those deals go sour Redmond will not be an easy place to get a job in IT.

Re:SUSE laptops

[mrbcs (737902)]

The average user is an idiot and should have never bought a computer. There, I said it. You know you were thinking it too.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Free the Cowards (1280296)]

Bingo. The main problem with proclaiming that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is that it misses the fact that Windows isn't ready for the desktop either. The technically literate can use both, and the technically illiterate can't use either.

Re:SUSE laptops

[MasterOfMagic (151058)]

I nominate this post for the "Most Insightful Post Ever Made in an 'Is Linux Ready For the Desktop?' Topic" award.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Areyoukiddingme (1289470)]

This comment makes me wish I hadn't blown my mod points on the gender gap article. Nailed it. For those of us endlessly doing uncompensated helpdesk work for relatives, the truth of that statement is painfully obvious. I could more easily walk my mother through burning something to CD on Debian than I could on Vista, at this point. I use Debian. Don't use Vista much.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Amazing Quantum Man (458715)]

And when they shift from XP to Vista? What's the difference? Both Vista and Linux (assuming either GNOME or KDE) do things differently from XP. Why does Vista get a pass, while Linux doesn't?

Re:SUSE laptops

[Creepy (93888)]

Oh, where to begin. I'll just stick with graphics since that is the heart of this debacle, anyway.

Vista Basic is a software context, just like XP, XWindows on UNIX + likes, or non-Quartz Compositor (formerly Quartz Extreme) accelerated MacOSX contexts. Gnome and KDE are traditionally software based, but there has been some effort to add hardware acceleration on both fronts and I haven't kept up on where exactly they are at (I have Ubuntu and SuSE and neither are hardware accelerated AFAIK).

    Vista Aero uses Desktop Window Manager (DWM) hardware context (specifically a DirectX 9 context) and offloads much of rendering responsibility to hardware. This is actually the root of the hardware issue where MS eased up on requirements for Vista. From what I've read, the story is something like this: originally, Vista Capable machines had to have graphics acceleration, but not necessarily hardware transformation and lighting (T&L), so Intel continued to develop software T&L in their GMA 3000 series of chips released in 2006. However, Microsoft failed to disclose that Vista would also require a hardware accelerated timer and because T&L on these Intel chips was in software, the timer also needed to be in software. Intel believed they had met all the requirements and suddenly had millions of chips they wouldn't be able to sell because MS didn't disclose one piece of necessary info and was pissed at MS, MS couldn't believe anyone was still making software T&L in 2006, and everyone was pissed at everyone else.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Areyoukiddingme (1289470)]

The parent is referring to the people who haven't learned the system at all. A great many computer "users" are functionally illiterate. They've learned a rote sequence of clicks, and can get confused even when a window comes up in a different location, because they don't actually read the contents of the dialog box, or understand what it means even if they do read it. They just click where they learned to click by size and location. The slightest variation in the expected sequence totally throws them off. For such people, the OS truly is irrelevant. They aren't familiar with the OS. They're familiar with their 3 applications that they use. (Or 2. Or 1.) There are a LOT of such people in the world nowadays. Forced there, as you said, by their employer or educational institution.

Re:SUSE laptops

[cowscows (103644)]

No kidding. I work with people who can efficiently use AutoCAD, which has one of the most complicated and poorly designed interfaces I've ever seen. But at the same time they can't even change their desktop background without help.

An understanding of how a tool actually works is not always important to being able to use that tool well enough to get their job done. To use the dreaded car analogy, understanding how a manual transmission is built and functions might help you use one more effectively and squeeze some extra performance out of your car, but even someone with absolutely no idea of the actual mechanics of a transmission can learn to use one pretty well.

Getting people like this to change their routine is sometimes difficult, and they'll resist it. But once you get them to accept that the change is going to happen (Either because their boss forced them, or their old option is no longer available, or the new choice is 30% cheaper, etc.) They can learn the new stuff.

Re:SUSE laptops

[LWATCDR (28044)]

I am a Linux fan and yes I do agree for the most part but I would go with your granny test if you let me set some of the tasks.
Go to BestCircutMartDepot and.
1. Buy an all in one printer.
2. Buy a webcam.
3. Buy a Game.
4. Buy Tax Software.
The problem is a lack of over the counter software and the lack of a stable binary driver interface.
The whole document it and they will write it is a good idea but having the option to stick in on a CD in the box is very handy.

TTY practice

[Dolda2000 (759023)]

[...]MS's anticompetitive^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H incentive[...]

Are you aware that you can erase an entire word with ^W instead?

Re:SUSE laptops

[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

So get on the horn with Dell and Gateway, and talk about how much money they lost, and how if they all went the same route on this, they could reduce their dependence on a vendor that clearly has no regard for their welfare.

Surely you're aware that what you're suggesting is a violation of antitrust laws?

I know, it'd be weird for Microsoft to be on the winning side of an antitrust suit for once, but is that what you really want?

Re:SUSE laptops

[lupis42 (1048492)]

IANAL, but AFAIK if Dell and Gateway and HP communicate, but not set prices, that's not inherently anti-competitive. They are agreeing to stop colluding with Microsoft by all snubbing the discount simultaneously. If they talk prices, that's a whole other story.
Any lawyers want to call BS?

Re:SUSE laptops

[lupis42 (1048492)]

Seriously, why doesn't HP simply add Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and CentOS to the list of versions of Windows Vista, and list the price for each choice. Mark up every option by 10$ to offset the money they've lost. I'm sure the point will get across.

Re:SUSE laptops

[Enderandrew (866215)]

HP is still responsible for technical support and drivers for every OS they want to support. If HP offered Linux, it would likely be one distro. They went with SUSE in the past, and I happen to dig on openSUSE so that is why I suggested it.

Re:SUSE laptops

[D'Sphitz (699604)]

Here's the emails [techflash.com] the story mentions but fails to link

Re:SUSE laptops

[Enderandrew (866215)]

Dell already offers Ubuntu, and HP historically has supported SUSE.

SUSE in the past has had package manager issues, but seriously check out openSUSE 11, or the openSUSE 11.1 beta 5. The package manager is GREATLY improved. It searches and resolves packages considerably better, packages are smaller files (LZMA compression), and dependency issues are solved much better now.

The thing I really like about Novell/openSUSE is the development efforts to make improvements themselves and push them upstream. They also backport features. openSUSE packages are just good packages. I could find a decent KDE desktop in Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, etc. but alongside the Arch KDEMod team, openSUSE arguably puts out the single best KDE desktop I've seen.

Email from Steve

[by Anonymous Coward]

Jim,

I most certainly did not... *picks up chair*
It was *throws chair* Will Poole who made the decision. Blame him.

Sorry I have to run. My anger management class starts in 5 minutes.

Steve

DRA-MA

[Taibhsear (1286214)]

This sounds more like high school than execs and CEOs... Sounds like you guys lost credibility a long time ago.

Ring around the blame game...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

Hard to argue with HP for being pissed off about this one. The PC market is cutthroat, so making an investment in higher priced integrated and/or discrete graphics chipsets, only to discover at the last moment that your competition has just been given the green light to undersell you with relaxed requirements has got to hurt.

MS was in a lousy position there, with no way to please everybody; but their handling of the situation was surprisingly inelegant. Lots of confusion and behind-one-another's-back talking to partners. I wonder if they messed up, or if they figure that HP et al. will just have to suck it up. One also wonders, at this point, if it wouldn't have been better for MS to just pay Intel to dump the 915s(either literally, or into low-end "emerging markets" products).

Re:Ring around the blame game...

[MightyMartian (840721)]

It sure is looking to me like Microsoft was in panic mode, different managers and departments were all over the place. The whole thing obviously turned into a feeding frenzy. What this shows you is just how vile and inept the unholy alliances between Microsoft, Intel and the big-name PC manufacturers are. But you know what, these guys long ago sold their souls to Microsoft, basically letting the tail wag the dog, so it's hard to feel sorry for HP. If HP had some serious balls it would simply have said "If you don't step on this shitty Intel chipset, we're going to start pushing in a big way Ubuntu and OpenOffice, and maybe we're even going to throw some R&D dollars at it." HP is a large enough PC maker to make a threat like that quake Redmond's boots.

Instead, while they may have privately bitched, at the end of the day, John Q Consumer was still buying equipment with "Vista Ready" stickers on it, unaware that, whatever the reason, a fair chunk of those computers were anything but.

Re:Ring around the blame game...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

Well, Schadenfreude is alive and well in the human heart(and I don't much like MS anyway) so I'm doing some fairly serious smirking about their pain right now. The fact that this is all internal emails from high level guys, loaded with confusion and a downright adolescent level of spelling and grammar, coming out in discovery, just makes it better.

In a slightly more emotionally distanced view, you have to admit that MS's position kinda sucked. They had to make a call, and whichever way they made it, some of their partners stood to lose big. In the end, I think they fucked up and make the wrong(and unethical) call, for which they are being sued. Your level of sympathy for HP depends largely on how much you see them as a willfully blind, idiotic enabler of MS vs. how much you see them as a victim of MS. As for heroes, none available. Everybody here was just grubbing at the money trough. Some were more unethical about it than others; but that is about all you can say.

Popcorn anyone?

[Etrias (1121031)]

Is anyone else enjoying this or is it just me? I mean, this is like some kind of geek bitch-slap fight.

Microsoft has no strategic partners

[genner (694963)]

only stepping stones on the path to more money.

Would have stuck with XP.

[787style (816008)]

What's even more ironic, is that if they hadn't come up with Vista-Capable, these notebooks would have been stuck on XP. Seeing how a large number of users specifically downgraded to XP on a Vista purchase, I can't see how selling these machines with XP only wouldn't have been (truly) a feature.

Re:Would have stuck with XP.

[arkhan_jg (618674)]

Unfortunately, most people didn't know Vista (especially vista basic) stunk at the original launch. I know quite a few people who looked at laptops and specifically went for vista ones because they were being advertised heavily and were the 'new shiny thing'. Putting XP on those underpowered laptops would have been the right thing for everyone involved, but vendors who did lost out to those sellers who had lower scruples.

Note to ballmer:

[geekoid (135745)]

The person at the top is ultimately responsible.

Ballmer is the Ringo star of the software industry.

MS Execs taking a beating

[frog_strat (852055)]

Their own managers got screwed by this. From Information Week:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100310 [informationweek.com]

In another e-mail, Microsoft Windows product manager Mike Nash said even he was fooled by the campaign: "I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I personally" bought "with my own $$$." Nash said he purchased the Sony laptop "because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed."

"I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine," Nash complained.

Nothing new here. Another day. Another episode demonstrating that there are no ethics or leadership at the top of this company. Just a bunch of ignorant whores.

Re:Somebody help me understand this . . .

[lupis42 (1048492)]

It doesn't have the graphics power to run Aero. Intel instructed Microsoft to remove that as a requirement for the "Vista Capable" sticker. Microsoft agreed, despite previously telling ATI, Nvidia, and HP that they would not remove that requirement, even for Intel.

Re:Somebody help me understand this . . .

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

And why did this suck for HP, exactly?

Because HP had already made an investment in a more expensive (capable) product line based on the promises of MS. Now HP would have to compete against vendors offering less-powerful systems that could be also advertised as "Vista Capable", even though not actually capable according to the original definition.

i915 = No hardware scheduler = no WDDM

[phatvw (996438)]

According to Intel, the i915 chipset does not have a native hardware scheduler [intel.com] and hence cannot fully support the WDDM design. I believe there were alpha versions of WDDM drivers for i915 but they only supported a subset of WDDM features and were scrapped early in the project.

I reckon it is actually possible to have full WDDM on i915, but the performance would be absolutely horrible because the scheduling would have to be done in the driver - and we all know how zippy Intel drivers are :)

Re:Ooh for pete's sake

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Then you should have stuck for what you believe and refused to sell underpowered vista machines.

You don't seem to understand what HP "believes in" -- it is making a profit.

When all the other vendors are able to sell underpowered and consequently underpriced vista machines with the same labeling as yours, then hardly anyone is going to buy your comparatively overpriced system. The majority of consumers are not capable of distinguishing between the intel 915 and 935 motherboard chipsets at the retail level. But they are able to recognize a $50 price difference.

Re:Ooh for pete's sake

[compro01 (777531)]

Then you should have stuck for what you believe and refused to sell underpowered vista machines.

I believe that's what they did. Problem being, MS lowered the bar at the last moment after HP was already selling their machines, and everyone else undercut them with less-than-adequate machines. And being as Joe 40oz doesn't know the difference between the systems, he's likely to go with the latter, thus HP loses a ton of money.

Re:Marketing rules technology

[gstoddart (321705)]

As has always been the case and the #1 reason Microsoft products suck in general, marketing makes the product technology decisions.

Are you under the impression that MS is the only place where this happens? Personal experience tells me that absurd requests for features from high-profile customers, and sales guys who over promise is a problem most anywhere else.

I just don't think most places have the luxury of having a well planned, development driven process.

As much as I'm usually pretty down on MS, I'm just not convinced they're any different in this case.

Cheers

Re:What does this all mean?

[MightyMartian (840721)]

It's not sales that were hurt, it was the bottom line. HP clearly is indicating that they were following an earlier, more rigorous set of hardware requirements as they pushed out their new lines, and then suddenly Microsoft changes the rules and a low-end video chipset is given the thumb's up, meaning HP's competitors can push out cheaper computers with that precious "Vista Ready" sticker on them, undercutting HP (not that HP didn't push out some pretty crappy notebooks that perform underwhelmingly under Vista).

Re:Hot dog, OH DADDY!

[Psmylie (169236)]

How did you fail THIS badly?

I'm guessing lots of practice

Re:Eating Their Own

[Bigjeff5 (1143585)]

Uhhh... I believe there was a contractual agreement. I don't know how much you know about contract law, but even verbal agreements are contracts; they are simply more difficult to nail down if there is a problem than written contracts. That's why verbal agreements are usually just a few words and a handshake, something along the lines of "HP promises to use Vista, and Microsoft promises to not lower the requirements for the Vista Capable logo." shake hands, and done. It's completely binding, but chances are it was done in written form anyway.

Hence the reason they are in friggin court dude.

Re:Eating Their Own

[PitaBred (632671)]

HP is angry that they listened to MS on hardware specs initially, and then MS changed it's mind in backroom deals with Intel, which ultimately convinced people to buy computers that weren't actually ready for Vista. HP got bit hard because they invested in a higher level of hardware than Intel was providing, and all the other manufacturers could undercut it by going with the cheaper stuff leaving HP to scramble.

Just because it wasn't necessarily illegal to screw over HP like that doesn't mean HP has any less right to be angry at backroom deals.