PCWorld Says Firefox is Strong, Vista is Weak 395
twitter writes "PC World has released their year in review statistics and 2007 was not kind to Microsoft. IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 and no one wants Vista. 'How much of an accomplishment is it for a new version of Windows to get to 14 percent usage in 11 months? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002. In that period, that operating system went from nothing to 36 percent usage on PCWorld.com--more than 250 percent of the usage that Vista has mustered so far.'"
As for the Mac stat... (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
They're comparing usage based on visits to their website. Not only that, but they're comparing uptake of Vista in 2007 to XP in 2001. As a percentage.
I can't help but feel that a lot has changed over that time to make that method of comparison completely irrelevant, both in terms of MS's operations (like how Vista follows a fairly strong OS that has had years to take root, compared with XP, which followed Windows Me, which sucked in every possible way) and in terms of the overall PC market (like how Macs are much more competitive, and how Linux has matured, but mostly how so many hardware and software has been developed for Windows XP).
- RG>
oh look. twitter spin (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on slashdot folks.
twitter strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)
twitter also has another journal entry there [slashdot.org], which is hilarious if not for the fact that he spends so much time arguing that Dvorak is an idiot when he says something about Linux twitter doesn't like.
For someone who has already ruined two Slashdot [slashdot.org] accounts [slashdot.org] with his misguided "evangelism" and is down to trolling AC, he sure has a lot of fun trolling [slashdot.org] the site.
twitter, please stop "helping" us. Free software needs people who can make intelligent arguments about why it is superior to closed-source gunk, not trolls who spend all their waking hours making up shit about Microsoft with liberal doses of infantile creative spelling.
Another way to look at Vista's adoption rate (Score:5, Insightful)
Also along these lines, I know quite a few people who are getting Vista on their new home machines, and have been, for the most part, favorably impressed. This, over time, will also translate into increased adoption in the business world. Like it or not, Vista will become the pervasive desktop in the next 2 years.
Re:Vista a Flop? (Score:1, Insightful)
I fixed that for you. Windows users are not everyone.
Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Linux had 14% usage in 11 months (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:benchmark? (Score:3, Insightful)
(People who got it on a machine and immediately switched to, say, Linux, shouldn't be counted. I'm after the ones that gave it a reasonable trial.)
Re:Poor comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Until Vista came around, each new version offered significant improvements, required significantly more resources, added some quirky problems but was overall an improvement. The problem is that with Windows 2000, MS pretty much solved all their major problems (besides security, but that could be mitigated by a little bit of common sense, despite the horrible track record of security issues). By XP SP2, even security issues were starting to be not so severe. The biggest changes between 2000 and XP were minor UI tweaks (and the ugliest theme ever put on a GUI since Tandy DeskMate, but that could be turned off, and was turned off, by anyone who realized it could be), and support for new hardware, especially wireless, which didn't really become "nice" until SP2 came along. All Vista really needed to do was support the newest hardware, throw a little eye candy in (because you always need a little eye candy in a new release) and fix some of the many problems that will always plague any OS and it would have sold like hotcakes. Instead we got a Frankenstein monster of an OS that looks and feels like it was designed and written by Cold-War Era East German government employees, with more bloat than the U.S. Tax Code and fewer useful new features than the, well, the U.S. Tax Code.
IMO, Microsoft has been growing beyond their capacity to manage themselves since the early 90's and they have finally reached the point where they are so large they literally cannot do anything right. Just like the U.S. government, MS is so huge, bloated, mismanaged and downright corrupt, the only way it can possibly be improved is for 95% of it to simply go away.
Vista and managed software (Score:3, Insightful)
The most different thing about Vista and XP is the off-take of
On the other hand we have the more fine-grained security model. Yes, this means more popup boxes. But if I'm running Ubuntu, it's much worse. I'll have to type my passport so many times that it isn't even funny anymore. Just clicking a popup box seems more user friendly to me.
Not to nag, but even though Vista is a bit of a pain to work with, are we sure we (yes, we, I'm not a Microsoft fan boy, far from it) should keep discrediting Windows? Lets play the technological game and innovate instead. We can do better than MS, both at security, speed, and UI design. Now let's show what we're made off instead of screaming foul.
Not reasonable comparing XP to Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be a pretty strong indicator that the market is not "satisfied that Win XP is good enough for their needs" like the article suggests, but that a significant segment are actively rejecting Vista as a bad product even on a brand new computer.
Which, of course, it is. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall, and they cashed in their chips. Which means, they saw that it was time to sell their install base out to third party interests instead of trying to keep hold of them.
We've all seen situations where the value of a good name is measured in how long it's purchaser can sell substandard goods at high markup before the name isn't good anymore.
That's what this is. The industry decided to back "Trusted Computing" despite it being contrary to the interests of consumers, and no one wants to buy it. That's why the new drivers don't work, why the old software is buggy, etc. The common person doesn't know why, but they know it's not working right, and they don't like it.
Re:benchmark? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that the newest OSX installs and Linux installs aren't slow on my older machines would be...?
Microsoft designs sluggish, crappy operating systems. The hardware eventually gets to the point that they run ok.
the Vista defending bandwagon (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft could improve the performance issues with Vista with service packs, but seriously - what does Vista offer over XP, aside from artificial obsolescence like DX 10 being Vista only when it was almost certainly developed on XP?
Re:Another way to look at Vista's adoption rate (Score:5, Insightful)
You see the much same thing in the w3Schools OS Platform Stats. [w3schools.com]
There are, by some estimates, one billion Windows users.
To claim 14% of a market that size in one year would be pure fantasy in any other context.
MS Vista was the only OS showing significant growth in 2007. Linux has gained absolutely no traction in the w3Schools stats in the better part of five years.
Vista's strength has been in OEM sales of Vista Premium and Ultimate in the consumer market.
That is good news for Dell, HP and the big box retailer.
The el cheapo $200 Linux box - the "network appliance" - makes headlines on Slashdot. But that isn't the only price point that interests Walmart - or the Walmart shopper: HP TouchSmart Desktop PC [walmart.com]
Not only that, but the brand name multifunction color printer-scanner with a Vista driver will set him back less than $50. HP All-In-Printer & HP 21 Ink [walmart.com]
The Geek tries to frame the "Microsoft Tax" as a percentage of the price of the computer. But the ordinary user - the middle class buyer - is looking at the price of the system bundle, the cost of services and consumables.
OEM Vista is a one-time expense.
The ink jet cartridge or the monthly bill for Roadrunner won't come any cheaper if he migrates to Linux.
Re:recession (Score:3, Insightful)
The American worker hasn't gotten a raise in 6 years. For some, a lot longer. So while it's true that unemployment is low, that doesn't mean much to the PC market if no one has much disposable income.
It's similar to the situation with the PS3, and the other HD "next gen" components. Is the price too high, or is the worker too poor? It's sorta the same thing. The end result is that products don't move as quickly as corporations had hoped.
Of course, I'm not defending Vista. It sucks for all of the reasons mentioned in other comments. Plus, most of the regular users that I talk to about it hate how the interface was needlessly changed... they finally learned how to perform basic tasks on their PCs, and then MS goes and moves everything around. That's the type of thing that drives the ordinary office worker bananas.
I actually think it's a lot easier to go from XP to Ubuntu than from XP to Vista, from the point of view of a typical person.
So yeah, there are tons of factors that contribute to Vista's slow adoption, but if the economy was cooking along in a way that benefited the average person, they'd be down at Best Buy picking up a new PC.
Re:I've just upgraded one machine at home ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You can use 'new' APIs for stuff but normally it's nothing that couldn't be done with two or three API calls to 'old' APIs.. and any developer will have a library of code that does that anyway so it'd be more work to change it than leave it as it is.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vista and managed software (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the things that has really impressed me about Ubuntu is the fact that 90% of the software I deal with is "Managed". You bring up add/remove, click a few boxes and the system takes care of installs, upgrades and even related library installs. Entire OS upgrades are performed through this mechanism--all GUI based.
I'd love to see Mac/PC go that way, but then you run into the problem with paid software--It's unlikely that Apple will allow itunes to be installed through a microsoft controlled update center; and just as unlikely that Microsoft will allow 3rd party update centers. Also, the only way it would really work would be if hundreds of the apps that could be installed were free--to get people used to using it.
How is the
Re:benchmark? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd hardly say that qualifies as nobody wanting Vista. But either way, I've been around long enough to expect Twitter to pull random junk out of his ass. He's pretty much the Devorak/Jack Thompson of Linux advocacy.
Except, possibly more vapid.
Re:oh look. twitter spin (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course IE7 is going to be the most used browser out there. It's preinstalled on Vista, probably preinstalled on a lot of newer XP systems too, and comes heavily hyped by MS as part of Windows Update. I suspect most home PC users with broadband have got it already. The vast majority of computer users have probably never even heard of Firefox or other alternative browsers, much less know how to get and install one. Popularity has never been a good metric for anything.
That said, it's encouraging that Firefox is as popular as it is. Not all of those Firefox users are coming from Linux/BSD people, and most Mac people I know are happy with Safari, so it must be making good inroads in the corporate desktop world or through word of mouth.