Michael Dell Says Windows 7 Will Make You Love PCs 627
ruphus13 writes "In a recent talk at the Churchill Club, Michael Dell addressed several topics, including the fact that Windows 7 is poised to take advantage of the upgrade cycle. Dell has always been a strong MS OEM ally and it is now hoping to cash in again from the impending upgrades. From the post: 'Dell made plain several times that he sees the installed base of technology as very old, and sees a coming "refresh cycle" for which he has high hopes. "The latest generation of chips from Intel is strong, particularly Nehalem," he said, adding, "and Windows 7 is on its way." (The operating system arrives Oct. 22nd, although Microsoft's large-volume licensees are already getting it.) He pointed out that many business are running Windows XP, which is eight years old. "I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now," he said, "and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement."'"
Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail [newegg.com]: $299.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor [newegg.com]: $279.99
(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)
Latest Office 20xx [microsoft.com]: $399.95
Total: $979.93
So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course he'll say that, but your price comparison is unfair. A Dell package of oem software/hardware will certainly be cheaper than you are suggesting.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation - Buy stuff from me. I won't sell you poison again, honest. You can trust me and my stuff is less bad than last time.
Re:Can somebody tell me why? (Score:2, Insightful)
For a /. geek, what does Windows 7 have that's *really* useful/desired/cool vs. Windows XP? Not trolling, just haven't had the time to install it/play with it yet.
It's newer and less awful than vista. But it's still really NT with an updated interface and some new bits glued to the side.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
As various searches reveal that in 2007 he was using Ubuntu, the "long time now" must mean gosh, what, using Windows 7 a couple of years? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "early release".
Seem disingenuous.
Dell needs a good quarter, folks. Those nasty guys on Wall Street will be all over them if they don't squeeze out a good quarter to make Dell look good against Acer. Or not.
And computer companies wonder why their credibility is so dubious.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:3, Insightful)
How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."
You can't. This is a complete shill-job by Mike Dell, and while I can't blame him and I'd do precisely the same thing in his place, this article is not news, it's advertising.
Do I detect the delectable odor of some potted meat product in a can? Why yes, yes I do.
bullshit advice (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a news flash (Score:3, Insightful)
> Conflict of interest, anyone?
More like identity of interest. He isn't "conflicted" about it at all.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
Those options are nice if you fulfill the requirements of the Office student license and the OEM System Builder License. I don't see how they are relevant generally -- if you are arguing that the licenses aren't important... well you could just get a cracked copy off bittorrent and say the total price is $199.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
As various searches reveal that in 2007 he was using Ubuntu, the "long time now" must mean gosh, what, using Windows 7 a couple of years? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "early release".
Seem disingenuous.
Dell needs a good quarter, folks. Those nasty guys on Wall Street will be all over them if they don't squeeze out a good quarter to make Dell look good against Acer. Or not.
And computer companies wonder why their credibility is so dubious.
Either way what Michael Dell says as the CEO of Dell doesn't reflect his personal opinion, just like any other CEO, or anybody working within management, your professional opinion can be in complete contrast to your personal opinion. What he's proposing (that everybody upgrade to Win7, and hopefully with that also buy new shiny Dell PCs) is something that will benefit his business, and he would be the worlds shittiest CEO if he didn't. So basically this means nothing other than the fact that Dell also wishes to make profit on Windows 7.
Also something noteworthy is that the life situation of Michael Dell, as a multibillionare, is very different from the vast majority; thus whatever Michael Dell chooses will most likely not reflect what's best for you as an average income consumer.
Even though the ape in us wants to try to mimic the decisions of the successful, it can sometimes be difficult to understand why mimicing isolated decisions is more likely to do you harm than good.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:4, Insightful)
I was wondering how many posts I would have to read before someone suggested a Mac. It didnt't take long.
If PCs are going to cost the same as a Mac, they will have a steep hill to climb. The Mac user experience is vastly different than XP and Vista. So much so, that people who switched are not going back to MS anytime soon. Without the cost advantage, Windows 7 will have to be on par with OS X. Not impossible for MS to do, but improving on XP and Vista is not even the downpayment on the level of improvement needed to compete with OS X.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
The stupidity is that Windows 7 is actually looking quite good. And then they pull the sort of stupid marketing stunts that you'd only be driven to if it were crap, making them look desperate.
That said, good or not, Windows 7 is over-priced. Lots of people might want it, but they wont pay hundreds of dollars for it. About $60 - 70 and it would fly off the shelves. Most will not upgrade but just wait until they pick it up with a new PC (which could be a long time for us build-our-own types).
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu is that nerdy chick who bought YOU a drink.
But only other nerds really have a chance with her.
Give here enough attention and anything is possible. And I mean anything.
Dramatic Improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
...if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
Ok, I'm a graphic designer who often works with photoshop files that are 500 meg or larger (files in the 1 gig+ range are not uncommon at all). For me, having a fast processor, a lot of ram, and the other bells and whistles that go along with it will make a "dramatic improvement" because we're talking about a massive file and long processing times for each action I take. When you're using Office - you know, a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, and a presentation program - you shouldn't need the latest and greatest. Sorry, but I just feel that needing the latest and greatest so that you can "love your PC again" when all you're using is an office suite just might be a sign that the office suite is bloated well beyond what is required.
My two cents. They're Canadian cents so take 'em for what they're worth, eh.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:4, Insightful)
>Microsoft Windows 7 Professional [newegg.com] $139.99
>Cheapest Nehalem Processor [newegg.com]: $199.99
>Latest Office 20xx [newegg.com]: $119.99
>Total : $459.97
"Upgrade Kit" with box, motherboard, modest AMD64 Athlonx2 processor, blank hard disk and basic HD2400 ATI video card - $225.
Kubuntu 9.10 LiveCD with KDE 4.3, Firefox 3.5.3, OpenOffice 3.1.1, Amarok, VLC and a full suite of desktop applications: - $0.
Total: $225.
Far more functionality out of the box, no requirement to agree to any conditions, far better performance and half the price.
Later this year ... upgrade the kernel to 2.6.32 and get a 3D video driver. All the fancy desktop bling you could possibly want. Sweet.
Re:Dell & Win 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
“Its amazing that it takes Micro$oft 6 years to what the Linux, community can get done in 6 weeks”
I always wonder how this happen so fast as well, its like I woke up one day everybody had gone 64Bit. But one day at my local lug, Alan Cox was there and we got taking about 64Bit drivers and he said that when he was working at Red Hat the code for the Alpha port helped a lot.
Plus Linux has been in the 64bit space for a while it just commodity hardware caught up.
Microsoft are not know for being ahead of thing, there just playing catch up.
I take you point that FOSS did the transition better it just wasn’t as magical as you put it.
Oh yea, Michael (Score:1, Insightful)
and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement
The idiocy of the "Office 2010" remark aside, that's one scared man.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:3, Insightful)
XP wasn't long-lived because they wanted it, but because they bungled Longhorn - also, by your logic, it was a 2k service pack.
Windows 7 (Score:2, Insightful)
Same pig, new dress.
Re:Can somebody tell me why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's the point, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the point of saying anything as the CEO of a company when everyone who listens is thinking "yes, this is just him talking as the company, so well biased"?
Those who would slavishly follow what the COMPANY wants anyway will listen but there was no need to say something in that case. And everyone else will consider the source and ignore it.
So if what the CEO says is always and necessarily expected to be not his personal opinion but what the current incumbent of the CEO post of that company would say to make that company profits, there's no point talking at all.
You're making the fatal mistake of assuming that people are clever and source critical. You can easily manipulate people into doing whatever by saying the right thing at the right time. [slashdot.org] All you need to do is to play on their pride and ignorance.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or some marketing droid wrote that statement for him. I remember similar crap mouthed by various computer company CEO's about Vista.
Windows 7 is, fundamentally, just Vista SP2. There's a little less in the way of "you need to confirm access to continue" screen nagware, and the hardware requirements are about the same as Vista. The only reason it's not getting panned as a resource hog is that Vista only ran well on almost "bleeding edge" hardware, and 2.5 years later that's "hey it runs well on a couple year old sytem."
Pricing & piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, MS dumps millions -- tens, maybe over a hundred million, anyone? -- into antipiracy efforts for Windows 7. I'm talking direct work on Win7 to stop piracy (activation codes, backend infrastructure, employees, coding specific to Win7, etc).
We know it won't stop piracy, although we don't know if it will slow it. And then they turn around and price the product at outrageous prices, which only serves to punish and/or discourage the users who would purchase it and encourage fence sitters and experimenters to pirate it.
Why not price it much more generously and make it "one" product versus many, with installation options for multimedia, and make "home" a mode or something?
I'm thinking single copies at maybe $50 and five license packs for $150. I think they would probably sell more, and in the long run probably *make* more versus dumping a ton of money into antipiracy efforts and then pricing it sky high.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, thanks a lot. I now feel dirty every time I type "sudo".
I love Microsoft & Win7 in a very qualified se (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually just today I got a free copy of Windows 7 ultimate from Microsoft's marketing launch events, for which generosity I'm very grateful. It is a little out of character for me to be saying these things since I've been (and remain) a die hard UNIX & free software fan for decades. I've been running Win7 since the Beta was out several months back either in a VM or on a test PC, and generally I'm pleased at its overall stability, usefulness, and benefits. Functionally I've ALWAYS considered Windows as sort of a dumbed down toy compared to UNIX being a developer and not being able to 'live' without routine use of bash, emacs, diff, grep, od, ssh, g++/gcc, growisofs, sed, awk, find, sort, less, tracker, tcpdump, iptables, ... and hundreds of other things for which there is often no easy / built in equivalent on Windows. On the other hand like it or not there are lots of tools / programs from Visual Studio to video games, photoshop to office 2007 that don't run well or at all under UNIX, so pragmatically I need the ability to maintain a Windows environment too.
The thing that has me changing from being hopelessly disgruntled about the incompatibilities, non-portabilities, lack of lots of powerful UNIXish tools / utilities on Windows, et. al. is that the new generations of OS capabilities, applications, PCs, et. al. are starting to directly or indirectly evolve to ameliorate what's lacking in one environment versus the other. More quality programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice are cross platform. Many useful utilities are web applications or are increasingly becoming portable via the use of things like QT, CLR/.NET/Mono, JAVA. Though it isn't bash, I think MS has a good thing with PowerShell 2.0, and it is powerful and compelling for its own virtues; FINALLY it is part of the OS!
Dell was right, modern mid-range PC hardware does give new reasons to love one's PC for someone like me (who is harder to please than the average user). Now a commodity PC with 4GB or more or RAM and a dual core CPU is mainstream, and most support 64 bit computing and virtualization. It is nothing difficult to just run a responsive and almost fully transparently functional copy of LINUX in a VM underneath Windows Vista/Windows 7. Conversely it is no problem to run a copy of Windows in a VM under LINUX, though given difficulties with GPU virtualization, et. al. that's not a good gaming solution, but works well for most other desktop application uses. Though they may be INCOMPATIBLE, at least they can start to COEXIST NICELY, which is wonderfully better than the days of dual booting or having multiple PCs just for that purpose.
I'm impressed by what's going on with CLR/.NET in 3.5, 4.0, and the better added support of Python, Ruby, F#, C#, et. al. under the CLR, as well as the fact that there's at least some useful amount of cross platform portability of such programs to UNIX via MONO, albeit 1-2 years behind the cutting edge functionality on the Windows platform in some cases.
Adding multiple CPU support, multi-core support, well supported 64 bit support to Windows in Vista/7 lets people run Windows effectively on fairly powerful systems and not be so limited by OS limits that were plaguing XP 32, Win2k, et. al. in times when LINUX 64 was readily available and vastly more powerful for high end workstation / server support.
Somewhat cross platform GPGPU / HPC solutions like CUDA, OpenCL, BLAS / LAPACK et. al. give promising capabilities for improving computing, DSP, media processing, et. al. dramatically in the era of Win7 but also benefit LINUX. Windows centric solutions like DirectCompute / DX11 offer similar though less portable benefits. In any case things like multi core CPUs, multi-GBy of cheap RAM, virtualization, big screens, better multi-monitor support, powerful and inexpensive GPUs, 64 bit OSs do give lots of reasons why Dell is right and that a new era of software / platform evolution is upon us and will provide lots of new "killer applications" and user benefits
Re:Install Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Psst, did you notice that this was in his/her gaming machine?
They are trying too hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
re: shocked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really?
When you consider that way back in the 1980's, people were shelling out upwards of $2000 for a new computer, what makes you think it's so "shocking" that people would still pay over $1000 for a new system in today's dollars?
Although the market has been flooded with "entry level" systems starting as low as $300 or so, that doesn't mean everyone has decided there's no reason to spend more. And although I realize the cheap PCs have been great from a standpoint in getting more people on-board with using a computer at home, they've also resulted in lower standards across the board. I, for one, am tired of the garbage that passes for a power supply out there. You've got the same problem as cheap, imported car and home stereo equipment, where the wattage ratings mean nothing. I can remember when you could pull a power supply out of one of the original IBM AT machines and it might say something really low, by today's standards, like an 85 watt rating. Yet you could add a bunch of power splitters to the thing and hook it up to a FAR more modern system that needed at least a 250 watt power supply to run, and it would still power it! These days, you get power supplies with a 450 or 500 watt rating that conk out if they're asked to output more than about HALF of that rating!
I'm equally tired of the way manufacturers cut corners on things like cooling fans (cheap sleeve bearings, so the fan quits spinning after a year or two, risking destroying far more expensive components), or sourcing the cheapest motherboards they can find that have the ports and connectors they require. (Again, where's the real savings when your new machine gets flaky and starts refusing to power up half the time, risking all your important data?)
All of this (and shoddy software!) are reasons I've been "loving my PC" for years now by switching to higher-end Macs. Yep, they cost more.... a lot more in the case of the Mac Pro. But I've had practically NO headaches or hardware issues. (My first Macbook Pro portable did arrive DOA, but it was swapped immediately and its replacement worked great. Even there though, the things were shipping direct from a factory in China. Back when people were conditioned to pay more for computers, all the way around, these things would have still been assembled and QA tested here in the USA.)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a friend who is handicapped and partially paralyzed and to her usability is the key when using computers. Also she doesn't have that much money as she cannot work. Windows 7 gave her 6 year old PC running a Northwood Pentium IV a new lease on life, all the hardware properly detected.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrary to slashdot beliefs, the majority of people don't know or want to use Photoshop, nor play Crysis. Do you think all those netbooks and cheap desktops are being sold for graphic designers or gamers?
Besides, even if you buy Windows, do you really expect to play Crysis on a HD2400?
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the file browser is probably the worst usability aspect of Vista.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:5, Insightful)
So just this week I'm selling my mac and switching to a machine running Windows 7. I like it better than OS X.
You know you can install Windows on a Mac, right?
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
In case you're reading, your .sig is missing a 't' in the second function.
[John]
Further proof that even if computers attain perfection, people will always find a way to screw things up. And then blame it on the computer.
Re:Can somebody tell me why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:3, Insightful)
> Do you think all those netbooks and cheap desktops are being sold for graphic designers or gamers?
No, they're being sold to Slashdot users who'd never be content to endure the limits of a laptop as their "real" computer (last I checked, there's no quadcore 3GHz i7 available for notebooks), but will happily throw down a few hundred bucks for a decent semi-throwaway netbook to use on weekend trips and other occasional situations where it's nice to have.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Does Windows 7 have those "senior moments" like Vista where it will just get non responsive for like 5-15 seconds, just long enough to piss you off?
No. That's why it's better than Vista.
How about networking, does it still slow to a crawl if you watch videos or listen to music while transferring files?
No. That's why it's better than Vista.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:4, Insightful)
That people aren't comfortable with Linux isn't Linux's fault. The KDE and Gnome projects have bent over backwards to make things accessible with a minimum of effort and the Ubuntu distro has made enormous strides in making Linux something easy to find, install and keep up to date (building on Debian, naturally). Basically, Linux's part of the bargain is complete. Sure, we need to keep up with the latest hardware and such, but you can't really ask for anything more in terms of accessibility. If someone doesn't want to stay on XP and doesn't like Windows 7, then they're going to have to either buy a Mac or accept that they need to spend a few hours one evening clicking buttons and learning how to use Ubuntu or whatever.
If you want to approach life in a negative frame of mind, then everything is a "least of all evils kind of thing". If Microsoft have the "least of all evils" on their hands, then they're onto a winner. They don't for me because I'm happy enough with Linux and whilst I would buy Windows 7 just to play around with and develop for, the price is way above my price point.
Re:Can somebody tell me why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you shills actually think checkbox marketing is going to fly with this crowd?
I doubt they do, but they have to try anyway. After all thats what they are paid to do.
Slashdot needs some kind of filter to get rid of Microsoft marketing drones.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dramatic Improvement (Score:3, Insightful)
I just feel that needing the latest and greatest so that you can "love your PC again" when all you're using is an office suite just might be a sign that the office suite is bloated well beyond what is required.
The Office suite is simply where most users will spend their working hours.
But "after hours" is just as important to many folks - and a PC that is strong in media play, media production and gaming is the win win choice.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Does Windows 7 have those "senior moments" like Vista where it will just get non responsive for like 5-15 seconds, just long enough to piss you off? How about networking, does it still slow to a crawl if you watch videos or listen to music while transferring files?"
I've been using 7 since the RC was made public and the answer to both those questions is no.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Either way what Michael Dell says as the CEO of Dell doesn't reflect his personal opinion, just like any other CEO, or anybody working within management, your professional opinion can be in complete contrast to your personal opinion.
But when someone's "professional" opinion doesn't match their personal opinion, neither opinion is worth shit.
If he's trying to tell us how good Windows 7 is, when he won't even run it himself, that takes *all* of the legitimacy out of his statement.
Also something noteworthy is that the life situation of Michael Dell, as a multibillionare, is very different from the vast majority; thus whatever Michael Dell chooses will most likely not reflect what's best for you as an average income consumer.
There are "rich people" cars and "rich people" vacation packages and "rich people" clothes, etc., but there isn't a "rich people" OS.
There aren't even "rich people" computers. There are high end PCs and Mac Pros, but these are just expensive variants of their cheaper brethren, and run the same OS's. It's not like he's using some sort of exotic computer that can't run Windows.
Re:Balance Sheet (Score:1, Insightful)
You're doing it wrong.
If you take a woman out having intentions to fuck her, then yes you're going to be paying for it either with an expensive dinner or straight up cash.
If you go out with a women and just have fun, enjoy her company then maybe you'll get to enjoy even more of her her company at the end of the night. But maybe not, but you if you had fun during the date, having sex afterwards is icing on the cake. Not required for a good evening with someone, but always welcome when it happens.
You frame things with the perspective of "how much is it gonna cost to get this girl in bed" then yes, it is going to cost you.
Yeah there are some women that are looking for sugar daddies. And there are prostitutes. But the majority of women I've met appreciates it when they can have a fun evening with someone who isn't just there trying to get in her pants. The irony is that if you aren't expecting sex from a woman you're out with, they will often want to have sex with you.
If you're out with someone the whole time thinking "what does this person want from me?" don't be surprised if they spend the whole time thinking the same thing. And neither you or her will have any fun, both during date or afterwards.
Re:Can somebody tell me why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the post he's responding to was "which of these features has OS X had for years" you're a bit off target - "Well...yeah, Apple does it too" is entirely the correct response in this case.
But yes, he failed on the games front!