What Went Wrong with Windows Vista?
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 7.12.2007
Tip: Click here to update all your PC's outdated driversDecember is the month for year-end reviews. We begin our first 2007 look back by offering 10 reasons why Vista failed to "WOW" consumers or businesses.
Make no mistake: Despite PR assertions otherwise, Windows Vista did not meet Microsoft expectations. The signs are everywhere:
* Windows Vista advertising ended almost as abruptly as it started
* Microsoft beat the drum a bit too loudly about the number of Vista licenses shipped
* Windows Ultimate Extras became a real dreamscape of empty promises
* Microsoft already is advancing plans for Vista-successor Windows 7
Some of these signs are bigger than Vista's early disappointment. There has been a change of management in the Windows group since Vista's launch. Also, Microsoft executives are feeling better about Vista today than in, say, March or April. Vista delivered good revenue results during Microsoft's 2008 fiscal first quarter, which ended Sept. 30.
That said, Vista has gotten off to a rocky start, which could have been avoided. My reasons from 10 to one:
10. Too many versions. From a revenue perspective, six Vista SKUs (including Starter Edition) makes sense, because Microsoft wanted to:
* Successfully increase pricing on a monopoly product
* Move the install base to richer margin "Pro" versions
* Increase Windows volume-licensing revenue
From a marketing perspective, the SKU strategy is a disaster. Windows isn't toothpaste or cosmetics. Windows, and other operating systems like it, are unique products in that they are multifunctional and multipurpose. Most successful products do one thing really well. Windows adapts to many roles. Microsoft's SKU strategy attempts to make Windows into what it's not: A differentiated product.
9. DOJ and the EU. The U.S. and European adverse antitrust rulings hugely impacted how Microsoft develops Windows. Competitors and pundits can whine about anti-competition—perhaps with some justification—but Microsoft has changed. Vista is evidence. Microsoft clearly curbed the amount of bundling—that is, integrating—new features with Windows. With the exception of security features, XP and Vista bundled features aren't much different (see #2 for reasons why this matters).
8. Office 2007 missing link. Until Nov. 30, 2006, Microsoft hadn't shipped versions of Office and Windows together since 1995. Last time, Microsoft used Office to jumpstart the application transition from 16-bit to 32-bit software. Meanwhile, Windows 95 helped drive up Office penetration. Microsoft should have been able to do something similar with Office 2007 and Windows Vista. Instead, there is almost no synergy between the products.
7. WOW went away. Microsoft launched Windows Vista with great advertising. The WOW ad campaign was compelling and perhaps too convincing, because it promised too much (more on that in #2). But Microsoft nixed the marketing campaign after only a few months.
6. The ecosystem wasn't ready. It's still not ready for Vista and may never be. During Microsoft's 2003 developer conference, Chairman Bill Gates laid out his expectations for PC configurations in 2006. Vista clearly is designed for the system requirements Gates identified four years ago. But that's not the hardware most OEMs shipped when Vista launched, nor are they shipping enough today. This is particularly true of graphics; many computers are underpowered.
5. Design by committee. For years, Microsoft has let too many chefs in the kitchen. From massive business and consumer research to analysts, customers, partners and testers, Microsoft has collected loads of input about Windows features. That's a recipe for mediocrity, because not everyone—not even most anyone—can be satisfied. Microsoft collects way too much input and listens to way too much more.
4. Bad timing. Why did Vista miss holiday 2006? There's no excuse for it, unless something wasn't ready—and that would be Microsoft's Windows ecosystem. Surely if committed, Microsoft could have delivered code soon enough to make the holiday rush, because how can you miss Christmas? The answer is you can't. Some retailers make 40 percent of their revenues for the year between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25.
3. Complexity is a killer. Microsoft made architectural changes, particularly around security, and user interface design decisions that make Vista overly complex. The aforementioned versioning strategy also increases complexity. As will be explained in #2, Vista needed to be a whole lot better than Windows XP. Increased complexity makes XP seem better in some ways. For people used to going 120km per hour down the XP highway, Vista presents them with persistent speed bumps, like UAC (User Account Control) pop-ups.
2. The "good enough" problem. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself. In a market where one product dominates, older versions compete with newer ones. The problem exacerbates as a product improves and more people use it. Windows XP reached the "good enough" threshold, in terms of features and usability and market saturation.
1. The Windows XP ecosystem. Microsoft talks about the value of the Windows ecosystem, for good reasons. The huge network of software developers, channel partners and hardware manufacturers provides great value to customers and creates a natural barrier against the success of other operating systems.
source:
microsoft-watch.com
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Comments(30)
...and for the last point - it sux. it's slow as all get out. no matter how much you
polish a turd, it still stinks to high heaven. xp work and works fast. and don't give me
that crap'ola that o'win95 is faster than xp. sure. but anything, anthing but dx10.1,
that pimple kids want, will run on xp and vista and will run 2x faster on xp. vista=me2
people can compare vista to windows me all they want. fact of the matter the vista launch
reminds me a lot of the transition from 9x kernal to nt. most people skipped 2k. not
because the os was lackluster or slow, but because nobody was ready for it. vista is a
great starting ground for the next generation of windows, as evident in the new
technologies it showcases. windows pe 2.0, hal-independent imaging, ability to configure
most mass storage devices in a plug and play manor without the need for a reimage. try
that with intel iastor drivers or any other raid drivers. non-text based os setup and
deployment. i can't stress enough how nice it is to not have to worry about having to
configure text based drivers for windows. uac is a step in the right direction, but it is
too intrusive, so by turning it off it causes more problems than it solves. readyboost,
ready drive, built in ipv6 support. finally getting away from the mess that is sound
drivers in xp. getting away from a gdi+ based model of apis. integration of the display
driver model down to the core of the os.
people can talk all they want about
performance, the performance of 2k compared to xp is crap, xp is a lot better. windows 7
will be a lot better than nt6. 95, it was ok then 98 came along and got everyone away from
16-bit oses. 2k came out and was very slow to be adopted, most businesses skipped it and
kept nt4 until xp came out. now we have vista, which should not be compared as a successor
to xp the way it is. xp is old technology, and has already shown its age. vista is a new
technology, and should be treated the same way as 95 and 2k. like people have said its a
transition os, designed to bring about changes in the way things are designed and to
implement new technologies. the best case in point on this one is dx 10.1, ms has even
said there will be no more changes to dx10, why? simple they want people to get used to
the changes in dx10 and optimize them with 10.1 so that way when dx11 is introduced the
developers will be able to really make good use of it, much the way dx8 was to dx9.
i love how people call vista a turd and compare is to windows me when all they
complain about is speed, and uac. all be damned if i would ever switch back to xp because
of all the cool stuff i just outlined above in vista.
so you can stick with
xp, and when you want to put your main hdd in ahci mode and have to format to achieve it i
will just change a reg key and have my ahci mode working out of the box. oh whats that you
want to make a deployment for single and multiprocessor computers, oh sorry but you will
have to make 2 images because xp doesn't support on the fly hal changes. oh you got a new
flash cache hard drive, oh yeah thats right you can't take full advantage of that flash
memory because windows xp doesn't support that. oh and last but not least, want to take
advantage of better cluster size management with virtual disk manager... yeah sorry xp
doesn't support that either. oops yes it does with xp sp3, but don't tell anyone that
something from vista was ported back to xp, we will just keep that our secret.
long story short, look at the whole picture before you attack something. for everything
vista does wrong, it does a lot of stuff on the backend right.
.... hummm if it is sooooo great, why have not any major businesses gone to vista? they
did with 2k! they will not with vista. i guess if you are 12 years old, and love problems,
yes all that is wrong with vista is just a smell of the turd you can stand. vista=me2 only
me was better!
hschronic you are right on! thats all.
yup, how old are you? 12?
vista goes on same way as windows me. we have to look further. i see some signs of
windows7. lets hope it'l be better.
poor vista users... they'll need some time to recover from this one! lol
they should stop trying 2 use customers as testers and deliver a finished product instead
of a sux beta. thats what vista is still beta in my book.
i remember when testing vista rc1 it was fantastic. the final release was total shit
however.
its a matter of time that users from xp migrate to vista... as xp sp2... vista will
have a sp2 fixing all that stuff u cry 4.
all the above comments, were made from old past thinking, which is why you all need to
grow up and mature, as repeating the same old thinking will not change the current
situation in which got you here!
instead of flame-baiting opinions based upon
emotional outcries, how about providing real insight, real facts and most of all real
value to your comments?
lousy article. d-
i am on a campus that has a deal with dell to dispatch latitude laptops. this year we
transitioned to vista, and to tell you, it has been nothing but problems for the
technology wing. i myself have a dual boot of xp and vista, but i still primarily use xp
because it functions. i myself have not had a problem with vista, but so many people come
into the help desk with vista problems. the most prevalent: blue screens, update
configuration loops, black screen with mouse cursor ,etc. i mean, i've had a computer we
had to reimage because the wireless wouldn't work! it's ridiculous, but the wlan service
wouldn't start and no matter what we did, nothing would fix it. so whereas vista might
seem good to one user or such, try releasing it to a whole college freshman class and
watch the shit hit the fan!
hula baluu!!!!!! vista is crap. i tried it once and i have never gone back to it yet lol.
slow, bugs, memory monster, incompartiblity, expensive, drivers not ready, blah
blah blah
that's not $250 for 88 million copies since those were included with a pc as part of its
cost. windows just tags along as it has always done.
vista alone!
man just windows vista alone. is bill gates on the richest list?
bill: mao thought i'm right just pirates it!
the remaining lies
i think rason #2 really hits the reason... vista has good looks.. that's pretty much
it.... while it's competing with xp's stability and huge support.... guess which one
your gonna choose?
well, most of you who talk crap about vista were probably just bunch of kids, and you
weren't there to see that first version of xp was the same unpolished os as well. or
probably you're just slightly retarded. the situation was the same - problems with this,
problems with that.... what? you think now, when your're 12, you have the experience to
discuss, in a normal grown up way, sth complex as an os is? you gotta be kidding. vista is
unfinished, but the point is, the whole idea of a new os is good. give them time to fix
it. don't get me wrong, my default os is debian, but i'm just tryin' to be objective
about the whole situation. don't be naive and trusts everything that the bad 'wannabe'
reporters serve you. it's pathetic. for once use your own head in life. end of
discussion.
it does look like a hardware/software plateu has been reached.
only so much
horsepower is necessary to run classic business apps and 512 meg of ram on a single core 3
gig chip appears to be it.
microsoft put quite a bit of effort into the new
file system, apparently on the basis of its promise of utility, but it also looks like the
complexity of that model was underestimated - or promise was too attractive to be
contained by normal business methods.
i see no reason to doubt however that a
realization of that model, coupled with graphics that, for example, allow one to view
one's data and such in 3 or 4 dimensions in any of n profiles will see microsoft quite
comfortable in a future that has two or so tiers of consumer processing capability; it
seems likely that tech ferrets will get to the upper tier witout microsoft, but there are
other lives to live.
any way one can look at it, its an exciting time to be
alive.
88,000,000 copies sole alone... and even more
on valve survey only 12% uses vista probably they the most inteligent in the world the
rest like me is a mula -donkey-dinossaru etc
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html
vista is terrible and that's
all .
the rests are uncivilized
burning land & dodeeee,
-- follow a simple instruction of where in the keznews is an
appropriated place to post your comments. this "add a comment" section and the posted
comments are for the article "what went wrong with windows vista" and it is not for
"what went wrong with burning land & dodeeee". reading your unrelated comments is like
steping on dog sh!ts. we don't like to step on dog sh!ts. we don't blame the dogs but
we hate the dog owners who are intentionally let their dogs sh!t in the wrong places.
you have the right to express your own opinions but both of you are real sicko dog owners
and your comments are like dog sh!ts to us when you are intentionally posting them in a
wrong place.
-- i'm very sorry to other keznews readers for this un-related
comment but it is a must reply for the idiots who like to post comments in an
inappropriated place on purpose.
so far the only people i've heard complaining about vista are the ones that can't
afford to have decent hardwares to support. i've built my custom pc with everything made
for vista and it runs like a dream. never had a bsod. along with office 2007, it is sweet.
xp had so much issues and crashes . for those that dislike vista, try it on a pc made for
vista and see how it goes. then talk.
to mr.q
yeh you are right dude. i agree. my new toshiba lappy was configured as 1.8
core2duo n 1 gb of 667ram with vista home premium. first of all, it was slugging n 3 weeks
later i decided to feed another 1gb of ram to the system n now im watching it flys!! with
office 07 , ps cs3, kaspersky is 7. everything work fine. now i'm waiting for sp1 :).
for haters,
vista is not as bad as you thought. don't follow with others
without testing ya selfirst.
those of us who want nothing to do with vista are told that we don't have decent
hardware to run that os. well, if that way of thinking was applied to other technologies,
engineers would have strived to build the following items :
- a phone that
literally weighs a ton and crackles when it's cold outside
- a car that burns one
hundred gallons of fuel per mile
- an ink cartridge that prints only a single page
- a refrigerator that requires a nuclear reactor to cool a bottle of pepsi
- a
50 pound hammer to drive an ordinary nail.
i mean, seriously : a dual-core cpu
to browse the internet ? two gigabytes of ram to comfortably use a spreadsheet ? a 256 mb
video card to watch a dvd ? 6 gb of hard drive space just to install the os ?
the worst thing in this debate is that vista admirers include people with a degree in
computer science. these are the people who should see windows (any version) for what it is
: a fat hog infested with fleas and other pest.
i alpha tested longhorn, then vista right up until the recent sp1. vista is a cpu
guzzling, memory hungry hog. plain and simple. it offers nothing performance wise over
xp professional. microsoft touts that it has better security because of features like
user account control. i personally do not like being tortured with a yes or no question
every single time i try and do something on my system. its silly and a bad idea, uac was
a rejected, recycled feature that was left out of windows 2000, testers hated it, so they
removed it. with a good anti spyware, anitvirus installed xp is just as safe and secure.
i recently switched back to xp pro, and i can tell you the wow really did start now! xp
runs circles around vista. i can guarantee anyone reading this that benchmark test after
test proves that xp outperforms vista. vista really is just eyecandy. xp can do anything
vista can do better, using more efficient memory handling, and less cpu cycles. my pc is
not really outdated, 2 single core xeons, 3.4 ghz, 4 gigs of ddr2 ram, 512 mb nvidia card,
wd raptor hard drive. i just got tired of menu options hidden hidden under layer after
layer of useless garbage. i do not like my os telling me i do not have sufficient
priveledges to accomplish a task either. plus, vista has digital rights management
software watching every move you make. its choked full of microsoft spyware. they call
it 'safe computing' when they spy on you. microsoft trusts you because you are being
watched via their spyware. microsoft made a deal with hollywood to take their copyrights
off the dvd and put it right in your os. this also slows vista down because video/audio
has to be filtered so much, coded, unencoded back and forth. yes, xp has drm, but nothing
like vista. again, i switched back to xp and it is a breath of fresh air. i will try
windows 7. microsoft has lost respect for the general public to release an os like vista.
but then vista was not designed for the public user, it was created for corporate
america to protect 'intellectual property'. this is a fact people. anything, and i
mean anything vista can do xp can do it better! research everything i am telling you and
make up your own minds. fair enough?
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point 0
By it sux on 08.12.2007 - 01:12