Microsoft’s Windows ‘Longhorn’ preview elicits long yawns

“When Bill Gates can’t show unmitigated glee over a Microsoft Corp. product, the world’s largest software company has a problem,” Joseph Menn reports for The Los Angeles Times. “Last week, after watching a demonstration of the most important version of Windows in a decade, not even the preternaturally enthusiastic Gates could hide his frustration with a project that’s years behind schedule. ‘It would be super,’ he said dryly, ‘to get that out in the hands of our customers.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Gates really has to purge the “super” adjective from his vocabulary. He sounds like Big Gay Alnot that there’s anything wrong with that.

Menn continues, “Gates is the most important of thousands of technologists growing restless with the recent pace of innovation at the company he co-founded in 1975. Few endeavors highlight that feeling better than the company’s latest iteration of its flagship Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn… As the company released a preview edition of Longhorn at a Seattle conference, many of the Microsoft loyalists in attendance found themselves shrugging their shoulders… the lack of enthusiasm inside and outside Microsoft over Longhorn is feeding a cycle that is lowering morale and encouraging departures to faster-growing tech companies, thereby slowing improvements to the firm’s key products even more.”

“Because Longhorn’s leap forward now appears more of a hop, Gartner Inc. predicts that the system will run just 36% of PCs by 2008, compared with 56% still using Windows XP,” Menn reports.

Full article here.

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64 Comments

  1. EXCELLENT!

    STILLBORN = DEAD AT BIRTH.

    With this and the fact that Firefox browser is ripping market share from internet explorer thing have never looked so bad at M$.

    Face it Bill, M$ is too big and too slow to be competitive in today’s fast moving IT industry!

  2. It’s almost painful to read the lackluster reviews showing up in the press about Longhorn. There is a certain amount of glee that comes with the realization that the press is waking up to the mediocrity of Windows, and is finally expressing their dissappointment with Microsoft. But to hear that even Gates can’t muster enthusiasm for his own company’s OS…that’s harsh, man.

  3. It has been fun to watch the Apple crowd attempt to convince the “real IT world” that there new OS is worthy of use in an enterprise environment let alone as a desktop OS. The truth is nobody uses OS 10.x (less then 2% of all computers). The Apple platform is dead.

    The future is in the hands of the developers at Microsoft and we have imbraced the cutting-edge technology of .NET and Longhorn. The very soon to be release Longhorn will change the world of computing forever.

    Just a side note Apple still doesn’t have a 64 bit OS. Windows has a production version of there XP Pro available now, once again Apple is using fancy marketing to manipulate the masses into believing that Tiger is better then XP.

    ©

  4. Enderle: I don’t care!!! As long as I get my pay check from Bill, I’ll spread lies and disinformation from my Enderle Group, which consists of me, myself, I and my wife. We work very hard in our basement, you know, to earn a living writing bias craps, FUD to promote Swindle XP and LongYawn! Oh, I play games at my spare time when I am not responding emails defending MicroS#@t and I am proud to be a gamer!!!! I’ll wait diligently for LongYawn as long as I can play my games on Swindle XP for now and keep upgrading my “brand name” PS. Go Bill go! Go Ballmer go!

  5. Sputnik, I’ll take Apple’s “dead” platform over MS’s XP or non-existant Longhorn any day. If you feel that makes me worthy of ridicule, enjoy yourself friend.

    Oh, by the way, you’re a turd (had to feed the troll a little bit).

  6. Sputnik,

    Seems like all you geeks clinging onto the M$ sinking ship only have “market share” as your reasoning for using such an antiquated platform. Even the “no applications” excuse is begging to falter.

    I have to work in a .NET environment everyday for my job (mainly C# and SQL server), what can I say, it pays the bills. Hammering out C# and transact SQL code all day is the farthest thing from being creative. I can’t wait to go home and do “real” creative work on my Mac running 10.4 (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, GarageBand, etc…). No PCs are allowed in my house, Macs only.

    By the way, have fun with latest Sober.P worm.

  7. Sizewell,

    Sputnik doesn’t have OS level spellcheck that can be accessed by any application, such as Safari, like we do in OS X, so he’s stuck with copying and pasting into MS Word on his PeeCee to check his spelling. Using XP is like driving in the dark with no headlights.

  8. Sputnik,

    Are you actually FROM Russia? It’s clear that you’re in a very big hurry to “poo-poo” OS X Tiger, but please slow down and PROOFREAD your comments!

    “There” does not equal “their,” “then” does not equal “than,” “imbraced” does not equal “embraced,” “release” does not equal “released,” and comma spices do not equal well-constructed, rationally formulated sentences.

    Your embarrassingly poor command of the English language is as pathetic as your understanding of computer technology. (I’d wager that you are, in fact, a disgruntled teenager–developmentally if not chronologically–who craves attention of any kind, especially from those who despise you. How very sad for you.)

  9. It’s time for journalists to start using “beleaguered” when referring to Microsoft. Too bad the DOJ didn’t split them up. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue laugh” style=”border:0;” />

  10. Apple’s operating systems (10.3 and 10.4) are light years ahead of Microsoft’s aging platform. Having made that point it reminds of a story when Windows 95 was released. An ederly lady came into a store and asked for Windows 95, even though she didn’t know what it was and she had never owned a computer.

    My point is this if Microsoft wants to ship it’s second rate software it has the money and the marketing muscle to do it and convince people it’s God’s gift to the computing world.

    They’ll advertise on placards, in train stations, on radio and tv. They’ll might even advertise on toilet seats (which is pretty close to truth in advertising).

    In A’stralia I haven’t seen one advertisement for Tiger. Apple’s had some great press…and Has Apple capitalised on this with it’s own advertising campaign? Are they doing an iPod blitz with Tiger? Hell no!

    Write Redmond off at your peril; they’ve got the bucks and they’ll spend it.

    A real concern for Microsoft is that by 2008 the Democrats will be back in the Whitehouse and they won’t be able to rely on their predatory practices when that happens. (Background: Gates contributes to the Republicans and the Bush administration responded by gutting the Justice Department’s response to M’Soft’s anti-competitive practices).

  11. Why is anyone even bothering to respond to Sputnik? His trolling isn’t even clever anymore. I mean, come on! “Apple is dead”?? Is that the best he can do??

    As for the article, it was comedy gold. I love it: Microsoft, hoist by their own “it’s good enough” petard. They’ve trained their customers to be satisfied with mediocrity, and now it’s biting them in the ass.

  12. I think MyCrowSoft is going to realize that hardware/software solutions are the way to go. They do it with the XBOX but they can’t seem to create a catch-all OS for every single little piece of hardware out there to function properly.
    The fact that Apple used the work that Berkeley and countless other contributors have put into the UNIX platform as the backbone of their OS wasn’t brilliant as much as it just seems like the most logical business decision. M$ is trying to re-invent the wheel by proprietarizing (sp?) the entire OS.
    Apple keeps a tight grip on all of it’s hardware/software not so much to wring all the profits out of them, but to assure a seamless, stable end-user experience.
    M$ should limit themselves to developing Office for Mac and selling the XBOX…

  13. bikersrule: God willing, the days when Microsoft can sell any piece of crap with flashy advertising are over. The world has changed. Computers are not as new, and there aren’t as many ignorant users. Those that exist are happy with what they have.

  14. Am I the only one who thinks Sputnik is really just spoofing the know-nothing Windows crowd to tweak us all? His line is so pat, so conventionally uninformed, and so illiterate, that he can’t be real, can he? For some reason, I can’t take offense – I just chuckle.

  15. LordRobin, why are you suffering? If you use a Mac, you shouldn’t even give a crap about when someone speaks ill of the platform. It seems that they are the ones who suffer.

  16. relax guys….

    if longhorn is copland…. then we’re at least 10 years ahead!

    BTW
    hi sputnik!
    longtime no sea… glad to see you haven’t lost IT… ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />

  17. Guys…. Sputnik isn’t a troll. He’s a Mac guy, like us. He just has a twisted sense of humor. And sometimes I get a chuckle out of him. You don’t need to call him names or insult him. Some people get off by rubbing fur backwards, and he’s one of them.

  18. True that Sputnik does it to get a rise out of people, but Sputnik, please get of the cut and paste routine that you post to every topic.

    At least, reword it slightly once in a while.

  19. LOL, just had to find what Sputnik has said to raise all the above flames.
    C’mon guys, it is just to hilarious, you can’t take the guy seriously.

    You should just chuckle as Sputnik is paraphrasing the idiocy of the average Windowers out there. He is a comic here to make us all laugh.
    Imagine him on a stage, dressed in a nerdy look, with a Windows t-shirt and sputtering nonsense. LOL, the whole theater would shake from the laughters.

    Go it? 😀

  20. This is an actual article i saw after searching Google for windows world.

    Patch Management in the Windows world
    Date: 17 Aug 2003 ~ Author: Scott Korman

    A look at resources for Patch Management in the Microsoft Windows World.
    Click here for the Windows Patch Management discussion forum.
    To Patch or Not To Patch
    Each Windows computer administrator, whether they are a user on a single workstation or a IT Manager responsible to ten-of-thousands of computers, needs to develop a strategy for the ongoing maintenance of their computing environment.
    Thanks to the efforts of Microsoft staff and the general computing community, security and functionality issues within Windows are discovered and fixed. Your patch management strategy is the vehicle to helping yourself.
    Microsoft Resources
    Patch Management, Security Updates, and Downloads. Find information about IT tasks, IT solutions, network security and specific Microsoft products.
    Security Update Notifications. Subscribe to be Notified by E-Mail When Security Updates Are Released.

    I had a right old giggle.

  21. Even if SputterNick wanted to ruffle feathers or freakout fur, he could at least do it right. Take this quote,

    It has been fun to watch the Apple crowd attempt to convince the “real IT world” that there new OS is worthy of use in an enterprise environment let alone as a desktop OS. The truth is nobody uses OS 10.x (less then 2% of all computers). The Apple platform is dead.

    It would make alot more sense worded as

    It has been fun to watch the Apple crowd attempt to convince the “real IT world” that there new OS is worthy of use in a desktop environment let alone as a enterprise OS. The truth is nobody uses OS 10.x (less then 2% of all computers). The Apple platform is dead.

  22. Has anyone noticed that not only is Longhorn so late that all the boats have gone but also Microsoft is unable to launch updates for Virtual PC (and Office) in time for Tiger’s launch. Any Mac user who needs to use VPC has to wait 2 to 3 months before they can upgrade and then move to Tiger. Pretty poor going for a “top” Apple developer.

  23. Billy was bummed because his fantasy isn’t half as good as Steve’s reality.

    By the way, for you serious math geeks (or if you just want to see the power and speed of your Mac) go play with “Grapher” (in Utilities folder). It’s a $100 math program for free.

    Even if the equations make less sense than Greek, play with a few numbers and variables and see what happens.

    Your Mac actually takes the complex equation and plots it out in seconds.

    But, I bet Billy has a really cool 12-digit calculator ready for Longhorn.

    If I felt like my new software looked like I just reinvented Mac OS 9, I wouldn’t say much either.

    Re: Advertising…

    The people at Apple KNOW how to advertise. Don’t be a damn fool and make a bunch of senseless noise. Let Tiger stalk its prey intelligently… shhh… let’s wait and see.

  24. you don’t need Virtual PC — get the MS Remote Desktop App for mac and connect to a cheapo PC that you put in a corner or closet or something. That way one can use windows (when must be) without leaving the beloved mac, it’s just a click away on the same screen and with the same mouse and keyboard. I do that — works great.

  25. Bill Gates has no balls.

    When the face of MS can’t even get excited about a crucial new product, something is seriously wrong. It’s desperately clear that Gates needs to kill Longhorn, fire Ballmer, and put himself back into the driver’s seat.

    Now I don’t like Microsoft in the least, I’m as rabid anti-MS as they get. But it’s hard to see MS go down like this. Better to die fighting than from self-inflicted cancer.

    You MS apologists are probably sneering, saying I’m a crackpot and there’s no way anyone will ever catch MS. Remember this: there was a time when Toyota wasn’t even a blip on General Motors’ radar. Now look at the market.

    We’ll see if anyone has the true guts to take down Ballmer and Longhorn, or if MS will just continue to fester and live off it’s finite momentum.

  26. I’ll feel a little pain whenever Sputnik demonstrates a consistent lack of spelling ability. Completely distracts me from what the cosmonautophile is trying to say….

  27. I have noticed that EVERYBODY has been doing a misguided comparison between Tiger and Longhorn, saying that Microsoft will eventually catch up (somewhat) to Tiger by the end of next year or that Tiger is a year and a half ahead of Longhorn. That is bullcrap and a pointless comparison. By the end of next year (18 months from now) the Mac camp will be expecting Mac OS X 10.5, and God knows how that will totally trash the bejeezus out of Longhorn.

  28. To Sputnik, copied and edited from my post @ the Mac DIY ad page:

    I just walked past my local NSW, Australia, Roads and Traffic Authority office (RTA) and *every* machine was an iMac G4. The RTA has 1200 iMacs in point-of-sale areas across its 140 offices state-wide.
    In other news, the RTA also kicked out a Microsoft Exchange thingie for a Sun Java messaging thingie. Does this mean that State Rail is running an all-M$ setup?

    MDN MW: Hit; as in what Longhorn won’t be

  29. So Apple’s shooting itself in the foot with the non-release of the iTunes Music Store here (even though every other personal music player – PMP – is an iPod variety)?

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