“Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that it will yank yet another feature from Windows Vista, this time PC-to-PC Sync, a P2P-based technology for keeping files up-to-date on multiple machines. ‘While PC-to-PC Sync is a great feature that improves productivity and collaboration we don’t have it at the quality level our customers demand,’ a company spokesperson said in an e-mail. ‘As a result the decision was made to remove it from Windows Vista,'” Gregg Keizer reports for TechWeb News.
“The departure of PC-to-PC Sync comes just days after Microsoft said it was pulling other features from Office 2007 and letting computer makers install the OS sans the company’s new XPS electronic document format, all under pressure from Adobe,” Keizer reports. “The spokesperson also said that PC-to-PC Sync would be the last feature to be dropped from Vista, and that it hoped to provide it in some fashion down the road.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mikey” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: “Quality level our customers demand?” So, when did Microsoft hire Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf as a company spokesperson? Anyway, just when you thought the ineptitude couldn’t get any worse… Hey, let’s see if we can all come up with a list of all the promised features that Microsoft has gutted from Windows XP SP3, er… Vista. We’ll start: WinFS…
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I heard that the name Vista is going to be changed to Copland. Oh man, karma IS a bitch.
I can see the MArketing theme now:
Vista – keep looking!
As I remember from my programming days, removing code can cause more problems than keeping it in and making it work. This was especially true when the code base is a convoluted pile of spaghetti.
If you remove something, you’re going to have to do a lot of retesting of test conditions (and even re-defining of test conditions), causing more delays. At this point, nothing comes free…
I can’t see the VISTA because the WINDOWS are shut.
after all the features are gone, they’ll start removing the letters from VISTA
VISTA
ISTA
STA
TA
A
puff! true vaporware
From R: “RE the XPS file format thing… Can someone explain why Adobe aren’t making similar moves on Apple for their integration of pdf at the system level? Not trolling – just curious…”
and
From yadayada: “R if I’m not mistaken I believe that Apple licensed PDF from Adobe when developing OS X.”
yadayada, fortunately for Apple you are mistaken.
The history of Apple’s interface for OS X goes approximately like this.
Way back when (80s) NeXT licensed Postsript and did limited co-development with Adobe of Display Postscript, but IIRC Adobe got all rights to it. NeXT used Postscript as its printer language (the main box did the raster image processing (RIP) rather than the printer) and Display Postscript for its display.
Move forward a decade…
Apple buys NeXT and starts developing OS X in earnest.
Apple investigates buying a license from Adobe for Postscript, Display Postscript and PDF interpreting/rendering technology for their computers. Display Postscript was slow and considered by some to be “not the best technology for screens” but… This would have let Apple keep a lot of the rendering technology from the NeXT OS in the future OS X and help get OS X out the door as quickly as possible.
Adobe wanted a FORTUNE for the license. So…
Apple decided to do the interface on OpenGL and an in house crafted version of a Postscript/PDF interpreter. Apple generated all the code related to the screen rendering software doing the Postscript/PDF pieces by itself using publicly available data. Apple did not — and does not — have to pay a royalty to Adobe to do it. Apple does not pay a royalty to Adobe for the included PDF functionality for every copy of OS X shipped.
As an aside, if you search the ‘net you can find several free PDF interpreters — none of which pay royalties to Adobe.
Now over to Microsoft…
Microsoft’s plan was to have the new Microsoft Office 2007 be able to read old MS Office files as well as Adobe PDF documents — then have MS Office applications be able to modify them as if they were standard MS Office docs. Then MS Office could save the files as either MS Office docs, Adobe PDF docs, or MS Office XPS documents (based upon XML).
Being able to import old MS Office docs and Adobe PDF docs then be able to export them in a proprietary MS XPS doc format is another iteration of MS coopting a standard then extending it with its own proprietary technology then trying to kill off the standard leaving only the MS proprietary technology.
Adobe worked directly with MS to implement the PDF functionality in MS Office 2007. MS was supposed to pay a royalty to Adobe in order to include the functionality in MS Office 2007. The discussions broke down because Adobe wanted a lot more money than MS was willing to pay.
The only way Adobe could force MS to pull the PDF functionality from MS Office 2007 is if either 1) Adobe code is used in the implementation or 2) if Adobe engineers were advising MS directly on how to implement it. Thus Adobe said that MS either had to pull PDF import/export from MS Office 2007 or get sued. MS, knowing it would lose any suit, pulled it.
Adobe has said they are OK with MS having the PDF functionality be a separate download (no doubt with “Adobe PDF Technology” stamped ALL over it). I’ve heard varying stories as to whether the download will be available for free or some small fee. If there is a fee, however small, I’d bet a huge percentage of it goes to Adobe.
Why did MS pull the functionality to output XPS too? I have yet to hear of a solid reason why from people I trust. However, some speculation leads to…
Without the ability to import and manipulate PDF documents the whole “coopt, extend, kill” plan is moot and there’s no real reason to include XPS.
or
There may be some level of Adobe technology at the core of XPS, and MS can’t ship it as part of MS Office 2007 until they do a complete, in house re-write of that code.
Either or both could be true.
I normally don’t do this, but it is way too directly applicable this time.
MDN Magic Word: beyond…
As in “It’s beyond me why MS didn’t just write clean room code to do all the PDF stuff so they didn’t have to deal directly with Adobe or pay any license fees at all.”
Ampar, “I heard that the name Vista is going to be changed to Copland. Oh man, karma IS a bitch.”
My first reaction was to literally laugh out loud. Then I looked at the relative timelines. Thus I’m not ready to say Vista is Microsoft’s “Pink” yet, but they’re getting close.
(Pink was initially running in a limited fashion inside Apple in 1990. In 1997 it still wasn’t ready to ship, and after doing the renaming game a few times Apple finally outright killed it. The big difference between Apple’s Pink OS and Vista is that Apple wanted Pink to be all things to all people [future and past OS users] and include lots and lots of cutting edge technology at any cost while MS seems to be happly throwing core features overboard in an attempt to get it to ship, eventually.)
where is Tom Cruise at a time like this??
Clippy says : I’ll be back
Eventually, MS will have to call it, “\” because that’s as small as Vista can get.
Murray Todd Williams:
“I wish Macs had that feature. What are we gloating about?”
Microsoft boldly promised consumers a decade ago PC-to-PC Sync as well as a multitude of other unique features and innovative functions that are currently eliminated from Vista. Microsoft has failed miserably to achieve the goals that they set themselves and by which they are judged. No one else can be held responsible for Microsoft’s depressing failure nor held accountable to Microsoft’s own audacious benchmark of performance.
Microsoft and lackeys continuously and loudly proclaim Windows as the worlds dominate OS. Microsoft was desperate to substantiate this belief. It has now been revealed that Microsoft’s presumed technological preeminence is nothing more than a massive hoax. Longhorn and Vista were to be the absolute proof of Microsoft’s technological prowess and validate Microsoft’s ubiquity. However, it is unmistakably obvious that Microsoft is woefully incompetent, hopelessly befuddled, inherently unreliable, and dreadfully leaderless.
I had hoped that Microsoft’s promised accomplishments with Longhorn and Vista would stimulate Apple’s competitive juices, because this would ultimately benefit all Mac users. Now it seems that Apple’s greatest competitor is itself. It will be a testament to Apple’s commitment to excellence not to lapse into complacency. I hope that Apple does not disappoint.
Promise little, deliver much is sound advice.
shadowself–thanks for that bit of history, that was amazingly helpful.
They already bought FolderShare. http://www.foldershare.com
It works on Macs and PC’s. Why not just use this?
Great posts that actually say something really useful, thanks to shadowself.
And yep, I’m with you meatofmoose, MS Windows is just a big con. But isn’t it amazing that the can perpetuate it? Making its customers buy protection from itself goes down in history as the most extraordinary business concept ever.
Let’s hope it all ends soon.
for Micro$oft “OS” stands for ON STRIKE
“FEWER FEATURES!!! LATER RELEASE DATE!!! FEWER FEATURES!!! LATER RELEASE DATE!!!! FEWER FEA…”
New in “07
DOS VISTA
Not that anybody cares, but .Mac works just fine for me. Never a glitch in my mail or backups and my web sites just sit there taking the hits.
“at the quality levels our customers demand”….
what, having it actually work? Lord forbid!
So besides updated icons, what is actually IN Windows Vista?
I mean, besides the higher price tag and seven version choices.
Which brings up the next question: How do you have seven different versions of an OS when there’s no features in any of them?
We just need to start a new phrase, usable every time another feature gets dropped…
Hasta la VISTA, baby!
OzzysCross101: this one’s for you.
The New Vista copy dialog
http://manufracture.livejournal.com/160764.html
With the latest Vista announcements I’m getting a mental flashback from the “Wizard of Oz” with “Toto” pulling the curtain back and revealing the “Great and Powerful Oz” as this bumbling old guy putting one over on everyone for years.
This is Microsoft’s story–inept and deception. Their great and powerful leader(s) keeping the residents of “Oz” (workers and clients) bluffed and believing.
Wake up PC users, and return to Kansas.
Or click your ruby slippers 3x and you’ll wake up in an Apple Store.
If I still owned a PC, I would make that my dialog for everything, even if it wasnt throwing something out/moving something. Thanks!
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