“What began as a murmur a few months back is turning into an audible grumble, as beta testers and experts question the stability of the latest Windows Vista beta and Microsoft itself hints at yet another release delay,” Top Tech News reports.
Top Tech News reports, “Testers and pundits alike say Vista Beta 2, released publicly in June, is plagued by bugs and blue screens. Some testers are saying a Beta 3 cycle, which is not planned, may be needed and that the software isn’t ready for final testing before shipment, which Microsoft calls Release Candidate 1 (RC1). ‘I have been testing Microsoft operating systems since Windows 95, and this is the buggiest OS I’ve seen this late in development,’ says Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research. ‘Look at the older operating systems, and by Beta 2 there is a stable foundation on which the [independent software vendors] can build. Right now, Vista is like a ship on stormy seas.'”
Top Tech News reports, “Former Microsoft blogger advocate Robert Scoble used his blog to say, ‘This sucker is just not ready It feels like it needs a good six more months, . . . which would mean a mid-year release next year.'”
Top Tech News reports, “‘Put the testing aside, I can’t find a valid antivirus software that works with it,’ says Michael Cherry, an analyst with research firm Directions on Microsoft. ‘That is a key application and runs at a core level. If the antivirus vendors, who work closely with Microsoft, can’t get Vista working, then the core is not stable.’
Top Tech News reports, Cherry says it might be time to reset expectations because an operating system no longer should be a groundbreaking piece of technology. ‘I am impressed with Apple OS and I like the way over the last couple of releases they have made a series of incremental improvements. It has not been earth-shattering,’ he says.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Anger Monkey” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Windows Trainwreck. Microsoft is incapable of shattering the earth as Apple did with the release Mac OS X. Microsoft’s need to cling to backwards compatibility retards Windows (and it wasn’t that bright to begin with). If Microsoft ever made a clean break and started over, Apple would grab market share numbers in even larger bunches than they are gaining now. At this rate, Windows just gets worse and worse, while Apple is free to move ahead decisively with the Mac platform. Through major transition after major transition, Mac users have proven they will stick with Apple; we’re still here, we’re way ahead, and our numbers are growing.
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Apple didn’t shatter the earth with the release of OS X. It was plagued with problems. This, of course, is no defense of MS. But let’s not rewrite history so soon MDN…
Through major transition after major transition, Mac users have proven they will stick with Apple; we’re still here, we’re way ahead, and our numbers are growing.
Are our numbers growing?
Lately perhaps. Jobs claimed 18 million users at the WWDC, up from 16 million a year or so ago.
However, in 1997, he claimed 25 million users.
So we’re down nearly a third in a market that has more than doubled in 9 years. We got a long ways to go yet.
MW = growth, how appropriate.
But what does this mean for the Vista Vapor on sale this holiday seasons? Looks like little Johnny might need to hang onto his vapor gift coupon that he unwraps this holiday for a good 6 months.
18 million OS X users!
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25 million mac users
BIG difference
“shattering the earth”
Ballmer and Glaser shatter the earth daily as they chase down the last doughnut. They send out press releases but it’s become too commonplace for the media to care anymore.
A Great news to start the day
Wonderful news!
This has gone beyond the joke. They must be shitting themselves in Redmond. No one can use their OS and no one can get virus software to work with it. That is a huge problem. Without that the OS is doomed and no one will buy it.
This plane will crash and burn. Maybe December next year if they are lucky…
Look at the older operating systems, and by Beta 2 there is a stable foundation on which the [independent software vendors] can build.
ha-hahaha- ghaghahahahahaha STABLE FOUNDATION? hahahah! Windows is a burning house on top of a partially collapsed foundation.
Seriously though, they were more stable than the beta 2 of this. And also seriously, as funny as that sounds (Windows and stable foundation in the same sentence), compared to Vista, even Windows Me looks better!
Back in 1997, Apple had a 13.5% market share.
Duddy: You might be too young to remember but Apple had an operating system before OS X. A few million still use it. We should let them explain why.
(~18 mil on OS X) + (~7 mil on pre-OS X) = 25 mil total Mac users
I have System 6 on a working SE but just for nostalgia.
Love the news almost spit out my coffee when I read it !!!
Life long Mac user and loving it, market share isn’t everything.
Ask a Bentley owner if he’d rather drive his car or a market share leading Toyota.
Remember it’s called Windows for a reason, reason being you’ll want to throw the computer or yourself out a window once you use it.
I like to dive into OS 9 now and again, it takes me back to the days I started using Mac OS.
My old eMac only has OS 9 on it, I just like it that way
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Here’s a
” rel=”nofollow”>secret photo of the foundation used to build Vista.
Mike – Oh, those coupons will expire on March 31, 2007.
OS X wasn’t earth-shattering because so few people knew about it (and many still don’t). But I believe Apple is slowly but surely gaining mindshare and market share.
HA HA HA
HA BLOODY HA
You just couldn’t make this up.
And nor could it happen to a more useless product…
Steve, last year, said that a very high percentage, like ninety or above, have transitioned to OSX from previous OSes.
Rather than Apple buy Adobe with their $10 Billion, maybe they should buy the anti-virus software companys – kill all Windows support and leave it to grind to a halt…
Unfortunatly, I think XP users are happy with their lot, and quite content to stick with it for years to come. If only they knew what they were missing.
Apple really needs to make Windows apps run on OSX without using bootcamp (and Windows!)
Man, if MS keeps F*ing up, then we’ll never get Leopard!
What will it take for Balllmer to be fired? I can’t believe the large institutional shareholders are letting the board get away with doing nothing to change top management.
Many of the statistics about market share are skewed by data from large corporate purchases. Corporations need to replace annually some percentage of their Windows PC’s (certainly if they are buying from Dell and my experience with Dell hardware is not unique)plus provide PC’s as terminals. For example, in the department where I work there are areas with 2 or more PC’s which are only used sporadically. So there cannot be a one-to-one correlation of PC sales with actual users.
Quote: “I am impressed with Apple OS and I like the way over the last couple of releases they have made a series of incremental improvements. It has not been earth-shattering, he says.”
And is anyone suggesting Vista IS groundbreaking?? Is eye candy ground breaking? Or the inability to deal with both 32 bit and 64 bit apps?
The only groundbreaking will be the ground breaking beneath the feet of Ballmer and the Redmond campus…
aha…our Mac moles on the Vista programming team are doing a great job of inserting buggy code just when Micro$oft thinks that they may achieve an actual release date.
The master plan for the demise of MS is WORKING!!!! Bwaaahahahahahahahahah
Next…the WORLD!
I still encounter a large number designers who stick with the OS 9/Quark 4 combination.