“Microsoft will continue to sell both retail and OEM (pre-installed) copies of Windows XP for five months more than originally planned,” MacNN reports.
“The software developer has encountered an unprecedented level of resistance to its Windows upgrade since its release early this year, with large-scale computer builders such as Dell restoring an XP option either due to a lack of stable hardware drivers or customer complaints relating to software compatibility and performance. Microsoft recently began offering an XP downgrade licensing option for system builders who wanted to let customers fall back to the earlier OS for systems that would normally ship with Vista,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You know something seriously sucks when Windows XP is the preferred option. Sometimes we don’t know whether to laugh at or pity the sufferers, so we alternate between both. Get a Mac: it’s what you really want.
Incredible! could you imagine Apple dropping back to OS 9? LOL!
The hilarity. Looks like the only thing going well for Microsoft is Halo 3.
It’s the Vistapocalypse.
And Ballmer just squirted himself.
Vista is the best thing to happen to Apple since the return of Steve Jobs.
Imagine… all the PC makers of the world except Apple depend on Microsoft to provide a viable OS. Microsoft is going to bring them all down, and Apple will benefit greatly.
“Looks like the only thing going well for Microsoft is Halo 3.”
Yes, and the innovative minds in the MS marketing department have decided that this game may help spawn sales of other MS products.
They’re going to call it, (wait for it) the Halo Effect.
Yeah, baby, OS 9. That’s the ticket! Gimme back the ’90s, please!!!
I’m so happy I don’t use Windows machines.
Don’t you miss extension conflicts, SCSI IDs, hard freezes and fragmented drives?
I agree that Vista has got to be the best thing to happen to Apple in recent memory. I’m switching over to Mac after years of suffering and hoping Microsoft and the PC world would get their act together (15 years is plenty long enough to wait for change). How can Microsoft self-destruct like this? How can they be completely relying upon Halo 3 to do well?
Their brand image is miraculously now worse than it was a couple years ago and that is sad. Fundamentally one has to ask the following key question – how can a major software company with really deep coffers after over 20 years of experience writing and selling programs still have major quality control issues?
Vista backlash? I smell fear from the MAC lemmings as the MAC propaganda machine is running at full steam today. You can play games on Vista and install it on your choice of hardware. Can you say the same for your MACs? Of course not.
Vista is the best thing to happen to Windows enthusiasts since the coronation of the terrific Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO—BTW great job on Vista, Steve. Let me put this in words you MAC lemmings might comprehend: I’ve seen the future of MAC OS XII to be released in 2013 and it’s called Microsoft Windows Vista. Apple knows this and they’re scrambling. Expect Leopard to be delayed another couple of years just to match half of Vista’s awesome features and save face. Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
<h4>And yet, everybody keeps talking about how they’re going to buy it after it gets all fixed up… Or better yet I’ll just stick with my good ole XP… I’m just gonna keep buyin my Windows… Duh, there just ain’t nothin else out there, uh, duh…</h4>
Ok, I guess I just can’t talk about his anymore it just pisses me off too much.
MW=”told” – As in, you’re been told.
…As in, you’ve been told.
Give your enemy enough rope to hang himself and get out of their way.
Sounds like Microsoft found the rope!
To play Devil’s Advocate, there was a very large contingent of anti-OS X Macolites when it was first introduced. And I know there are STILL a few holdouts using OS 9. Apple’s control of the entire product made it easier to ‘encourage’ its users to move to arguably ‘not-ready-for-prime-time’ first release of OS X. Apple new it had to push people out of their comfort zones to move to a system that would ultimately allow them to move forward. Microsoft has long been saddled with a universe of users that values legacy more than progress. Vista may be a mess, but if Apple had the same business model and user base as MS, it would have been faced with the same mutiny over the OS9/OSX move as MS now faces with XP/Vista.
@information junkie
I think you answered your own question.
MW=”why” – As in, why ask why [anymore]?
…You can play games on Vista and install it on your choice of hardware…
Is that all vista Does
Tang. Please can you use correct name, Mac as in Macintosh.
You can play games on mac not as many, but many good ones.
And you cannot install Windows on any hardware
it must be a Intel 086 type CPU. so you must buy this harware,
Mac hardware is a lesser choice here but most people find a machine.
It really doesn’t matter what MS puts out there, 2/3-9/10 of the planet is going to buy it sooner or later anyway – we don’t care enough to buy something else, what incentive does MS have to do anything well – or even passable. IT’S JUST CREEPY!!!
Ok really, I’ve got to stop reading this page – it just makes me mad. I’m off to get my chill pill.
Hum…. Halo 3….
Oh… The one with the limited edition where the disk bounces around in the case so when you open it up. Its unplayable and since limited cant get a replacement?
Oh… The one where its causing RRoD, Crashing etc on Xbox 360….
Oh… The one where you may not be able to move save games around to another Xbox 360
Oh… The one that basically people are saying it lower rez then other games… Reviewer for months have stated the graphic are not that good…
Oh… The remaster cut seens on the limited edition look horrible!
Oh… And finally looks like a retread of previous versions….
That game must be from Microsoft… ^_^
Vista will continue to be awful, forever.
As my boss used to say when purchasing tried to make him use crummy electrical components…”You can’t make chicken salad from chicken shit.”
Speaking of chicken shit….How’s Balmer taking the news?
Just my $0.02
That was the funniest Zune Tang post I’ve read in a few weeks.
> Vista is the best thing to happen to Windows enthusiasts since the coronation of the terrific Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO—BTW great job on Vista, Steve.
I’m laughing my head off… “Windows enthusiasts” – wow, that’s great humor.
good point, Spark.
thankfully, this is only a “what if” and by and large Mac users dont have to deal with such a situation.
@ Spark: “And I know there are STILL a few holdouts using OS 9.”
Yes, I know some of them too. In general, it’s jusst fear of change. When I go back to look at my old make running 9 I can’t believe how clunky it feels.
I was in the audience in Paris when Steve announced the OS X beta. I took a copy back to my hotel room that night and installed it. It was a beta but it became my main OS that night. Classic ran quite well to bridge the gap and I’ve been Classic free for a very long time now.
The OS 9 holdouts are nowhere near as numerous (percentage-wise) as are the XP rebels. With good reason.
I can understand driver issues, Tiger to Leopard will no doubt have issues with certain apps – maybe not to a great extent but there will be some issues. The thing with OS X is that the quality of the rest of the system will be such that people will be willing to put up with any side issues to reap the many benefits of the upgrade. If they aren’t they’ll just wait a few months.
The extended sale of XP is just damning on the quality (or lack of) of Vista. If it was any good then customers would flock to it and other companies would be under huge pressure to update drivers because Windows has such a huge share. As it is people just aren’t interested and when you consider the lock in that Microsoft exert on the market this is even more of a sign that Vista sucks and everyone knows it.
Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are platforms for partners to develop solutions for the enterprise–in their own words. Office 2007 is designed as a SharePoint client. SharePoint itself is a configuration-management system adapted for office use, which you can see because it lacks any workflow features.
This is why there are so many secret passages and tunnels in Windows and Office, such as ActiveX and other methods of elevating permissions without notifying the user. It also explains why the whole thing works out to be one big program with a single point of failure. Windows is a house that is standing only because the termites are holding hands, and if one needs to scratch his nose the whole thing comes tumbling down. It is actually designed that way on purpose because it is a client for a larger system. That is why it requires a trained system administrator. Windows-Server-SQL Server-SharePoint-Exchange-Office form a single, integrated platform for partners to develop solutions for the enterprise.
From this we can come to two conclusions:
1. Windows and Office don’t work for us because not designed for us.
2. The question is not “why doesn’t the Mac have viruses?” The proper question is, “what are the ways in which Windows’ architecture has the side-effect of making viruses possible?”
M$’s problem is that they do not work as a team. Their software development system is a nightmare and nothing can be done properly or efficiently. The company got too big for their own good.
I hope Apple never fall into that trap. Please let innovation be the main driving force for a long time.
Who cares. I have an iMac running both Mac OS X and XP Pro (a copy I bought almost 6 years ago now) so I can run anything I want anyway. I don’t waste time worrying about what Microsoft is up to anymore.
OK Apple needs to sell mac OS to IBM , Dell
etc
what should we do guys?
Anysuggestions?
PS: anyone want to be my friend?
> OK Apple needs to sell mac OS to IBM , Dell
1. IBM doesn’t make PC’s anymore.
2. It’s not going to happen. Doing so would be a no-win proposition for Apple.
Zune has been smoking pot AGAIN!!!
Mw: indeed…
ken why not?
Ibm makes servers
ps: could someone make a OS just for games?
ie. that could run all the windows games?
You could run this on an machine not other OS
Most of the work has already been done out there,
?
Would be pritty cool
:>iphonewebmail.com
@Zune Tang
Now that you are a clone and not the original one, you’re not even funny anymore. Sad. I used to laugh ou loud with the real ZT. Isn’t it ironic that one can miss ZT? -:)
People will put up with turd software like Vista, with all its problems, but the US automobile industry is practically bankrupt precisely because people won’t put up with turd cars.
Ironic, isn’t it?
I Want to make a car company
if you help me or invest in my ideas you will make money
Really.
But allas no.
Microsoft recently began offering an XP downgrade licensing option for system builders who wanted to let customers fall back to the earlier OS for systems that would normally ship with Vista
gotta love that
like they wanted to do it!! Dell threatened them,
I Want to make a car company
if you help me or invest in my ideas you will make money
Really.
But allas no. keep employing fat CEOs no idea smelly boxes,
I will if I not soon give all my patents away as cannot do anything.
I think looking at the comparrison of XP to Vista vs. OS9 to OS X is a good example of getting it wrong vs. getting it right.
Microsoft: Vista is the latest and greatest, no hardware or software vendors are ready to support it yet but from this point on this is what we are selling you. The choice is ours, not yours. We hope to restore you to full functionality within the next couple years. Good luck.
Apple: For close to 3 years all machines shipped with full versions of both OS 9 and OS X. You decide what you want to use. You work with the OS that is best suited to your needs or situation. This gave all the 3rd party hardware and software vendors a chance to get on board. This gave the users a chance to work up to and get comfortable with what Apple was doing. And most importantly, this gave Apple, after seeing how things ran in the real world, the chance to makes OS X something truly useful and appreciated by the user.
I have invented a new fuel cell
and a new turbine
both about 10 -100 years ahead of current
O and also a Better binary Coding system
a Photon Transistor
a Frequecy driven
a better compression for video transmission
a Printer (inkless
a Camera smaller
a EV electric car
a Flyinig Motorbike
a scratch proof glass
O an a few others.
I use a Windows box at work (not my choice, obviously) and got a new one about 2 months ago. Our IT consultant insisted that we give Vista a try, so I trusted him. HUGE mistake. I reverted to XP within 2 weeks. XP sucks, but not nearly as bad as Vista (hard to believe…). At least this machine doesn’t crash every 15 minutes and I can actually print Office documents (again, not my choice…).
Someday, maybe, I’ll use an iMac here… oh, sorry, just dreaming.
MW: hell (no, really!!!! How did MDN know?)
When given a choice between a turd (XP) and diarrhea (Vista), take the turd.
According to Mary Jo Foley you guys got it all wrong. In her eyes XP is just too good for Microsoft’s own good.
Heh. I think she’s nuts:
When Are Microsoft Apologists Gonna Learn?
@Zune Tang:
BWAAAAHHHAAHAAHAHAHHAAAA! I needed that!
“Expect Leopard to be delayed another couple of years just to match half of Vista’s awesome features and save face. Dorks.”
Brilliant!
i like halo 3. 🙁
> iphonemr.com
You ask, Why won’t Apple license Mac OS X to Dell and others?
I won’t say it will never happen, but it won’t happen in the next ten years. The reason is simple. Let’s say optimistically that Apple gets $50 for every Mac OS X license. That’s one lost Mac sale, where Apple’s margins are around 30%. For a $600 Mac mini, that’s $180. For a $1200 iMac or MacBook, that’s about $360. The old theory from back when Apple tried licensing Mac OS previously was that Apple would make up in volume (increase in Mac OS market share) for the loss in Mac sales. It didn’t work out that way. The Mac “cloners” just undercut Apple’s prices, and Apple lost Mac sales without gaining Mac OS market share.
All Apple would gain from the licensing arrangements is the need to support hundreds of PC configurations for development and testing, instead of the current dozens of Mac configurations. So for significantly less profit per sale, Apple has to increase R&D;spending. This is an expense that only Apple has to pay, since all the other Mac OS X vendors pay only the $50 licensing fee.
Besides, we haven’t used Macs made in Apple-owned facilities in a long time. The Macs we buy today are already made by companies like Asus and Quanta. If Apple needs to ramp up production to meet demand, it just needs to contract with another manufacturer. Meanwhile, Apple retains 100% control of design and engineering. And control is why Apple is succeeding today with Macs, iPods, and iPhones.
The best backup solution for a die hard PC Windows sheep is to buy a Mac and install Vista or XP on it. When, not if, it dies, you then have a backup plan and boot into OS X. The best way to beautify anything Windows is to run it on a Mac.
Greatest example of oxymoron ever: Windows Enthusiasts
Re: everyone taking Zune Tang at face value–none of you clods recognize the irony? It’s not even delicate irony, or even particularly well disguised. Christ, you people make Alabama’s delegation to the RNC look witful. And you call yourselves Mac users! Shameful.
If Zune Tang is trying to be ironic, he is falling well short of the benchmark. Many people probably remember Sputnik’s posts. Sputnik had great, wonderful, funny satire. It was often mistook for being serious. Sputnik’s posts were one of the reasons I started reading MacDailyNews because they were always good for a belly laugh. Zune Tang’s posts have a long way to go before the are bad enough to be good. They are best ignored.
The sad thing is, I still wish I could play Halo 3. But there is no way I’m buying and Xbox just to do so. I’m sure they’ll make a Mac version someday… (yeah right) It only took, what, 2 years for #1 to be ported? Super. Way to go, Budgie.
you will have to turn off safesearch in goggle preferences for goatse tub girl, ballmers girl friend
Going back to the previous licensing exercise what hurt most was the attitude of some of the partners. Motorola was perhaps the worst as they were supplying Apple with chips at the time, they provided their own math library on their own machines and as a free download. It ran much faster than Apple’s so Moto’s computers seemed better, simply put it downgraded the quality, ran fewer checks etc. Most users didn’t notice, colors being slightly off, redraws not quite right, the odd complex calculation not quite accurate, those who did probably blamed Apple. But it was a drop in OS quality brought about a partner, that must have hurt.
The other main culprit was Power Computing, the biggest Mac clone maker I believe. They just got on the Apple bandwagon to leverage themselves in to the Windows market using their history of building Macs as a stepping stone and marketing point. No loyalty to Apple, to the consumer, to the product.
I used to think Apple needed 15% market share before they licensed the OS again, maybe so. There is still a lot of marketshare to be gained by expanding out of the core markets, the mid level screenless desktop for example. But maybe the new ex-Oracle legal specialist may be able to offer something in the licensing direction.
What we really need is 3 – 4 major OS vendors, compatibility is little problem provided that formats are consistent which is where Microsoft has really been able to screw it up for others with its .doc format. ODF adoption looks good for this.
For the time being it seems Apple should ignore licensing, they have plenty of other avenues to explore and exploit. Still if HP came along and offered $150 for OEM OS X and iLife, bear all their own support costs, guarantee 10 million units per annum for the next five years it would be a temptation.
Harvey’s comment above is well-said and right on the money. Apple should be using this argument in their advertising to the educational sector, because right now Microsoft is trying to lock a number of major universities into Exchange Server (with IT department collusion), just at the time when Apple is about ready to offer CalDAV and other open source solutions. The business collaboration model locked into Microsoft is not appropriate for educational environments.
M$$$$ needs to find a really deep hole, get in it and pull the earth over itself…
Enough is enough… it time that M$$$ get’s lost… once and for all!
I mean M$$ is starting to make G. W. Bush the nation wonder boy… look good!
Ant that’s no easy task!
Crap what I’m saying…
XP is now “good enough”? Are you kidding me? Why have we always been expected to be happy with “good enough” (when it really wasn’t) and be productive at the same time?
“Given a choice between a turd and diarrhea, take the diarrhea”, huh? I can’t believe M$ has 90% of the world on this crap (pardon the pun).
I’ll never forget seeing the Macworld 2000 demo (ZDTV ran a half hour of it as a special feature) in January 2000. Steve Jobs showed off what Apple had been working on with OS X and I said then, “Oh shit, Apple’s going to take over!”
It was so different from and so far ahead of what Windows was doing (i.e. Windows 2000) at the time that the future of computers became obvious to me in that moment. Here we are 7, almost 8, years later and with this Vista diarrhea disaster, “sad-realization”-inducing infliction upon the masses loose on the streets, Apple’s vision is taking hold.
Leopard will be the coup de grace, the final sword into the bull. Don’t cry for M$; they don’t deserve your tears.
Peace.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cool smile” style=”border:0;” />
Olmecmystic
The reason Halo 3 is the best of M$ is because Bungie has yet to be Borgafied and balmerized. I have no doubts that it is happening as i type. 🙁
MDn mw ‘john’ as in m$ is receiving massive “dear John” letters
My parents unlocked the basement door today for the first time in several years. After wiping the drool from my lip and getting a haircut, I ran down to the Apple store and saw a Mac for the first time since OS7.
You know what, it rocks. I practically got a hard on using it (unfortunately the nature of my anatomy makes it truly hard to discern whether I have a hard on or not).
With that said, I think I’ll start buying Macs – who knows, it might even get me laid (assuming that’s possible).
Your potential. Our passion.™
It appears that, with Vista, Microsoft has finally released a product that stinks so bad that even Windoze users can smell it.
I am a creative professional working for a fortune 500 company, I presently use macs both at work and at home, I use an XP box also at work, I have been an avid mac fan for 15 years but was genuinely shocked by what I was told by the senior management team of the company I work for. They have no intention of adopting vista, EVER. Our company uses nearly 50,000 pc’s. I often have the PC mac argument with the IT guy’s desperately defending MS, but now there is a real shift in their attitude. I was also told that the big business IT community is agressively communicating to MS that a growing number of fortune 500 IT dept’s are discussing vista, and I have it on good authority that 75 of the 500 have already decided NEVER to adopt vista.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Apple’s Software Sales are Actually Down by 32%!
You people have been reading that Apple and other U-nix OS companies have been gaining marketshare, I say, LIES! LIES! and more LIES! Let me explain:
If you look at the market for all software and hardware as a whole over the past 6 months, you will see that the Vista’s transient productive derivitive variants delitive cost of all imbeded systems sold by registered wholesale outlets with cost driven by econnomic pressures in the wider static market has grown in Microsoft’s favor by not less or more than the average accumulated cost when divided by the numbers of units shipped as opposed to the quanity of backordered residual orders!
You can see that we are clearly gaining not losing marketshare! All thanks to APPLE!
WHY?
Those stupid “Hi I’m a PeeCee, I’m a mac” commercials are back firing! The average person identifies with the PeeCee guy! They are actually increasing our sales! hahahahaha … thanks for all of the free advertising Steve, we appreciate it.
@Harvey – The question is not “why doesn’t the Mac have viruses?” The proper question is, “what are the ways in which Windows’ architecture has the side-effect of making viruses possible?”
Thanks for that interesting post.
I got a real laugh from the part that says that MS is offering a “downgrade licensing option”. hahaha (it’s sad)
@Spark
“Vista may be a mess, but if Apple had the same business model and user base as MS, it would have been faced with the same mutiny over the OS9/OSX move as MS now faces with XP/Vista.
There is one very big difference, M$ is trying to pretend that Vista is “ready for prime time” now, and had planned to phase out XP quickly. Apple ran both OSes concurrently and didn’t announce the phasing out of OS 9 until the second or third iteration of OS X, which took a couple of years, and by then OS X was capable of standing on its own.