“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.
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.