

Closing the Door to Microsoft Vista - kradic
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080512_157155.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories

======
henning
Vista is problematic and I have suffered greatly, personally, because of its
flaws, so I am certainly a vocal critic of it, but I don't understand the
whining about systems requirements. Most machines you can buy these days are
Core 2 Duo with 2 GB of RAM or better, and in my obviously limited experience
that's sufficient. A $600 laptop from Dell gets you that much.

Yes, you can't run Vista on a really old machine, which lots of people still
have. It doesn't strike me as a valid criticism unless Microsoft fails to make
clear that a given machine will not have an enjoyable experience due to
performance problems.

I still choose to run XP, but then again I run Xubuntu on a quad-core machine
just because it appeals to my neuroses.

~~~
jksmith
That's the increasingly fragile business model though. MSFT and generic PC
makers are like siamese twins who can't be separated. The makers depend on
MSFT to create new versions which require new hardware. In turn, MSFT gets
exclusive distribution licenses from the makers.

If MSFT screws the product, as with Vista, the makers suffer the fallout
because the market doesn't buy their latest generic plastic. Apple managed to
identify this rotating gimmick early on, and went down the proprietary
hardware path because it was their only choice. And look who has the market
attention now.

So I'd say that the makers are a bit pissed right now that MSFT didn't hold up
their end of the deal. They know that all the crap they sell is generally
indistinguishable, but that didn't matter because MSFT would provide them with
a mechanism for recurring income that was better than just waiting for the
plastic to simply wear out.

And with MSFT depending on thousands of licenses just to keep the lights on,
I'd say the next few years are going to be interesting for the siamese twins.

With my MacBook Pro, and my dual Dec Alpha box that I plan to put Genera on, I
think I'll just sit back and watch.

------
etal
This new resistance to higher system requirements is interesting in the
context of ESR's "World Domination 201"
([http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-
dom...](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-
domination-201.html#id286667)), which looked at the 16-bit and 32-bit
transitions and predicted that the 64-bit transition would shake up the
computer industry again, in 2008. In theory, the middle of the bell curve of
computer users would be buying 64-bit systems with 4+ GB of RAM this year, and
if Windows cracked under this requirement, Linux or Apple would have a chance
to break into the mainstream.

But we're halfway through the year, and 4GB of RAM still doesn't seem to be
the median for new computers. Is it because we're finally satisfied with what
a desktop computer does? Are smaller, lighter laptops changing the market? Or
are retailers and hardware manufacturers deliberately hitting the brakes,
having watched Vista go sailing off a cliff ahead of them?

~~~
hernan7
Maybe ESR was making numbers out of thin air?

~~~
hello_moto
ESR writes small (but useful) UNIX tools. He ain't no analyst (for a big
thing).

------
Antiglobalism
Vista reflects the time: all surface, no content improvement. We get the
flashy interface, but no new filesystem etc.

ReactOS might replace Windows in the future.

