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Microsoft Feared Mac Vs. Vista In '05
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:08 AM
from the not-so-much-any-more dept.
from the not-so-much-any-more dept.
CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer sifted through many threads of e-mails released under the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit to dig up this jewel...More than a year before Windows Vista's release — and long before Apple started poking fun at the OS — Microsoft officials were already worried about comparisons between Mac OS X and Vista. An e-mail thread from October 2005 showed that an article in the Wall Street Journal by Walt Mossberg grabbed the attention of managers at Microsoft. In a column headlined What PC to Buy If You Are Planning On a Vista Upgrade, Mossberg alarmed one Windows manager who forwarded a bit from the column.... 'You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows,' Mossberg had written. 'Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista.' Warrier added a comment of his own: 'A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column].'"
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News??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... this is news? Any good businessman always watches the competition and tries to estimate how many customers might switchover. That's not "fear". That's just good old commonsense.
Re:News??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there's a sense, at least to many on slashdot, that Microsoft owes its position not to good software, but to its monopoly status. Thus, if the MS execs are concerned about the competition, it means maybe the end of the windows domination is that much closer.
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Re:News??? (Score:5, Funny)
People need to be reminded of the monopolistic software prison they live in. They don't have to use Windows, and there is better software out there.
If you can leave any time you like, it's not a prison. It's just a really shitty hotel.
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Re:News??? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:News??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people who care about such things as 'monopolistic software prisons' are geeks. A very small percentage of the overall population. The rest of the population just wants something that will work.
Macs work. PCs running Windows I must begrudge mostly work too.
Linux? meh
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Broken premise (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is just plain wrong. Consumers don't upgrade operating systems. They use the one that came with the box until they need a new box. Techno-nerds and enterprises upgrade operating syatems. In the case of Vista, enterprises have stayed away in droves.
Re:Broken premise (Score:5, Insightful)
And, as an aside, business do upgrade operating systems. But not immediately. They give them time, wait for bug fixes and evidence that the platform is stable. With Vista, that never happened, so they didn't upgrade.
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Re:Broken premise (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista Ultimate was what, like â600 retail when it first came out?
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Re:Broken premise (Score:5, Funny)
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Microsoft Created Much of the Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure many will remember the comparisons of the screen shots and betas for Vista vs. OS X. It was remarkable how much Vista looked like OS X. In both feature (bloat) and GUI. Microsoft is as much, if not more, to blame for the feature comparison. Redmond continued to flaunt using Cupertino as their proxy R&D. When Microsoft finally shipped the goods, the comparisons it seems, were only skin deep.
Still true (Score:5, Interesting)
It does hav bugs like any OS which luckily they are fairly quick to address, and they have a much faster turn around for new versions of the OS (one every year versus every 3-5 years for Windows).
Would I prefer it to be more open like Linux? Oh hell yes especially now that they are adopting HDCP and other DRM related technologies. I suspect however that the Vista fiasco and Netbooks have caused enough people to consider a switch to Linux and with Apple embracing OpenGL for game development on iPhone and iTouch, it will only be a matter of time before it is on equal footing as a game platform and openGL is equally considered thus giving Linux a footup as well; afterall, Blizzard already has admitted to having a Linux Warcraft client internally that they haven't released.
OS X is no longer the only problem (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2005, Mac OS X was available and rating "better" as a desktop environment in many places, but in order to "upgrade" to OS X, it required purchase of all new hardware.
by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors and expanded support into the realm formerly controlled only by PC. While technically you still need to upgrade to Mac hardware according to the Mac OS X EULA, the validity of that claim is currently being questioned. Additionally Ubuntu and other Linux distros that make setup easy and are very user-friendly have started spawning and are also beginning to take a significant chunk out of MS's market share.
There may have been signs of things to come in 2005, but thinks look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7.
Re:OS X is no longer the only problem (Score:4, Informative)
In 2005, Mac OS X was available and rating "better" as a desktop environment in many places, but in order to "upgrade" to OS X, it required purchase of all new hardware.
by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors and expanded support into the realm formerly controlled only by PC.
You really mean in 2001 Mac OS X was available and by 2005 Mac had adapted Intel processors - right? Your first 2 points confused the hell out of me.
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Vista the bloated pig (Score:5, Insightful)
Russell went on to defend Vista, specifically its ability to "run on a very wide-ranging set of systems from the minimally capable to the incredibly capable," he said. "Apple doesn't do that."
Riiiiight. Apple was able to slim down OS X to run on an ARM smartphone, can MS do the same with Vista ? Oh yeah that's right, they had to extend the life of XP just for the netbook market, cause there's no way Vista could run on that hardware, and they were afraid of Linux taking over.
I can't see how this guy could think that, did he not ever use Vista ?
shooting the messenger... (Score:5, Insightful)
"A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple. This is why we need to address [the column]."
That suggests that when Microsoft received reports of a competitor offering a superior product that executives regarded the reports themselves as the problem and not Microsoft's deficient offerings; Warrier writes of addressing Mossberg's column, not of addressing the problems with Microsoft's planning and development processes which led them to an inferior market position.
Blaming someone outside the organization is smart corporate politics because it does not make enemies inside your own organization who might retaliate against you. But then maybe that is the problem with Microsoft management, that it is full of shrewd corporate ladder-climbing types instead of inspired artists and engineers.
features myth (Score:5, Insightful)
Ballmer! (Score:5, Funny)
I will kill this Mossberg for you for ten million of your American dollars and a lifetime license for Windows XP.
Enough already! (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I know this is Slashdot and all, but honestly I'm starting to get microsoft-vista-embarassing-email-story fatigue. Ever since the Vista class-action exposed all of these internal Microsoft emails, people have been cherry-picking emails and making them into full-blown stories for months it seems.
I'm no Microsoft apologist, it's just that it's starting to get old. Yes, we know Vista sucks. We know Microsoft felt the same way. We get it!! Please stop beating us over the head with it already.
Yes, WE can: The New Mac commercial (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Gates: And I'm a PC
Mac: WHOA, Bill Gates! What are you doing on a Mac commercial?
Bill: To remind people that Microsoft is more than Windows. We've been writing software for the Mac since before there was a Mac. The same Office suite that PC's use is available to Mac Users
Mac: Actually, Bill, it's better.
Bill: [blushes] Thanks. And with Boot Camp and virtualization, you can run Windows if you have to.
Mac: Or want to. I think Vista ROCKS on a Mac.
Bill: That's all. Microsoft makes software and operating systems... for PCs AND Macs.
Mac: So, we can work together.
Bill: Yes. Yes, we can. [shakes hands] Nice shoes...[Exit, Stage right]
[Mac stands stunned]
[Enter PC, eating a churro]
PC: You're not going to believe this. I just met Jerry Seinfeld in the hallway.
[Mac stands stunned]
PC: What? What'd I miss?
[Fade to iMac running Office 2008 and Parallels with Vista] and new 'Yes, WE can' logo
You know what it is, my peeps (Score:5, Funny)
It's fear of a Mac planet.
Even worse, Macs can run XP (Score:5, Insightful)
'You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows,' Mossberg had written.
When my wife was asked to do half her work from home (and be much more productive that commuting to the office, it turns out), she had to look into replacing her ancient (4 years old ;-) Windows box. It was running XP, and her office hasn't upgraded to Vista, so she was looking for a PC to run XP. She couldn't buy one, until she asked at an Apple store. They explained to her that she could indeed run XP on a Mac. She got an iMac, installed XP via Fusion, and it works fine. Now a number of other people at work want her to teach them how to do it.
This has gotta be one of the things that terrifies MS's management. They lost a customer to Apple because the customer couldn't use Vista (for work-related reasons), and a competitor's system can run a virtualized XP subsystem. You could probably do the same with Linux.
Back in the 1970s, when the VM OS was taking over the IBM mainframe world, IBM responded by adopting VM and supporting it. This radically improved the usefulness of IBM's mainframes to their customers, and helped them consolidate their stranglehold on the mainframe market. So far, MS has viewed virtualization as a threat to their business, and has tried to block it. Maybe we shouldn't tell them that they're making a huge mistake. If they keep fighting it, they'll never be able to duplicate the total takeover that IBM managed in the mainframe arena. Virtualization is just too useful to a large percent of the users. And if we can avoid that sort of monoculture in the desktop, laptop, etc parts of the industry, we'll have a much healthier industry that will continue to innovate.
So let's all encourage MS to continue to try to block this development. It's for the benefit of everyone (except for MS's main stockholders).
Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Funny)
It's not fair to call vista a virus.
Viruses are some of the tiniest and most efficient pieces of code written.
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You haven't seen some viruses (Score:4, Funny)
You haven't seen some viruses. I seem to remember, back in the dark ages of floppies, long before the internet, when 1.44 MB was all the space on a floppy and viruses were supposed to go unnoticed on one so they could spread, someone had written a 100K virus in Clipper. Or one of the similar DBase2-like databases. In an age of 512 _byte_ viruses, or where even complex and sophisticated ones were measured in single digit kilobytes, that was fucking huge. It's akin to having a 100 MB virus nowadays. In fact, it's akin to nowadays writing a virus in Java and distributing it together with a JDK.
So in all fairness, you can't generalize like that. Just because Vista is the most extreme case of a bloated and inefficient virus, doesn't mean there weren't other viruses that were only slightly less bloated and inefficient before ;)
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Re:You haven't seen some viruses (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally think the most impressive virus was CIH, which could be considered to be zero bytes in size, due to the fact that it didn't increase the size of executables it infected. It didn't damage them either, it filled alignment gaps in the PE (.exe) file format, making the infected exe "denser" than the uninfected one. Pretty clever.
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:4, Funny)
Some are. The virus world has gone downhill a lot though. Why, many of them are written in Visual Basic!
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Insightful)
the supposed "security" of Vista is laughable
Excellent comment. Those of us who work in computer repair or who have porn-addicted friends know that getting malware on Vista is as easy as getting malware on any other version of Windows, the sole difference being that the UAC dialog(if enabled) pops up 5 times a second instead of 5 times a minute.
Vista is an epic fail! They moved everything around and added unnecessary menu options making navigation a nightmare for people familiar with prior versions. Bold moves in changing the layout for Vista and the latest Office, though it turned their user experience into a counterintuitive nightmare!
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no intuitive interfaces.. everything it learned.
One thing that doesn't help is hiding options.. the original IBM style guides (that MS prety much stuck to until Vista) were clear that an option shouldn't appear and disappear as it's confusing.
Max. 'oops' points of cours goes to Office 2007 that manages to hide the file menu so successfully I've actually been called in to 'fix' a machine when 5 people in an office couldn't work out how to save a document.
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Why People Said No to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft didn't sell the reason people needed Vista. They polished a dashboard up with some glassy looking graphics and slapped a pricetag on it. That's not relevant to 99% of users. Most people use their computers for the internet, or for writing letters. Could Vista do anything like that better than XP? No. And there's your answer.
If Microsoft wanted to sell Vista, they should have examined what the main concerns are of people and acted on them. Most people don't care about what is happening behind the scenes... that's what nerds are for. Most people care about what the computers can do for them.
Now if they wanted to sell Vista, they should have got Jerry Seinfeld to do the Vista commercials from the beginning, and keep Bill Gates out of them. Seinfeld would simply sell the reason people need to upgrade to Vista which is for security and for expanded multi-media capability.
Jerry could have also addressed most of the user objections to Vista openly and with a dash of dry comedy that people tend to admire in the comedian.
But they chose to do a faceless monolithic kind of ad campaign, to combat Apple's ads but that actually made people think about how good Apple is compared to windows which was the kicker-backfire!!!! OMG yes.
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Re:Why People Said No to Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just not worth the cost. If a computer comes with it, that's nice - I'll take it
You may come to regret that attitude, as I have. I needed to buy a new laptop (old one broke) and I considered whether I should pay extra to get a new XP license with it, but because this was an unexpected purchase I ended up deciding to save the money and go with Vista.
Big mistake.
For one thing, I discovered Vista's DPC latency is always, always worse than XP. This is a big deal for me as I record music, not professionally, but for myself and it's one of the things I use my computer for. Basically can't do it in Vista, the OS defers too many procedure calls.
And I've spent literally *days* now trying to get the OS to run the way I want it to run, figuring out what I can safely shut off and basically trying to streamline it to where I don't have a mess of useless junk running all the time and slowing down my system. (I have a ThinkPad, so I'm not talking about crapware that came pre-installed, I'm talking about Vista processes, services, etc.)
I actually ended up turning Aero off and going back to the Vista Basic interface. Aero is just tiring to look at after a while, and seems to serve no real purpose. I see no justification whatsoever for dedicating all those resources to it.
Someone said in another thread about Vista that while it's basically a functional OS, it fails at what an OS is supposed to do and that's let you run the programs you want to run without getting in the way. It is instead an impediment. It's like a spoiled child constantly begging for attention and throwing tantrums when you don't give it any. I feel like I need to babysit it all the time; I am literally working more on Vista than I am doing anything productive on my computer.
If I had it to do again, I would spend the extra money for the XP downgrade.
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Just FUD and bullshit... (Score:5, Funny)
From someone who has never used Vista. I've had it installed for years, it's every bit as stable as XP, and while it's clearly somewhat more "expensive" (CPU+Memory), on any kind of modern hardware it is irrelevant.
It's also clearly more secure than XP. In all cases where I've installed it for friends and family, it has noticeably reduced the amount of cruft that gets installed.
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily. MacOS X, 10.2 was faster than 10.1, and 10.3 faster than 10.2, on the same hardware. It wasn't until 10.4 that you actually started seeing a performance hit on G3 and slower G4 computers.
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. MacOS X, 10.2 was faster than 10.1, and 10.3 faster than 10.2, on the same hardware. It wasn't until 10.4 that you actually started seeing a performance hit on G3 and slower G4 computers.
In any event, I'm not sure that I'd call the jump from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 'major iterations'.
In any event, I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about. The full list of features in each iteration was astounding. The difference between 10.1 and 10.2 was of the order of those between Win 2k and Win XP. The fact that they update minor version numbers doesn't change the fact that they add enough to call it a major iteration.
Don't believe me? Check out for yourself on wikipedia: 10.1 [wikipedia.org] 10.2 [wikipedia.org] and 10.3 [wikipedia.org]. Thank you, come again.
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Informative)
On another note:
Windows 2000 - Version 5.0
Windows XP - Version 5.1
Windows 2003 - Version 5.2
Hmm, seems like somebody was barking up the wrong tree...
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Interesting)
Like my customer that wanted to pipe his rush limbaugh stream through the house. to his airport express on his whole house audio system.
Installing airfoil and running it gives a big vista "YOU ARE A MEDIA THIEF!!! HELP! HELP!" warning message.
It still works because airfoil get's around the silly Vista protected audio path, but it angers this very rich man.
I told him that he should consider downgrading to XP or moving to a Mac as Vista does nothing for him except get in his way.
He called us last friday looking for a company t hat can downgrade all his machines to XP. I sold him a raft of OEM XP Pro licenses and the required hardware to make it legal to downgrade them, and a phone number of a very good tech that can do it for him without loss of data.
I'm guessing they will never upgrade to Vista at the company he owns now....
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Re:What Microsoft should really have considered (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, what's not compatible with Vista 64? What's wrong with 100% working video drivers that install and function for nVidia and ATI devices exactly the same as the 32 bit drivers? I also suggest you try comparing Vista and XP boxes after a month of use. XP slows down, Vista gets faster. After even a day of use, Vista will be faster at loading some applications (at least Firefox, Word, Trillian for me). Vista will typically have lower average framerates by 0-5% as long as you run a DX9 version of whatever you're playing in Vista. If you use DX10, in most cases you'll suffer by 10-50%. App productivity benchmarks like running PS filters will probably show a very small XP advantage. Differences are negligible on most cases, but it's true that a few albatrosses are still out there, unaddressed.
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Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC... (Score:5, Funny)
I would have gotten hooked Linux if it wasn't for OS X. Terminal.app sitting in the Utilities folder is like a drug pusher. First it starts out with a little 'ls' and 'mv'. Then you learn to SSH and X11 forward. Then come the shell scripts and built in gcc.
Oh god, and then you discover screen and it's all over. You're hooked.
I'm now a CLI junkie. I get my fix from my debian rtorrent machine that gives me my movies and now I'm building a home automation center from NSLU2 and 1-Wire. My MacBook Pro starts Terminal.app on start.
Parents keep your kids away from Apple, they could be come CLI Junkies. Vista is the one true path to salvation.
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Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC... (Score:4, Informative)
mplayer -ontop -cache 102400 $drag and drop video here from NFS share$
Only way to watch videos in bed/couch. Never have to worry about Firefox or what ever being in front of the video. Caches enough to watch the movie without hiccups.
Although aalib gives new meaning to ASCII Porn.
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Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC... (Score:5, Funny)
You might as well sell your sole to Richard Stall..erm Satan!!/p>
Why would Satan, or Stallman for that matter, do with one of his shoes??
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Re:I feel like the more people that use MAC... (Score:5, Insightful)
MAC = Media Access Control
Mac = Short for Apple Macintosh.
My friend, I fear that the computer you chose to use will have no bearing on what people already think of your intelligence.
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Got that backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X has a simple metaphor that exposes the underlying principles of computers in a way that average people can understand -- apps are files you drag from an archive to an HD to install for instance. That's the exact opposite of dumbing things down; it's making things clear. Windows, by contrast, hides the issues -- having programs you download actually be installers that download more files and install them to a non-obvious place, for instance. THIS is dumbing-down -- it leads to users that don't understand what they've just done, never mind how to solve problems. And don't get me started on how illogical having a "file" menu with an exit option is in a PC browser, or an anti-virus program. Macs make that app vs. file distinction much more sensible too.
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Re:Trailing Edge Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft knows this and they know all about Tiger, they copied alot of it. What Microsoft was concerned about was rogue press saying things like Mossberg wrote. Anyone who knows technology over the last 20 years knows that Microsoft is a marketing company before they are a tech company and this email just shows that. 'Don't let the public know there is something better' is all this says and that is SOP for Microsoft. IMO
LoB
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Re:Tiget may be better than Vista, but (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm getting really annoyed at the Mac commercials that constantly slam PC's.
I get the opposite reaction. I find Apple's ads cute, fun, and surprisingly truthful as Microsoft runs desperate "I'm a PC, so I'm nowhere near my computer" ads.
And the iPhone and iPod Touch ads are musical, elegant, and actually make me want to buy the device, as opposed to the other carriers' ads that show dominoes of inventory but no one doing anything cool with their phones.
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Re:Their fears were justified. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple would simply allow their OS to run on generic PCs, Microsoft would have a true competitor.
If Apple would allow their OS to run on generic PCs, they would fall into a support hell.
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Re:Their fears were justified. (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, though Apple naturally dropped the opportunity to really take on Microsoft. If Apple would simply allow their OS to run on generic PCs, Microsoft would have a true competitor.
This old canard again?
Nobody makes Big Money on desktop operating systems. Microsoft uses theirs to leverage sales of MS-Office and their enterprise solutions.
Apple uses theirs to sell hardware.
The only people who get worked up about the "OS wars" are fanboys. Everybody at Apple and Microsoft is too busy making money to care.
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Re:Their fears were justified. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple makes their money as a hardware vendor. People would just pirate the OS, and everyone else would rather just run Windows on their PCs and have all their apps. Apple would fade away if you were running the company.
Oh, and the iPhone isn't going anywhere. THAT'S how Apple is taking on Microsoft--invading the mobile market where PCs are inevitably headed. Their laptop sales go up every year, and they have portable media and cell phones.
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Re:Their fears were justified. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple would simply allow their OS to run on generic PCs, Microsoft would have a true competitor.
People say this, but Apple would have to take on a lot of expense to support generic hardware. They'd have to massively upgrade their test procedures, spend huge amounts of development time on drivers, hire reams of new tech support... unless their market share spiked, there is no way that they could justify the expense. Either that or the "generic" OS would cost a lot more than it does today.
Apple is perfectly happy with their niche of selling only high-margin products. Dell has margins of under 5%, Apple is over 14%. MS is 29%, for comparison. Of course, Apple could never get to that high of a number since MS is only able to price gouge due to their monopoly. It would be kind of fun to see how cheap Windows got if Apple entered the marketplace. We're already seeing it in sub-notebooks where the monopoly was destroyed.
As a bonus, Apple doesn't get called "unstable" every time the crappy $300 Dell hardware flakes out.
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Re:As desktop support... (Score:5, Informative)
there should be an oversight committee to determine if a Mac is a necessary item
I'm sorry, that's just stupid. If a researcher feels they'll will be more productive using a mac with windows under emulation for the apps that need it who are you to judge?
I use a mac in a research setting at Purdue and run windows for a handful of Apps I rarely use. I probably fire windows up once every couple of months. I used to use it more frequently but apps like SAS, SPSS, and the windows version of Powerpoint are offered over the web via a CITRIX client so I don't need to waste disk space installing those apps locally anymore. However, if their had been the kind of unnecessary oversight you are suggesting I'd be SOL.
I get the impression from your post that you work for the researchers, but not as a researcher yourself. You are poorly equiped to decide which tools would best benefit the researcher unless you are the PI in question.
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Re:As desktop support... (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, funding oversight should focus on inputs and outputs, not process.
Assuming that the committee will know better than each and every researcher is a bad idea, and inputs and outputs are easy to measure, meaning that monitoring them will probably require less bureaucracy than making sure that all dollars are spent in 'approved' ways.
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