Readers continue the
debate over whether six versions of Windows 7 is too many:
No, I don't believe it's too many. There are only three real options for the general public: Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Basic is only for emerging markets. Enterprise, like in Vista, is only for software assurance (VL) customers. And Starter...well, it's only able to run three apps at once and no Aero, so it's really not an option for most people.
-Anonymous
Well, of course seven versions are too many. I think that was a bit of the show-stopper for Vista, as well. Why would I want to pay MS $400 for an operating system when I can get it for free from *Nix?
It seems reminiscent of the '90s when Novell was championed as never losing market share. It was charging outlandish prices and MS was offering desktops for $100. That's the way Microsoft worked into the server market, as well. Offer the same services or capitalize on a problem with your competitor, then bury them in wholesale pricing. It's the MS way...or at least it used to be.
-Paul
You do realize, don't you, that it is really only FIVE versions since Ultimate and Enterprise are identical, except that individuals cannot buy Enterprise?
Since consumers cannot buy the shrink-wrapped Starter Edition and won't be able to buy Home Basic (shrink-wrapped or on OEM hardware) any longer either, it really reduces to THREE that people in the developed world can buy shrink-wrapped and on OEM hardware: Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. This sounds a lot more reasonable.
-Marc
If Windows 7 is based on the Vista codebase and if it retains Vista's intrusive functionality, then even one version is too many. I suspect that XP will continue to run for many years to come, as long as MS is not successful in strong-arming hardware vendors into not providing new equipment with XP drivers. MS will continue to support XP (as if I care) as long as there is considerable revenue in doing so. As long as the market does not buy into Vista and 7, third-party vendors will continue to develop and support software for XP; they will not stop doing so while XP has 90 percent of the market.
It is only an operating system, people. All it has to do is interface with your applications. What makes you think that you need to replace it as often as last year's hemline? In a tight economy, this continuing two-year-plus rant about the need to upgrade Windows is beyond frivolous. Until MS develops a truly new product based on user needs and demands, I would recommend the Nancy Reagan approach and just say no.
-Anonymous
My guess is that Microsoft makes more money out of products with multiple nonsense versions -- like Home, which is a crippled version of Standard. Who would buy a crippled version of Windows 7? I wouldn't spend a dime for it. I blame uneducated consumers. I urge everybody to stop that craziness. For the majority of consumers, one version would be adequate.
-Brian
Marc doesn't think Vista's 10 percent adoption rate in the enterprise market is reason for worry:
Not surprising! Big business doesn't upgrade its operating system until all of its hardware is capable of running the new OS. In the best of times, after two years only the most aggressive enterprise customers will have upgraded more than 50 percent of their hardware. Most will have replaced 40 percent or less. Since we are in the midst of a recession, your 10 percent figure is not surprising. For that matter, adoption rates for Windows 2000 weren't much better. It took XP to turn that around -- just as it will take Windows 7 to turn it around now.
-Marc
And Earl tackles the argument against hiring H-1B visa workers in a bad economy:
Are businesses just looking to save money by hiring foreigners with H-1B visas, or are they really the best and the brightest? Look at any college graduate program in engineering or science and you will find a disproportionate amount of foreign students. This is because they are better qualified to do the work. I do not think this is the case for advanced business degrees.
We should not let predjudice stop us from importing brilliant people to help our economy. After all, they end up paying U.S. taxes also.
-Earl
Watch this space for more letters on Wednesday! In the meantime, share your thoughts with us by writing to [email protected] or leaving a comment below.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/09/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Microsoft and its customers have one thing in common: Both are anxious to move on to Windows 7. Customers are doing their part by thoroughly testing the software and reporting bugs. And Microsoft is doing its share by fixing bugs and building tools to make the migration smoother.
That's where the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) toolkit comes in. This little beauty is being tweaked for Windows 7. The idea is to ping the entire network of PCs and see which are ready for a Windows 7 upgrade. Those that don't stand up will be given a list of upgrades.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/09/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
If you haven't read
Virtualization Review magazine or its Web site
VirtualizationReview.com, it's pretty good stuff. The print and Web versions are driven by Keith Ward, editor in chief. And Mr. Ward has a knack for calling 'em as he sees 'em.
I've been looking for some good research on hypervisor market share, but the most recent figures were from last fall -- not real current given that that's about when Hyper-V first shipped. Keith has a similar passion for real data, and was excited by a new survey by Virtualization.com that purported to detail which vendor has what share.
Keith is a journalist through and through. At first he was alarmed that the relatively new Hyper-V had the most share. That didn't make sense so he looked into the methodology and discovered...there was none! Vendors like VMware and Microsoft could load up the results, and load they did.
On the other hand, the leader of the Web site was pretty open about his approach and was clearly not trying to sell it as $100,000 Gartner report.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/09/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Security pundits crave attention the same way Rod Blagojevich loves the camera. Latest case in point: Security experts are publicly complaining that User Account Control (UAC) in the Windows 7 beta can be taken over by hackers who can then gain elevated privileges. Microsoft counters that Windows 7 is perfectly safe, but it's
making a couple of tweaks to make UAC safer.
I'm no expert on this debate, but I do know the new UAC is a lot less intrusive than in Vista. By default, Windows 7 only notifies you when a program is trying to make a change. Users can also set it to "never notify" or "notify always," which is the Vista default. This is a nice change indeed.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
After Microsoft announced this week that it had
six versions of Windows 7 planned, Doug asked readers if they felt that was too many. Most of you responded with a resounding "yes":
Six versions of Windows...again? Say it ain't so! Alas, Microsoft seems doomed to repeat past follies. Did it really sell enough of the mid-level versions of previous Windows incarnations to be worth the effort? Isn't the development and support of millions lines of code difficult enough in a target environment that already has an unfathomably large number of permutations of hardware and applications software? Why increase the magnitude of the task?
One version of Windows 7 is ideal. Two versions are plausible. Three versions is a step down the path to confusion. Six versions is folly.
-Richard
I was really hoping that it was just going to stay at two versions. I started to get excited then kept reading your article to find that there would be six. I about cried. I'm so tired of trying to decipher which three to eight features are in some versions and not in other versions. Bleh!
-Casey
Six versions of Windows 7? Sounds like Microsoft is making the same mistake twice. Having so many versions confuses most end users. Microsoft should have two versions at most of Windows, a Home and Business/Professional version. It could go the Apple route and just have one version with one price, but that may be a bit too simple for Microsoft to comprehend.
-Robert
Six is four too many. Please tell Microsoft to get back to the Windows XP model and have TWO -- one for home and one for enterprise. Honestly, it makes us all look a bit silly when Mac has one version for everyone (yes, I understand Apple really doesn't have one for enterprise) but we have to help people decide which of the six to choose from.
-Roger
I'm just asking Microsoft to use common sense: three versions of Windows 7 (i.e., Home, Business and Enterprise).
-Stephen
Microsoft has confused everyone with numerous versions of Vista, yet continues the madness with Windows 7. Microsoft claims that the market needs all these versions, but I maintain that a simplified lineup would be more cost-effective. At the most, three versions are needed: Basic, Home Premium, Professional. Purchasing and support would be greatly streamlined.
-Scott
It is a support nightmare for Microsoft and the IT community -- and a a public relations mistake -- to have more than one version.
-Steven
What was wrong with a Home version, a Professional version and -- for media freaks -- a Media version? Trying to give tech support and keep three XP versions, six Vista versions and now six Windows 7 versions clear when talking to a client that can't always successfully identify if he has Windows 98, Vista or XP...save me.
-D.B.
Let's start with one version that works like it was supposed to. Give me the basic Business one. I'd prefer not to deal with the Home version(s) at all. Our customers don't know the difference.
-Dan
One thing I have always disliked is the plethora of versions offered by MS. I can understand Starter, but otherwise a simple Home edition and Enterprise edition would have been fine.
Beleive it or not, there are many companies out there that use varied styles of licensing and MS is driving apart the ability to manage Windows easily by making IT administrators support multiple flavors of Vista and now 7. The features in Enterprise would be welcome in Business (or Pro for 7) and I think MS should really reconsider splitting the market.
-Jordan
Microsoft should learn from past experiences. With Windows XP, it finally got it right. At the most, there should be three versions. One for consumers, one for businesses and then an ultimate version with all the options for gamers/PC enthusiasts/Windows geeks.
-David
Six versions is way too many. Home, Small Business, Enterprise. Beyond that, even Windows 7 will find it hard to distinguish between the versions. Make it simple for businesses to choose (and use) Windows 7. Or is it the money for license upgrading that Microsoft is after?
-Dee
For goodness sake! Customers would be willing to pay for one excellent version of the Windows 7 OS based on their level of proficiency. You may be wise to consider one version of Basic, Home Premium and Professional.
-Joe
I think three versions are more than enough. When we had Window 98 and NT, two seemed to take care of the masses. Now we have gamers, so let's go with three: Home, Business and Gamers. Maybe it should be non-Internet, Internet and Ultra High-Performance with the emphasis on security. This nickel and dime stuff is silly. If people are going to complain about price, they will stay with their old computers or go to an alternative OS.
I suspect Microsoft wrote one OS and turned off features for less expensive versions so even though you bought the less expensive OS, it still takes up the same amount of space on your hard drive. If there is really only one OS, then you've got to wonder how Microsoft arrives at these price points. Small pieces of paper drawn out of a hat?
-Jim
Oh, for the days when we had one OS! (Remember when there was one Amiga OS for everyone?) The general public -- and few Microsoft partners, I might add -- does not understand the need for all these versions of Windows, and all this version mess seems to complicate the licensing to the point where you have to engage a "licensing specialist" just to quote the product to your clients! It's time for Microsoft to streamline the product line.
-John
How about only one version and using a license key to unlock the features? This would make upgrading to a higher version a snap. It would also keep service packs simple.
-Shane
If Microsoft puts the Enterprise edition at a reasonable price, then I don't care how many different versions it has ahead of it, because I won't be buying those versions anyway. The difficult part is in defining "reasonable" based on the quality of the product. But I do think that too many versions just muddy the water.
-Mike
One reader points out that Internet Explorer 8 isn't the only browser out there that has clickjacking protection:
I read your story about IE 8 and the feature to prevent clickjacking and I must make a correction. Yes, Firefox natively does not prevent clickjacking but it does have an add-on that does. It is called NoScript. I've been using it now for months and feel a lot safer on the Web.
-Louis
The Joes share their thoughts on Microsoft's planned layoffs in the middle of an economic maelstrom:
I just read the Mailbag item from Gerry that laments Microsoft's decision to lay off 5,000 people in tough economic times and not show compassion. Do I feel compassion for the people and their families? Absolutely, and I bet the managers at MS feel really bad about it as well.
However, our country is founded on free enterprise. The fact that a person from a disadvantaged economic background can work hard, excel and achieve great things is the cornerstone of this. However, that opportunity does not mean that a company should give someone a job because the person needs it, hard times or not. Microsoft would be doing a disservice to its stockholders if it kept people on the payroll that it can effectively do without. Why? Because it would no longer be striving to be the leanest, most profitable business that it can be.
-Joe
It would be interesting to see the number of H-1B visa workers MS plans to cut in their firings. It is a joke that companies such as MS can import all of this talent from foreign lands under the premise that they can't find the talent here, when in actuality it is that they can't find the talent here at a low enough price. And after the these tech companies flood the U.S. job market with folks willing to work for much lower wages, they then wonder why fewer people are entering the field. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Companies using the current economy to cut head counts while registering nice profits should be ashamed. Can't decide who is worse: MS cutting 5,000 employees with a $4.1 billion profit, IBM cutting folks while registering an 11 percent increase in profits, or NFL teams cutting employees while making obscene money.
-Joe
And Gil doesn't share the Indian government's optimism about a $10 laptop:
Yeah, and I want a pony. Geez, come on. What are they thinking?
-Gil
More letters on Windows 7 coming next week! Meanwhile, tell us what you think. Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Twenty years, ago I first met Alex Eckelberry. At the time, I was the editor in chief of
Amiga World magazine and Alex worked for Aegis Development, which sold high-end 3-D modeling and animation software. After launching
Redmond magazine, I became reacquainted with Alex, who is now CEO of Sunbelt Software. Alex is a smart guy, a successful businessman -- and now an American hero.
Sunbelt is an expert in all things malware and understands that things aren't always as they seem. That was the case with substitute teacher Julie Amero.
Here's what went down, according to an article and a report from "Good Morning America." It seems that Amero checked her e-mail on a public computer at the school before class. Like so many of us have experienced, Amero was hit with bogus pop-ups and the machine was quickly infested with spyware. But Amero wasn't around to witness the destruction or the racy images that flew across the screen. Unfortunately, a couple of her students were.
After realizing that her students were enjoying the show, Amero tried to stop it. But like kids in an unruly classroom, the pop-ups popped up faster than they could be shut down. The immediate conclusion of the authorities was that Amero must have been cruising for porn, even though women are far less attracted to this form of entertainment than their male counterparts.
Days later the teacher was arrested for harming minors. The maximum time in the pokey? An astounding 40 years! The verdict? Guilty.
A similar thing happened to my son's computer when pop-ups carrying filth multiplied like bunnies. If I was a teacher, I may have been facing jail time, too.
Fortunately, experts like Eckelberry know that porn can take over a computer without our willing participation, and he decided to help. Eckelberry and other experts proved that Amero did nothing wrong and that malware was to blame for the entire episode. Now, that's a hero!
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper. The low-end, low-memory netbooks are around $300, and various charitable groups are still aiming for a $100 Third World lapper.
The Indian government thinks none of these machines are cheap enough. It wants a $10 laptop. Critics say this price point is a pipe dream, while the rest of us await further details from the Indian authorities.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/04/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Vista fans (some of whom you'll hear from in today's Mailbag section) wonder why I'm down on Vista. I'm a critic because most of you are critics. The latest proof point? Research from Forrester that gives Vista
less than 10 percent share of the enterprise market -- this after a solid two years of shipping and one major service pack.
Forrester, however, argues that "enterprises are warming to Windows Vista," and by the end of the year half of all enterprises will be penetrated to some degree by Vista. (But after hearing from a cool dozen Redmond Report readers who are testing Windows 7, I believe by the end of the year half of all enterprises will be penetrated to some degree by Windows 7!)
Forrester analysts advise moving to Vista first, then Windows 7, because the two OSes are basically the same and use the same code base. I'm not sure if these ivory tower spreadsheet jockeys have talked to real Vista users and real Windows 7 beta testers. If they had, they'd know that Windows 7 is everything that Vista should've been and promises to be a far better operating system.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/04/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Yesterday Microsoft announced, or least disclosed,
how many versions of Windows 7 it plans to sell. Microsoft is planning two main lines, one for home and one for business. But within that are more options. In fact, there will be six versions, beginning with a low-end starter pack and topping out with the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition.
I've always thought fewer versions are better, but I don't sit in the Windows 7 steering committee. Is six too many? Send your advice to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/04/2009 at 1:16 PM1 comments
As promised, here are some of your thoughts on Vista -- and whether Doug's been giving the OS a rougher time than it deserves:
No, you are not being too harsh on Vista. I ran it from the beta versions and have had many many problems -- drivers, speed, BSODs, etc. Maybe SP2 will fix Vista but I am not too optimistic.
I have, on the other hand, downloaded and installed Windows 7. This is what Vista SHOULD have been -- flawless install, and boot-up speeds are great. It seems Microsoft has a winner this time around.
-David
Heck no, you are not being too harsh on Vista. Vista is still flopping like a fish just pulled out of the lake and gasping for air as it asphyxiates on the shore. If SP2 can streamline the system, quits bugging its users by asking permission for everything it does, and doesn't break anything, then I think it will succeed. I never applied SP1 for fear of rending my system like a suffocated fish.
-Casey
No, I don't think you're being too harsh on Vista, generally speaking. It was oversold. I know because I was part of it. There is no way it was ever meant to be run on the hardware specs given. Internally at MSFT, we fought through many driver issues on demo machines. However, having used it in production since beta 1, I can say it has definitely gotten an undeserved bad rap. There were certainly many problems, but most were related to third parties not being prepared with drivers and software to support the new OS. True, a big part of that blame does rest on Microsoft's shoulders. Keep in mind, two key Microsoft executives "left" right after shipping: Brian Valentine to Amazon and Jim Allchin to retirement. That says something about what they and Microsoft truly felt about the effort. It wasn't ready still, even though it certainly should have been after so many years.
Windows 7 is different in that this is a new Windows team; Sinofsky is incredible and his team really believes in him, along with Jon Devaan. So we shouldn't be surprised that Windows 7 beta 1 is better than Vista beta 2 or maybe even RC1. However, it will get better still. Vista today, with SP2 beta, is as good as you can currently get in an OS. In terms of compatibility and usability, it's better than Mac and Ubuntu. So if you're still not happy with Vista, then maybe you're being a little too hard. However, don't be too kind to Windows 7 in this early stage, other than to be really excited about its final RTM future -- which will be great.
-Brian
Vista is a perfectly stable operating system...now. When it was first released, it was buggy and it did crash on me a few times. I don't agree that it was released too early, though. The alpha and betas were out for almost two years before the actual release, which is more than enough time for vendors to rewrite drivers. What was MS expected to do? Wait another two years for all hardware vendors to catch up?
My biggest issue is that after looking at Windows 7, I can't believe MS is able to get away with selling it as a brand-new OS. It's XP all over again. It's such a minor upgrade on Vista that it should've been a service pack, but we all know the only reason it's being released is so that Microsoft doesn't have to support XP and all corporations are forced to upgrade (if they don't move to Linux/Mac). Don't get me wrong, I love the stability of it and it seems to run a lot faster than Vista, especially on older hardware. But it just isn't a new operating system.
-Omer
I really don't know why everyone is so harsh on Vista. Yes, when it was first released, there was a huge lack of drivers and many program compatibility issues. However, we have been running it in our own office for quite some time and have deployed it for the few customers that listened to us instead of you nay-sayers. We have found it to be quite stable, at least as stable as XP, and definitely more secure. We see lots of XP PCs every day infected with tons of malware. The only time we saw a Vista PC infected, we asked the user if he clicked OK when the UAC asked permission to install the malware, and of course he said yes.
Vista is not perfect. No operating system has ever been. But I wouldn't go back to XP if you paid me.
-Paul
Richard wonders about the EU's recently renewed crusade against Microsoft's practice of bundling IE:
I seem to remember the release of a version of Windows for the European market that did not contain the media player so that free choice could reign. The result seemed to be a bunch of boxes of the playerless versions sitting on store shelves for want of takers. Is the EU repeating itself because the fifth-ranked browser is trying to gain market share?
-Richard
Finally, correlation does not imply causation, but...
I once worked for a the IT department of a large retail chain of electronics. They were a BIG user of Lotus Notes. Then they contracted out all IT functions to IBM...and now they have declared bankruptcy. I'm not drawing any conclusions; I'm just stating facts!
-Anonymous
Check in on Friday to read more letters! And don't forget to share your own thoughts with us -- leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/04/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Readers are in disagreement over which browser makes for safer surfing -- Firefox or Internet Explorer:
I wasn't sure whether or not to chuckle or just shake my head at some of the reasons people prefer IE. I acknowledge that IE has some advantages, such as the remote install to large numbers of workstations, but that is just a reminder that no one product is the best at absolutely everything. Given the overall pros and cons, however, I much prefer Firefox.
I have a number of friends and family who have all been hit lately by various viruses and worms that came in through the browser, and (you guessed it) all are using IE. None of my Firefox-using friends and family were affected. Now, I am not certain if this is because Firefox is inherently more secure than IE, or if it is because people who use Firefox are more informed to begin with and thus take more steps to secure their PC. Aside from that, Firefox has a lot more features and is much more configurable, but the the deal-maker for me is the multi-platform support. IE is Windows-only, whereas Firefox works on all our platforms (including various Linuxes and Mac). Using a browser that only works on half of our systems doesn't make sense to me.
-Mike
I don't agree that Firefox is more secure than IE. As the network admin of a small firm with about 30 client PCs, I can open the WSUS console and immediately verify that IE is fully patched on every user's PC. I have no clue of the status of the Firefox installs on those same machines unless I visit each one and check it manually. I know there are enterprise products that serve this purpose for Firefox, but for businesses whose IT budgets don't support such tools, IE is much more likely to be patched, making it the more secure option.
I would rather browse in Firefox than IE 7 in almost every instance, but I'd much rather support IE. I hope IE 8 is improved enough that I can get Firefox off the client PCs permanently, or at least until they develop a no-cost way to manage it.
-Dave
And Gerry wonders about the motivation behind Microsoft's decision to pink-slip 5,000 of its workers:
OK, I just don't get it. We have a new, popular president asking our nation to work together to get through this economic mess we're in, asking everyone to help each other. Then we have an immensely profitable U.S. company raking in $4.1 BILLION in the last quarter and putting 5,000 people out of work!
What is wrong with this picture? Am I the only one seeing a huge disconnect here? Why isn't the press beating up Microsoft for showing 5,000 people the door in tough economic times when it isn't anywhere close to bankruptcy? The fact that greed drives Microsoft so relentlessly and causes it to have no thought for the welfare of our economy or for human beings ought to be a huge turn-off to Americans. Will the message of our new president continue to fall on deaf ears, or will people and corporations rise up and start showing some compassion?
-Gerry
Check back in on Wednesday for more of your letters. In the meantime, share your own thoughts with us by writing a comment below or sending an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/02/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
IE 8 has a cool new feature that prevents clickjacking -- those attacks where surfers are lured, like in a phishing attack, to a malicious Web site. Once there, the user's browser is taken over by the hacker, who can install malware, steal passwords or maybe just visit a few unseemly sites!
Chrome and Firefox wish they had this feature, as their browsers are vulnerable to these attacks. Google is working on a fix, but I'm sure it was mighty busy over the weekend -- especially after it declared that the entire Internet, even Google itself, was malware.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/02/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments