The Mac Sucks!

Microsoft appears to be learning the value of an open beta program in selling Windows. By opening the Windows 7 beta program as widely as it has, Microsoft has given many customers the opportunity to work with Windows 7 before its official release. This has very likely uncovered bugs that might not have been found until after the official launch, when their discovery might have impacted early sales (as happened with Vista). In addition, the time spent with the beta has given users confidence in Windows 7’s security, performance, and stability… enough that they’re willing to pre-order the release version based solely on experience with the beta. Perhaps not surprisingly, the adoption rate for Windows 7 already looks to be much greater than that for Vista.

According to Network World, Microsoft and other online retailers reported strong sales of Windows 7 upgrade licenses during the first hours of pre-order availability. The BBC reports huge sales in the U.K., with Windows 7 per-orders during the first 8 hours of availability exceeding those for the entire 17-week pre-order period for Windows Vista. In Japan, the Windows 7 pre-order inventory is already sold out. IDC analysts predict that 40 million copies of Windows 7 will be sold by the end of 2009, and 177 million copies of Windows 7 will be in place by the end of 2010. They also estimate that the products and services surrounding Windows 7 will generate $320 billion in revenue.

Savio Rodrigues, a self-styled “open source aficionado within the traditional software world” seems to be impressed with Microsoft’s early Windows 7 results. He may have a point when he says that “in today’s open source world, virtually no PC user would preorder Windows 7 based on press views alone. Users today expect to try the software before deciding to part with their money.” This is doubly true given the weak economy. If the current order volume is any indication, Windows 7 adoption rates will be among the highest in the history of Microsoft’s operating system.

Apple is fortunate in that it doesn’t generally have to contend with these “adoption” issues. Mac owners tend to trust Apple and its products, giving Apple the benefit of the doubt when new releases of the Mac OS cause “blue screens of death“, lead to printers that stop working, generate a series of problems described as “the worst OS upgrade experience I’ve ever had“, or issues so frustrating that people are able to write an entire blog about how “lame” their Mac has been since the upgrade.

Were issues like those commonplace among early Leopard adopters? It’s hard to say for sure. Could Apple have avoided them by running a public beta program similar to the Windows 7 beta? Probably. (Apple does beta test its software, but this is usually a closed program limited primarily to developers who pay for advance access to the products.) Will it ever happen? Not as long as customers continue to open their wallets for each new product, and Apple continues to practice “extreme secrecy” surrounding its new products. After all, it’s hard to “wow” a crowd about your new OS release if everyone’s already been using it for 2-3 months in beta…

Dell’s director of product management for its business client group, Darrel Ward, says that while Windows 7 appears to be superior to Windows Vista, its proposed pricing will be an obstacle to widespread adoption. Ward is quoted by CNET as saying that “In tough economic times, I think it’s naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista.”

Still, Ward seems to be encouraged by the level of interest Dell is seeing in Windows 7. “When Vista came out we didn’t have the motivation to do the types of services that we’re doing now. We didn’t have the clear customer demand for such services,” he told CNET, “We do have a visible number of customers, large and small, who are actually waiting for Windows 7 and who have already put plans in place to target the transition to Windows 7, they’re asking Dell for help. That demand and this opportunity is stronger than it has been in the past.”

While raising prices during a tough economic period doesn’t sound like a very smart move for Microsoft to make, there does seem to be a much stronger interest in Windows 7 than there was for Windows Vista near its release. That’s not surprising. When Microsoft released Windows Vista, it seemed to think customers would automatically upgrade as they had done in the past. However, Microsoft’s corporate customers (the bulk of its users) didn’t find Vista a compelling upgrade. It was more strict about the drivers it supported, didn’t work with a lot of older legacy applications corporations were using, and offered little incentive (in terms of improvements) to upgrade. It didn’t help that early adopters complained about incompatibilities, slowness, and frequent security warnings.

Microsoft has an opportunity to improve its situation with corporate customers in Windows 7, if it doesn’t price itself out of consideration. Most businesses are watching their finances carefully, and for Microsoft to be able to convince them to invest in an upgrade to Windows 7 they will have to demonstrate how Windows 7 will make things better than they are with XP. Given that XP has proven to be a relatively stable and secure environment in the business world, that could be a tough sell, especially if licensing costs increase significantly.

Let’s hope the powers that be in Redmond recognize that times have changed and that while Windows 7 is indeed an improvement over Vista, that doesn’t necessarily justify a price increase.

PC maker Acer recently announced an upcoming touchscreen, all-in-one PC called the Aspire Z5600. This new model vaguely resembles the Apple iMac, and is designed to take advantage of the multi-touch features incorporated into Microsoft Windows 7.

According to the Acer press release linked above, the Aspire Z5600 features a 24-inch display, “the latest generation of Intel processors” and hard disk drives up to 2TB. A Blu-Ray player combo drive is built-in. It also includes “the latest generation of MXM graphic processors” to ensure “optimum multimedia performance”… whatever that means.

Pricing and detailed hardware specifications are not yet available from the Asus web site. Images are available online on several non-Acer sites.

The OStatic web site published an article today entitled “What if Windows 7 Starter isn’t meant to just stop Linux on Netbooks?” in which author Kristin Shoemaker discusses Microsoft’s possible motivations in releasing a less-expensive “starter” version of Windows 7 at launch. The starter edition is supposed to allow users to launch up to 3 applications simultaneously, with an upgrade (which can be purchased) to allow unlimited application launches. Shoemaker suggests that having a limit built into the starter edition, any limit, may cause consumers to look at alternatives. I’ve also seen a lot of derision in the Mac press about this and the other various “levels” of Windows 7 (and Vista) functionality. I have to say that I agree with pretty much all of this.

On the one hand, I rarely run more than 3 apps simultaneously on my netbook. For one thing, there just isn’t enough screen real estate in a laptop (even my 17″ HP laptop) to comfortably run a lot of applications. However, I bristle at the thought of being physically unable to run a fourth (or fifth, etc.) app if my needs dictate it at some point… simply because Microsoft wants to choke a few extra bucks out of me.

I also agree with the Linux and Mac folks who point out that their operating systems have a server and a desktop version, period. While Ubuntu is working on a netbook version, that version isn’t trying to limit functionality but rather optimize the user interface for smaller screens and less-powerful hardware in order to provide a better user experience. That kind of a versioning I can support because it’s about tailoring the experience to suit the hardware, not about limiting a customer’s options so they can be up-sold.

I’m completely against the many different flavors of Windows 7 Microsoft is reportedly planning to release. I can understand a low-end version for home users that is priced under $100 and includes everything but business features like Active Directory, and a full version that is priced higher and includes all of the features available. I can even understand a server version for homes and small businesses that is priced well below that of the “datacenter” variety, again allowing for an inexpensive in-home or small-business server. That’s about as many variants of Windows 7 as I’d want to see. But Microsoft is planning 5 different versions of Windows 7 at the desktop and who knows how many on the server side. That is simply ridiculous.

Having said that, I’m very impressed with Windows 7 itself, in the “Ultimate” form Microsoft is beta testing now. I’m running that version on two different notebooks, one a netbook PC from Asus and the other my aforementioned HP 17″ laptop. In both cases, it’s performing extremely well. The netbook is at least as responsive in Windows 7 as in Windows XP. The visuals and performance on the higher-end notebook make it much more pleasant to use than XP… not that I have any particular problem with XP. Unless Microsoft prices Windows 7 too far out of my ballpark, I’m planning to buy licenses for my main desktop PC, laptop, and netbook. I like it that much already. The only thing I don’t like about it is this “umpteen different levels” of product. I didn’t like that about Vista, and I like it even less with Windows 7.

In the end, I’m inclined to agree with OStatic’s Shoemaker when she asks: “Does [Microsoft] think it will sell upgrades? Will it sell upgrades? Yes, on both counts, and probably not nearly enough. The question is, then, is Microsoft trying to get the upper hand in the netbook operating system market, or stomp out the netbook market completely? You don’t need to worry about market share when there’s no longer a market.” With some netbook makers looking at Google’s Android OS and others at Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, and Apple’s own rumored work on a netbook device, Microsoft’s tactics may indeed backfire on it.

CNET published an article on March 1 about Apple appearing to lose a “sliver” of its Internet browsing market share last month, based on figures collected by Net Applications.

Net Applications says that the Mac’s share of web browsing in January 2009 dropped from 9.93% to 9.71%, while Windows’ share increased from 88.26% to 89.37% during the same time frame. They also showed increases in Windows 7 usage, which Net Applications says “is an indication of strong interest in Windows 7″.

In the mobile sector, the iPhone had 66.61% of the market, but Android and BlackBerry are “rapidly gaining” market share. Android, for example, came in at fourth place (below Windows Mobile, Java ME, and iPhone). Not bad for a relatively new platform.

Still, all these stats should be taken with a grain of salt. As I’ve covered before, I suspect that Net Applications collects its platform and browser information by collecting the “user agent” strings sent to the monitored web servers by the clients accessing those servers. The user agent string, which looks something like “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6″, can tell you the browser, platform, and other features in use on the client end. However, because no kind of checking is (nor can easily be) done on the server end, you have to take the string at face value and assume it’s legitimate. However, it can be faked. Consider the following drop-down from Check & Get 3.3 (the tool I use to scan web sites for news items for one of my blogs):

Check & Get allows me to masquerade as one of the listed web browsers in order to get past any server-based restrictions on web-scanning tools of its type. Had I changed that setting and visited one of the sites Net Applications monitors, their stats would indicate a visit by Internet Explorer 6.0, FireFox 1.5, or Opera 7, which would be wrong. I don’t know how many people use a tool like this, or something else that sends a fake user agent string, but if the number is very great it would make such stats-gathering inaccurate at best, and useless at worst.

According to CNET’s Don Reisinger, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a number of interesting comments about Windows in the enterprise to Computerworld UK. Reportedly, Ballmer claimed that if you deploy XP in a business today, “most people” will ask their boss why they don’t have Vista. He then went on to say that the best way to make employees happy is to deploy Vista as soon as possible.

I doubt that Ballmer’s statement is as much about helping employers make their workers happy as it is about helping Microsoft’s bottom line. Reisinger notes that Vista is installed on less than 10% of the computers in companies in North America and Europe. By comparison, Windows XP is on over 71% of enterprise computers. Ballmer would, of course, like to see that change to a predominantly Vista landscape.

Where I work, we used Windows 98 on laptops and Windows NT on desktops. We skipped Windows 2000 and went directly to Windows XP. It was not a trivial effort, because many applications and drivers needed attention. It was a painful ordeal for IT, but we endured the pain because we believed that XP would eliminate a lot of the troubles we had in our environment.

For example, Windows 98 users were constantly downloading and installing things off the web. Frequently, these little gadgets caused problems. Maybe they just slowed the system down. Maybe they crashed software people needed to do their jobs. Or worse, they could have brought in a virus. Switching from 98 to XP allowed us to lock the environment down, prevent users from shooting themselves in the foot like this, and gain the reliability for which XP is known. Even in hindsight, I believe this was the right move. Switching from NT to XP was less necessary in terms of stability, but allowed us to move to a single operating system at the desktop, which simplified support and allowed us to do a better job taking care of our PC users. In short, although it was painful to migrate from 98/NT to XP, we were able to justify the move through improved control, better security, and less-complex support.

Today, however, we’re pretty much an all Windows XP shop. Vista might improve our security, but then again we haven’t had a virus outbreak or malware attack of any significance since installing XP. So, while Vista might improve our security, we don’t feel especially insecure now. Vista won’t help us consolidate multiple operating systems because we’re already down to one operating system. It won’t help us take any better care of our customers. In short, we’re not feeling any “pain” using XP, so there is a lot a less to justify a migration to Vista than there was to justify the migration to XP in the first place. I suspect many companies are in that same position.

As Reisinger says, “From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to keep XP for now.” That’s the real hurdle Microsoft faces in getting Vista (or even Windows 7) to become a success story. Until it makes more business sense to install Vista (or Windows 7) than XP, companies are probably going to keep XP in place.

CNet’s Ina Fried posted an article today entitled “Virtual Windows 7 not the same thing“. After I read it, I found myself wondering what point the author was trying to make. To save you the trouble of reading the article, Fried had positive experiences with Windows 7 on “real” hardware. Somehow thinking that experience would carry over to a virtual machine on the iMac, Fried loaded Windows 7 inside a virtual machine running on OS X on the 1GB (RAM) iMac. Not too surprisingly, Fried found that “although I got Windows 7 in body, I felt as if I had lost the spirit of the operating system. The two things I like the most about Windows 7 – its zippiness and its graphics – were muted in the virtual experience.” (Fried is comparing this to the experience of loading Windows 7 on a Mac Mini directly with Boot Camp, on a Lenovo X300, and on a Dell XPS M1210.)

A quick look at the beta page for Windows 7 shows that the minimum recommended specifications include a 1 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of hard disk space, DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB of video memory, a DVD drive, and Internet access. Since Fried doesn’t tell us what the processor speed of the iMac was, we’ll assume it was at least 1GHz. However, the virtual machine used to run Windows 7 had less than 1GB of RAM and (as is the case with virtual machines) emulated a video card that was unlikely to be anywhere close to DirectX 9 compatible. It’s not too surprising, then, that Windows 7 didn’t deliver zippy performance and impressive graphics. The virtual machine didn’t meet the minimum level of hardware required to deliver those characteristics. The fact that it booted and, as Fried notes, “performance was acceptable” and “it worked just fine” shows that Microsoft has done good work with Windows 7.

I suspect that if I loaded OS X Leopard on an older Mac with 256MB of RAM, a 500 MHz G4 processor, and a low-end graphics card my experience with it might not have been as positive as it was on the Core 2 Duo system I recently used it on. Manufacturers set their minimum specifications for a reason. They want you to have a good experience with their software. If you ignore those specifications, you can’t expect the same performance you’d get from a machine that actually has the horsepower to run it. If it runs at all, that’s probably a tribute to the manufacturer. (If I remember correctly, Apple won’t even let you load Leopard on a machine that’s not up to spec. Microsoft, at least, gives you the chance to shoot yourself in the foot apparently.)

In the CNet article, Fried concludes by saying “With Windows machines so cheap, I’m not sure that one isn’t better off getting a Netbook and having it sit next to their Mac, if they really need to run a Windows app or two.” That’s not bad advice, considering the price of a Windows PC these days and the cost of purchasing virtual machine software and a Windows license. It would also overcome the limitations of virtual machines (the overhead of emulation, limitations of video card emulation vs. real video cards, etc.).

Those unwilling to acquire non-Apple hardware may find the experience of CNet reader “wth31″ (a commenter to Fried’s article) of value. This reader commented that on a 24″ Silver iMac 2.4 GHz with 4GB of RAM and VMWare Fusion, Windows 7 “runs like a champ” and that they’ve “gotten way better performance from Vista in VMWare than… on PC’s with it factory loaded.” As noted above, you get better performance from software when you provide the horsepower needed to run it (even “virtual horsepower”). Fried didn’t do that and somehow seemed surprised by Windows 7’s lackluster showing.

I’ve been using Windows 7 on a 1.6GHz Atom-based netbook (Asus Eee PC 1000H) upgraded to 2 GB of RAM and a 320 GB 7200 rpm hard disk. In my (admittedly non-benchmarked) experience, Windows 7 loads, runs, and responds as well on the machine as the side-by-side implementations of Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.10. I’ve never tried to run Vista on it, so I can’t speak to how Vista compares to Windows 7 on the netbook, but then (with a few user interface exceptions) I don’t find Vista to be slow. I’ve also loaded Windows 7 on a virtual machine running inside my Vista x64 machine, and it seems to respond well there also. I think Microsoft has made some very positive changes in Windows 7 and I look forward to continuing to participate in the beta. (And I’m also curious to see what Apple delivers in Snow Leopard when they release it. And what the open source community delivers in the next Ubuntu release. What can I say? I enjoy technology.)

A recent ChannelWeb article entitled “ href="http://www.crn.com/software/213201688" target="_blank">Microsoft
Plays Feature Shell Game In Windows 7” suggests that
Microsoft plans to release multiple “levels” of Windows 7 again as it
did with Windows Vista.  I understand what Microsoft is trying
to do.  They want to make Windows available at a variety of
price points and ensure that customers get something for the extra
money they spend.  But what they’re not seeing, I think, is
that this differentiation in Windows Vista is one of the reasons many
corporate customers are sticking with Windows XP.

With Windows XP, corporations had the choice between two “Home”
editions and the “Pro” edition.  Given that Pro was the best
fit for most corporations, that’s the direction people tended to go.
 And say what you will about Windows, XP Pro is generally a
very stable and reliable operating system in corporate environments.
 It is also relatively secure when properly administered.

When Vista was released with its four different editions, many people
(in business and outside) were confused by the choices.  Vista
Ultimate may have sounded good, but it was priced well beyond previous
Windows upgrades.  Vista Home Basic was cheaper than some past
upgrades, but it was pretty clear that Microsoft stripped a lot of
features out of it, too.  

Now, imagine that you’re a Windows administrator in a corporate IT
department.  You’re asked to assess the need to migrate to
Windows Vista, select the version which should be implemented, and
identify the costs associated with a migration from XP Pro.
 When you look around, you find that XP Pro is working fine.
 Although Vista offers better security and some nice features,
you’re not really having trouble with any of that now.  The
costs associated with migrating are significant as well.  Some
machines may not meet Vista’s specifications and will require upgrades.
 Various software products and peripherals around the company
may not work with Vista and will also require upgrades.  As an
IT person, it’s easiest to administer an environment that is as
homogenous as possible, so you select a Vista version that meets the
“superset” of needs of everyone in your organization.  

When you go in to pitch this upgrade to management, the costs
associated with the hardware and software upgrades (apart from the
Vista licenses themselves) might be enough to give your management
pause to abandon the idea.  After all, XP is working with what
you have and there aren’t really any problems.  Tack on the
cost of the Vista licenses (since you probably went with Business or
Ultimate) and this is an expensive prospect.  Given the
economic climate, management might ask you to consider if they could
save some money by giving some users Vista Home Basic or Home Premium
instead of Ultimate or Business.  Now, where you once had a
nice homogenous environment you have a mish-mash of Vista Home Basic,
Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate licenses, with some users unable
to do the things the person in the next cubicle (who has a “better”
Vista edition) can do.  It’s a Windows administrator’s
nightmare.  So most will take the path of least resistance and
least cost to the organization – they stay with Windows XP.

If Microsoft persists in this pricing scheme with Windows 7, they may
find it just as hard to sell Windows 7 as it was to push Vista.

ZDNet’s Michael Krigsman posted a blog entry recently entitled “Why I love Windows 7, hate Linux, and think the Mac is Lame.”  Krigsman has been involved with Windows, Linux, and Macs “since the early days” and says that he’s finally settled on a platform (Windows 7) with no regrets.

He describes early versions of Windows as “virtually useless”, says that Linux is “sleek and powerful, yet nearly impenetrable for most users”, and that “Macintosh adherents tend to be frivolous time-wasters dazzled by cheap sensory effects”.  I don’t really agree with him, though I do understand where his opinions originate.

The earliest versions of Windows were pretty much useless.  They were Microsoft’s attempt to come up with something vaguely Mac-like, and they failed.  Since then, however, Windows has steadily improved over time.  In my opinion, Windows Vista didn’t fail because of its flaws, but because Windows XP was (for the bulk of users) fast enough, stable enough, secure enough, and reliable enough for the vast majority of users.  Where people were ready to give up Windows 98 and its headaches for the more-stable 2000 or XP, there wasn’t a similar incentive to switch to Vista from XP.  Add to that the bad press Vista got at launch time, and still gets periodically, and it’s no surprise the OS didn’t meet Microsoft’s expectations.

Linux has come a long, long way from its early days.  In particular, Ubuntu tends to “just work” on most hardware configurations.  It’s easy to use, offers lots of free software, and doesn’t require high-end hardware configurations.  While it’s easy for a novice user to start getting in over their head when they start digging deeper than the GUI, there seems to be a helpful community of people ready to lend a hand when it happens.  If you go beyond the basics, it can be a lot to learn, but just as many Mac or Windows users never touch the command line, it’s not necessary in Linux either.

As for the Mac, well, it’s not a bad platform.  While I do think Apple has had a tendency to focus on form over function, style over substance, etc., the fact that people remain loyal to Apple proves that there is an audience for all that eye candy.  I don’t think most Mac users are frivolous time-wasters, though.  I know plenty of people who are hard workers and use Macs.  I also know Windows users who aren’t. 

As for Windows 7, I’m planning to cover that more in depth when I’ve had the chance to spend more time with it.  I’m using Windows 7 right now to work on this article, as a matter of fact.  I’ve had no problems with it at all so far.  My XP drivers loaded without a problem and worked with Win7.  My applications have all installed and run without a glitch.  I haven’t seen a single crash or blue-screen even though this is beta software.  The GUI changes are generally proving to be more productivity-oriented than style-oriented as they were with Vista.  In short, I can see myself using Windows 7 when it’s released.

ExtremeTech has taken an early look at the graphics in Microsoft Windows 7, which Microsoft is claiming will ship in 2009.  As ExtremeTech reports, “The changes to the graphics landscape you can expect in 7 are not sea changes, but these relatively minor upgrades should provide welcome features and may have a significant impact on consumers.”

Windows 7 will apparently incorporate a new driver model, a new version of DirectX, and offer some graphics performance enhancements.  Games, it’s said, will see a significant performance improvement.  Microsoft will also address annoying screen flashes, scaling problems, and accelerated 2D (as well as 3D) performance.  It will also ship with support for MPEG, DivX, Xvid, MPEG-4, AAC (”though obviously not Apple’s protected stuff from iTunes”), WMV, and WMA.

ExtremeTech concludes their analysis by saying “For graphics enthusiasts and gamers in particular, Windows 7 sounds more and more like a must-have every time we hear something more about it.  We can only hope that, unlike with Vista, we’re not hearing about features a year before release that get cut before the product actually ships.”

While I am curious to see what Windows 7 looks like when it comes out, I sympathize with Microsoft for the beating Vista has taken in the marketplace.  I’ve been using Vista since about a week after its release.  I had trouble the first few months, but that turned out to be due to a defective motherboard and not defects in Vista.  Once I’d replace the board, Vista instantly became stable and reliable.  I haven’t seen a single blue-screen, very few application compatibilities (typically with apps more than 6 years old), no driver headaches, and reasonable performance.  On the other hand, I’m not saying Vista is perfect.  It’s not.  I like the UAC feature as a concept, but it’s a nuisance in practice.  And I think the performance of Windows Explorer in Vista is disappointing at best.  Windows XP, in my opinion, would blow the doors off OS X Tiger when it came to copying large numbers of files.  But based on what I’m seeing at the moment, Leopard blows the doors off Vista when it comes to file copying and browsing.  Even on less-powerful hardware, Leopard seems to be copying files faster (though I’ve not done any actual timing to confirm that). I don’t know what Microsoft “broke” in Vista that has slowed Explorer down so  much, but I hope they fix it.