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By now we are all aware of the delay in the launch of Windows Vista. It has been shifted back to November for corporates, and January (next year) for general consumers. Many reasons have been cited for this shift. However, a very valid point has been raised by the New York Times regarding this whole ballyhoo.

Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows runs on around 95% of all computers on Earth. Huge companies depend on the operating system to get their job done. Skilled labour is trained on this system, because people take it for granted that wherever they go to work, 9:1 chances shout that they'll encounter a Windows machine. Windows has created a reputation of its own. And MS, to uphold their promises, have to maintain that reputation.

MS has always suffered from security problems in almost every one of its applications. Be it Internet Explorer (the biggest security threat of them all) or Windows Media Player. Every application rolled out from their factory comes with security threats. Heck, software yet to be rolled out also are under security threat (remember Monad?). Being such a high expectation release, and one coming out after 5 years, MS is some thick soup. They can't afford to mess this up, and hence they need all the time they can squeeze.

The second biggest problem is the bad habit of compatibility that Microsoft has got us into. We are so used to having everything 'just work' on our machines. Evertying plugged in is recognised, everything installed gets customised. Everything just fits into place. Thats why, Microsoft has to make sure that all programs are backward compatible (softwares running on Win9x will run on Vista too). If they omit this out, production speed will sky rocket, yes, but they will lose out on the one area of accountability that they have. We can always trust Microsoft to roll out OS's which will work with older files. Like the article at the NYT site said, Apple doesn't work towards backward compatibility, hence are able to roll out faster updates. But thats the game they're playing, and hence have a smaller userbase. We are too used to Microsoft here, like it or not.

MS is definitely not the bad guy here at the moment, they are just a victim of their own promises and high ambitions. We can bad mouth them if they fail in those when Vista comes out, but bashing them earlier is only unfair!

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4 Comments

well,well, you sure know how to make me talk.

anyway, yes ofo course that is the big reason as why the vista os took so much to develop. every piece of compabilty must be in place.

just recently MS took xbox programmers to tune up media center for vista. also this pass week msn had a major internal shake up that everyone thought as just MS bugging everyone.

well, as a MS BUFF who follows MS very very closely i will give some thoughts on every Ms related about vista and why it was pushed back.

live is being ramped up right as we speak.
WLM is ready and just awaiting to open
direct x 10 is 100% ready
xna is out of the gate.
origami project is out of the gate and is bigger that is seems right now.
WM 6.0 is indevelopment and will hit with vista.
the new msn search is 90% ready.
media center is being worked on as i said by xbox programmers.
office 12 is 99% ready.
ms plans to launch new software with vista, a lot of response to mac like software.
Ms bought 10 web 2.0 companies already in 2006.
bill gates as you know had a chat with techcrunch guy, so h cares about web 2.0.
WMP11 is ready.
IE7 is ready


the thing is that MS i now so big that any movement must be calculated to no end because of the influence it has.

other thing is that you live wrong if you even compare the security risk of a up to date sp2 win xp with ie6.5 and a xp starter. it is just so not fair to even compare them.

-Craffter
    Anonymous Anonymous, on Tue Mar 28, 12:02:00 AM  

in the short version: Ms is so big that if he claps to hard and too soon, it would create quite a mess.so it prefers to be reactive and not proactive because of it.
    Anonymous Anonymous, on Tue Mar 28, 12:07:00 AM  

Personally, I would like you to talk since the world could really gain from your knowledge Alex! :D

You are right when you say that MS is big. Who are we kidding? Any change Microsoft makes today, runs to become a standard. People are not proud about it, but they don't have much choice either.

MS has a huge monopoly, like it or not. And I don't see anyone with enough resources (except for an entire country's tech industry) to throw MS off.

Secondly, being reactive always doesn't work. Look at Google. If Google had waited for something to happen for it to react to it, it would never have reached where it has! So I'll disagree with you over there. Rest, is agreed! :)

i erased a note that now i have to write back into this. the reasonof Ms being reactive is because of it already stated power, when a company has too much power and as is more and more powerful .the less proactive it becomes because of that same power. wehn you have so much influence every move, even if small is not only gonna be noted, is gonna be followed and conteracted just by default of the matter that you made a move. is like a gulliver in lilliput.

yahoo is proactive but not as much as before for the very same reason. now is its very reactive because it must be onward against google that is being proactive, and what is worse is a long tail proactive company. the effect comes ahead in the future not in the present. yahoo is a medium tail company and MS a short tail company. if MS makes a move you feel it in the very same day.

like i felted with all those msn-messeger-hotmail moves they did last week.. they affected millions of users for hrs. and that impact is felt inmediately.

that is what i meant when i said that it is good thing that MS is mostly reactive. if it were proactive, there would ten times more outcries of MS killing competiton and being a bully that it is now, just because being at the shadow of a corporation entity like that starves mediocre start ups and companies that get into the game.

and that is the reason why MS follows runned paths. to them a road someone builded can be a a freeway in their hands. and that is how they have done things.

mark my words. in 3 or so years when the new new comes forwards into the world and yahoo and google have passed the 100B mark then i guarantee you they will be way more reactive that proactive as MS is. thatis the nature of these things.

it passed with IBM,sisco and of course MS, it will happen with the rest when their time is due.

-Craffter
    Anonymous Anonymous, on Tue Mar 28, 05:11:00 AM  




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