MS Upgrades To Be Smaller And More Frequent 267
duplicantk8 writes "Following the numerous delays to the Vista launch, MS is planning to have more frequent and smaller incremental upgrades, according to the Financial Times." From the article: "Those delays are set to end late next year with the simultaneous launch of new versions of Windows and the Office suite of PC applications in the company's most significant new product cycle since Windows 95. The new versions of the company's key PC software are likely to rekindle higher growth after a period that saw its growth rate slip below 10 per cent for the first time last year, according to Wall Street analysts. Mr Ballmer's comments are the most public sign yet of the dent to Microsoft's confidence in its core development process that resulted from the Vista delays."
nice (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they're trying to please too many people at the same time... this is called 'impossible'...
Great (Score:4, Interesting)
too ambitious? (Score:5, Interesting)
It won't help (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft almost got it right with XP, but then they got greedy/stupid at the last minute and fragmented the product line (first Pro v Home, then Media). The 31 flavors of Vista is bad enough, but to compound that with multiple, more frequent upgrades will be even worse.
Marketing driving development (Score:3, Interesting)
Compare to non-proprietary development where there is no rush to create features, and security issues get resolved quickly.
never give it automatic control (Score:5, Interesting)
Innovations (Score:2, Interesting)
All of the innovative features I've heard about in the up coming ms poo (read: vista) is that it will have a cleaner gui (read: like aqua) allow for icons to be representative of what they contain (like osx) and genie like effects for minimizing things (like osx)
It's such a buzz word these days.
the only innovation I see is copying other peoples stuff, and suing the pants off of anyone who even glances at theirs.
I bet all 7 versions of vista blow.
And what's worse, I'll probably still end up using it at work.
Today at work I was talking shit about vista. . . imagine that. A co-worker said "I can't wait for the new internet explorer!" and was serious.
I asked why, and he said "because it's going to be awesome!". again he was serious. I almost vomited.
I had to hear the rest, so I asked why it would be awesome. "its going to have tabbed browsing and other cool stuff!"
What other cool stuff I asked. "Stuff" was his reply.
Being excited about tabbed browsing is like getting excited because the new '06 Lexus will have a bose tape deck
Wasn't Win XP just that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that why most of the corperate and even many home users (like myself) of 2000 opted NOT to upgrade at all?
The article was sketchy, maybe smaller expense, smaller expectations make some sense. Less cost (to MS and the consumer I would think) per upgrade, less benifit, decide to upgrade every few years, but MS has part of the user base upgrading all the time, not just in the year or so after a big software release.
Re:Windows update.... (Score:2, Interesting)
However much I love the way you can do that apt-get update/upgrade bit, synaptic, and even that alert thingy you get with Ubuntu about new updates, I do think we could learn a bit from the whole "smaller patches" thing.
Cases in point -- I understand that they're working on incremental patching for Firefox for the future release. Currently, if you want an update, you download the entire program again. Did they ever get that multiple uninstall icons in Windows thing fixed? I usually download the latest ver, uninstall the old one, then install the newer one where I formerly had to dig around in the registry to get rid of those extra "add/remove" entries.
Most of a distro's packages (if not all of 'em) work on the same principle of downloading the new one, uninstalling the old one, and installing the new. Fine and well if it's a small lib or something. Pretty bad when you've got to get security updates for the guts of KDE or OpenOffice.
I guess this may be one of the consequences of software choice/freedom. Many architectures, different options, different circumstances prevent one generalized small patching system. Have to take the whole thing out and plop a new one in.
Out of curiosity, how does something like a Gentoo deal with security patches and bugfixes? Would they need to recompile each time? That would be a bigger drag than an apt-get update.
I can see this as only a good thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me which corporation will install a new point release of ANY Microsoft OS? Hell, remember service pack 2? That's technically speaking, a whole point release. And where I work, and countless other places, IT managers opted NOT to install it for a *very* long time until the bugs were worked out in that point release.
This idea of 'smaller' and 'more frequent' upgrades plays merely into the Linux world's hands. The problem with Windows is that there's a tie-in to everything. So if a change must be made, it affects the OS at the kernel level. With Linux, kernel updates aren't as frequent nor as impacting. However, KDE can release a new version and since it's part of x windows and not attached to the OS in a surgical manner, it really doesn't matter. People don't know that now because Linux isn't mainstream, but they will when they find themselves extensively testing for compatibility with legacy apps they have in-house, or whatever with regards to Windows.
This is the opportunity for the Linux community to come together and offer a *true* desktop competitor to Windows. As it stands right now, and I know the
If Linux as a desktop becomes EASY to use (and I mean damned near idiotproof), the server can pretty much remain as it is. Nobody cares about the server when they are using their desktop, especially as an end-user in say, Accounting. They just want to get their figures out the door without having applications crash and close on them.
Now's the time to do it though.. Microsoft is going to set themselves up badly with Vista... and sometimes you only get one good chance to whack the bad guy in the back of the head. And then kick him while he's down
Re:OpenDoc? (Score:2, Interesting)
OpenDoc may have been "modular", but everything modular is not related to OpenDoc. If fact, the two ideas you link have nothing in common, and your ability to connect the two based on one buzzword is sobering. In fact, it makes Jesus cry.
MS is not copying Apple's product release strategy either; there is no "strategy" involved with releasing minor updates to product.
What Microsoft is copying is the straw-grabbing desperation of Apple from 91-96, where they announced one OS inititive after another as their development plans fell like flies in a microwave oven.
tinfoil hat (Score:3, Interesting)
More frequent updates, so that they can slowly lay the groundwork for mandatory upgrades to Vista?
(/tinfoilhat)
Re:Smaller changes? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suppose you haven't used the latest versions of Vista? I was just doing it and is totally confused by the new Explorer UI, and I'm pretty used to working with Windows. I can't imagine what Vista similar to this form will do to my mom. When others seem to be trying to simplify, MS sure is going the other way.
For example, if you go to Documents from the Start Menu, you're seamlessly put in a virtual folder. Not really a physical one where the files are, but a folder based on a file search. The files there can be in several different places, but you don't really notice easily as the searches are now instnataneous thanks to the new indexer (a good thing in all this mess). So then you try to go to your *real* documents folder and find it's in a completely restructured place (hint: Documents and Settings is no more in Vista). And there you have the changes involved when you just try to go to a folder.
It's really, really, a lot of changes in this build, feels like more to me than going from NT4 -> 2000 actually.
And that's just the end-user thing. What's in there for devs? Well, an entirely new development API from scratch -- WinFX is there to succeed Win32, and it's anything but similar, don't even think of having it being backwards compatible. While Win32 was C libraries, this is
I'm actually starting to believe Microsoft may be introducing *too much* stuff in Vista at once for devs and end-users alike. To develop Windows Vista apps, you're best off in using Visual Studio 2005 (not out yet),
So don't come here and tell me there can't be much smaller changes.
More modular approach (Score:3, Interesting)
So does that mean IE will become a module again?
And the standard release will be the reduced edition?