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| WILL WINDOWS VISTA RULE? |
A Qualitative Report Card. |
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| IMPACT OF VISTA. |
| Globally speaking, well, inspite of Microsofts efforts, there has been confusion on certain fronts. The first being "Why Vista" ! Why should I upgrade ? Naturally its the foremost question on top of most minds. And then you had so many claims/counterclaims, about the UAC, security, features and to beat it all one day you read SP1 coming, and then the next day: "No Service pack !" All this does get confusing not just for the Corporates but also for the individual buyers. And Windows 7? Hey, Vista's "just" been released and Windows7 is still a long way off ! Internally I can tell you that MS doesn't want dust kicking on Windows7, not even Marketing does... it is what speculators have been talking about ! Possibly to get the "hit-factory" running all the time ! |
Vista sales have already exceeded 60 million ! But for it TO RULE, it needs support from hardware industry. So far, Intel & AMD chipsets are fully supported however graphics cards & sounds cards are not that supported right now. The industry needs time to make drivers & softwares native to Vista which will take some time due to a complete new Driver & Software API. Some manufactures are not releasing or supporting old hardware which for marketing reason does makes sense but this forces people upgrade to new hardware. Now why would a new user buy a new computer or hardware to work with Vista if it works fine in XP & all he wants to do can be done in XP too.
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| Vista will rule after, maybe a year, when we will have cheap Intel GMA X3000 or AMD 690g based motherboards ruling the market because. believe it or not, onboard graphics is a reason for cheap PCs & cheap PCs are a reason for high market penetration of any OEM PC. Add to this better & mature drivers. |
Understandably, the impact of Vista on developing countries has been minimal, what with many still using Windows 98 ! Except for the geeks and the IT Sector and the students, the awareness about Vista in general is STILL low in developing countries. While a Vista could cost a days wage in a developed country, it could cost a months wage in developing countries !
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Microsoft has finally agreed to consider Differential Pricing Policy for Windows. With its offer of "Vista for $66" in China, Countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America too are looking forward to such a pricing strategy for their countries too. BUT Microsoft should not reward a country with low Vista prices, just because it has 'high  piracy incidence', lest such a step be mis-construed as being as being a reward for high piracy! The rationale for a differential pricing policy, should instead be the affordability in each country ! |
| HAS VISTA MET EXPECTATIONS ? |
| Well, Yes and No ! WDDM and
Aero are the primary VISIBLE features in Vista which cannot be exported to Vista. The new kernel IS good. Vista is great on security, file-handing, stability, & ease of networking fronts ! Its got some new cool features too ! However many other features can be used in XP by using other 3rd party applications. And while the world is waiting for Vista to become the next leading OS, all this smoke about Windows7! |
| Windows always draws speculation; probably because it is so basic to everything that we do these days with computers. I can tell you that currently the Windows 7 is only on drawing board for MS. there is STILL a lot of innovation that needs to flow to the customers from Vista launch. And before Windows7 is actually released, expect some REAL FUN in Windows Live for sometime ! |
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| HAS VISTA REALLY INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY OVER XP? |
| If yes fine. If not is such an expenditure justified against Vista's benefits... Especially, in face of the fact that by 2010 a brand new Windows7 will be launched ? Is this expense wholly justified against Vista's benefits? |
| I am inclined to think so. Security, Stability and File handling has really improved in Vista. You see much fewer BSOD's. If you find Vista to be slow then the reason can only be attributed to OEM Vista machines that are pre-loaded with Crapware and 3rd party trial application, which are actually responsible for most problems. A clean install of Windows XP and Vista on similar machines shows that Vista runs better. Vista memory management is superlative. In home usage, a lot of additional features has led to increased productivity. In Office usage, has productivity actually increased ? To an extent, I guess ! That's where Office 2007 does a great job in integrating with and utilizing Vista's features. |
| The visual appearance of Vista is great. The new bells and whistles (the sidebar and gadgets, integration of RSS, and built-in productivity applications like Calendar and Contacts for example) are very nice ... but there need to be more changes which are visible to the end user for more market sales. An end user may not care about WinFS or a better Kernel; he cares for a secure, faster & speedier file system to access & use his system. Vista has all these 3 and more ! But it will take some time for software developers to make WPFied softwares, & once the new UI is out, people will flock more to Vista, as Windows already has a solid backend; what it needs is a solid frontend. The SP1 is expected to address some balance issues. But it needs to be officially released sooner than as planned. |
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| FUTURE OF VISTA. |
| By now, most PC buyers know that Windows Vista offers enhanced security, reliability, stability and ease-of-use compared to previous versions of Microsoft® Windows. But few may know the following : |
- Vista had fewer security vulnerabilities in its first 90 days than XP did in a similar timeframe.
- All 5 of the top consumer security solutions work with Windows Vista.
- More than 1.9 million unique devices work with Windows Vista today.
- Vista has 4 times as many logo'd applications than XP did in a similar timeframe
- Of the 50 top-selling applications for Windows, 48 are compatible with Vista
- Over 1.9 million hardware devices are compatible with Vista? |
Windows being the dominant OS platform worldwide, Vista will rule, if not for anything, than the sheer fact that people are familiar with Windows and for any new platform to replace window, people will have to first unlearn before learning again, and that is easier said than done. That is why also maybe Microsoft wants more and more to get hitched onto their bandwagon...piracy be damned  ! Open source is there, and it has been there for quite some time, System builders are including Linux OS for quite a some time now, but still we don't see any boom on Desktop uses using Linux. Mac?...well, too busy catering to their niche 5% market share ! |
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- Authored by Anand C. Khanse, with inputs from Saurav Srivastava & Saurav Basu, Microsoft MVP's.
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| Anonymous Comment : The name 'Vista' was taken from Mesa Vista (which is a census-designated place (CDP) in Alpine County, California, United States). The place is very beautiful and Yes Vista too is ! Windows Vista come with great Eye-Candy features. Aero, Flip 3D ... makes your working so much easier and soothing. The cool desktop with black interface, by default, makes a rather good impact on the first time user. But since these eye candy features are Hardware driven, it makes Vista a bit of resource hog. Sure, Windows Vista increases the productivity to a level; but does it really give a boost ... ummm i guess not! |
| Vista has all the tools that XP has, and even if XP does not have the tools, it can still be equipped with those. The TPM support, the Bit-locker and all these features are useless for over 80% of population. A normal system runs on 512 MB RAM today. Also, Can Vista give some thing for those PCs? NO. it will slow them down! Windows Vista can be considered as a OK OS, and can be said a Step for WINDOWS 7, which I think will be the perfect OS. I prefer to refer to Vista, as a Beta 1 build for Windows 7... |
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 Madison Gauthier, from Saskatchewan feels : "Windows XP has had a long run, Windows Vista does not have so much time to be so popular as its predecessor. Also hasn't Microsoft indirectly admitted Vista's failure offering XP again on home PCs ? It allowed XP again on dell PC's (!) and offered USD 3 Windows PC's and USD 66 Vista in China ! |
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 Landon_82 wrote : Well its an interesting point of view, and a pretty balanced article coming from 3 Microsoft MVPs. But according to this cnet report "Windows XP still maintains a stranglehold on personal computing. As of June 2007, Windows XP is used by 81 percent of all computer users, compared with 5 percent for Vista". What do you guys say to that ? |
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These Links May Interest You:
Vista Trivia : Known & Unknown facts about Vista.
Gaming on Vista : Pro’s & Con’s |
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