Gates: Vista is doing just fine

[kiwi_2005]

Puts on helmet and waits for incoming

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-993...l?tag=nefd.top

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says sales of Windows Vista have been "rapid", with more than 140 million copies sold worldwide.

Gates, speaking in Tokyo, said the figure represented "a very rapid sales rate," according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday.

Despite the sales figures, Microsoft has admitted to struggling with the public's perception of Vista. Windows XP, Vista's 7-year-old predecessor, is still popular among both businesses and consumers.

Microsoft already extended the deadline for ending XP sales to large computer makers one time, allowing sales through June 30, as opposed to ending them this past January. The software maker also granted a more narrow extension, allowing XP to be used on ultra-low-cost computers through 2010.

More recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company might reconsider its decision to stop selling XP next month.

While Microsoft ponders yet another stay of execution for Windows XP, it's readying a new version of Windows, being developed under the code name "Windows 7."

Gates, speaking in Miami last month, seemed to indicate that Windows 7 could come earlier than expected, perhaps within the next year, putting far ahead of the anticipated development schedule.

[Tchocky]

Haven't the vast majority of those sales been to OEM's, though?

Consumer demand is a different(ish) variable.

[nikimcbee]

I wouldn't know, I have XP

[bookworm_020]

I'll just wait till I get a new computer, or the new Windows comes avaible.

[Skybird]

Statements like that he made before. And I wouldn'T expect him to piblöicly admit that Vista doesn't do well, but anyway, as was posted some weeks ago, in an uncautious moment when he had down his guard he admitted that Vista "sucks".

I am sure the sale numbers are what they are becasue of complete system selling with Vista preinstalled. the interesting point would be to know how many separate Vistas they sold. From a former colleague who is salesman in an electronics chain store I hear that today as well as one year back then it "rests like lead in their shelves".

Two days ago I ordered a Windows XP backup, for smile price since it is a resale of unused licenses they received back from leasing deals with companies. For 38 euros I'm on the safe side - the unlocks for my original discs are all consumed up, and the new number I got after many questions from Microsoft on the telephone I seem to have lost. So I could not reinstall, only copy over an old HD image - with plenty of old files now in it, so that sooner or later I may want to do a clean install again.

[goldorak]

Yes vista is doing fine, so well infact that the ultimate version went from costing 500 € to 280 € in less than a year.
Microsoft never ever slashed prices on its retail offering.
Just think that windows xp pro even after 6 years is still begin sold full at the same price 400 €.
:rotfl:

[HunterICX]

1 of the main reason I just never will get Vista is the way it looks and works...

the whole Design is just too wild, too fancy in my opinion well actually..I think is butt ugly
but perhaps its just me loving plain, basic and simple.

the whole index of Vista pisses me off, I was at a friends house and when I looked in the control panel I completly lost myself looking for things that took me just 2 clicks in XP.....also looking at the Memory usage of just the bloody thing running (600 MB) I was like...my XP isnt even using half of that!

also looking at apples Ibooks G4......:hmm: did Microsoft go the same dirrection? too much fancy features? I guess they did

my 2 cents

HunterICX

[Steel_Tomb]

I'm with Hunter, I used Vista for roughly 5 minutes and hated every second of it. You have to go through so many different windows, click yes when the paranoid security settings kick in about 10 times. and thats just to change the desktop picture!!! XP is just more logical in its layout, simple is better. Half the flashy graphical things in vista aren't really viable anyway (like the thing where you switch between windows like its a slideshow... whats the point in that? When did the start bar stop working like that???)

[Platapus]

I bought a new PC for my gaming. Naturally it came with Vista. I, as the customer had no choice.

"Gates, speaking in Tokyo, said the figure represented "a very rapid sales rate," according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday."

I bet that the rapid sales rate is directly tied to the rapid sales rate of PC computers.

The true measurand would be how many people bought Vista without buying a new computer?

The first thing I did with my new computer is move Vista to another partition and install XP. Not a lover of XP, but it is a lot more efficient than Vista. Vista eats up a lot of memory unless you tweak it.

[Skybird]

And what I especially do not like: if an OS consumes such a ridiculous ammount of system ressources and behaves as if it is the acutal application you want to run. An Os should be as small and less hardware depending as possible. It is just the empty screen - onto which the actual movie (software) you are interested in is projected. Vista engineers seem to think their OS is the star of the show, with plenty of behavior like a neurotic primaballerina.

If their next OS is like this in it's basic philosphy, I will try to skip that one, too. Make it small, make it solid, make it tight, reliable, practical and secure - and as less hardware-consuming as possible and not the other way around . Laser-light-shows and glass surfaces are not wanted over here.

[bradclark1]

I have a new desk top with a quad-core and because of that things work smoother etc I guess but I really don't see anything wrong with Vista except for authorizing installs 2 or 3 times at a shot which gets a little irritating.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

1 of the main reason I just never will get Vista is the way it looks and works...

the whole Design is just too wild, too fancy in my opinion well actually..I think is butt ugly
but perhaps its just me loving plain, basic and simple.

the whole index of Vista pisses me off, I was at a friends house and when I looked in the control panel I completly lost myself looking for things that took me just 2 clicks in XP.....also looking at the Memory usage of just the bloody thing running (600 MB) I was like...my XP isnt even using half of that!

also looking at apples Ibooks G4......:hmm: did Microsoft go the same dirrection? too much fancy features? I guess they did

my 2 cents

HunterICX

Yep. Ugly and a waste of system resources. I ended up having to get a more expensive laptop than I otherwise would have just so that it could run Vista smoothly. I'm also not impressed with the stability. I've hardly installed any new software on the laptop and it's already BSOD'ing like crazy. I like it even less than WindowsME.

[kiwi_2005]

Vista needs to be on a stable PC. 2gigs of ram is minimum but 4gigs is better, a friend has vista 64bit running on 8gigs of ram it flies and the problems he use to have when running on 3gigs disappeared. Vista needs power to run or it will fall over get use to it though as upcoming future windows OS's will be the same.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

Vista needs to be on a stable PC. 2gigs of ram is minimum but 4gigs is better, a friend has vista 64bit running on 8gigs of ram it flies and the problems he use to have when running on 3gigs disappeared. Vista needs power to run or it will fall over get use to it though as upcoming future windows OS's will be the same.

They're using it as the basis for future OS's? Please no. Vista's the perfect example of fixing what ain't broke - change just for the sake of change.

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

They're using it as the basis for future OS's? Please no. Vista's the perfect example of fixing what ain't broke - change just for the sake of change.

Yea its the speed at how technology is moving, every 6 months the cpu ups a few mhz the gfx card/mobos etc.,. OS's is the same i remeber when going from win95/98 to winxp i found so many things wrong with xp at the begining one of my biggest moans was having to upgrade more ram 128mb ram just didn't make it.

I read somewhere that cpus already can be sold as 20ghz cpu or higher if they wanted too, but drip feeding us every 8 months or so gives them a fatter bank balance.

MS can't change for the sake of change they need to keep there millions growing.