djuk

Have been reading with interest all the forums and IRC channels in the past few days since Windows Vista was released and there seems to be a great deal of excitement about it... which is a good thing.

The bad bit is I can't seem to find anybody who actually wants to buy it - just thousands of people talking about cracks, activation bypassing, downloading ISOs etc - essentially stealing a piece of software which thousands of people have put years of their lives into making.

Is this where we're at today - are home users not buying software any more? are we just nicking it? What makes these people think they're entitled to a free copy?

David

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Probably the price.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

I doubt many existing XP users will go out and buy a new OS. Not every PC owner is computer savvy and the thought of replacing an OS hasn't even crossed thier minds I bet.
Vista wil be rolled out onto new PC's via the OEM route. So in a couple of years most PCs will be running Vista.

djuk

I think the price probably plays a part in it, although saying that if people are downloading it they obviously place some value in it and feel it would be useful to have.

After all, there's plenty of free operating systems out there if people object to paying...

mart360

vista is free at the mo, (beta test) but it needs more resources to play with, and wond bring huge benefits until dx 10 is playing ball allround.

3.1 95 98 98v2 2000 ME XP home XP pro and SP 1&2

not to mention all the server stuff nf nt

do you really need to upgrade, or is it beacuse the masses say you must??


if it aint broke why fix it?

Mart

djuk

Mart,

The beta programme officially finished last Wednesday when Vista was officially released to manufacturing.

I can totally understand the 'good enough' argument and to be fair I still know the odd person using Windows 98 because it does exactly what they want and not much more.

The mentality I struggle with, however, is those who DO want Vista, who DO see some value in it, but refuse to pay for it.

mart360

give the Billions that microsoft has made, the sharp practices it has used over the years, a freebie would do a great deal to boost confidence

funny how they never get referred to the monopolies commision

Mart

djuk

Could it not be argued that the likes of Panasonic, Pioneer, Audi, BMW, etc, etc have made a fair bit of cash over the years - I'd love to get some free kit but the consequences of walking into my local dealership and nicking a new RS6 are more severe for some reason.

Appreciate none of the above have a 'monopoly' on the marketplace but what exactly is the definition of a monopoly? A product so good that everyone has adopted it? Smart marketing and sales people who have worked some deals with PC manufacturers?

mart360

accoding to the articles i read within the last few months, it was a years free runner, to enable feedback from the public, but it ws f*cked up for a uk rlease, (no surprises there then)

mart

mart360

No, its allways been flawed, but sadly billy G used his market position to oppose/ crush/ walk roughsod over the opposition. the masses by default have gone with the flow. and yet they still bleat when it goes **** up.

what other manufacturer can repeatedly sell defective / unfinished products and still stay in business.

Mart

mart360

But if these manufacturer's applied the marketing ploy of selling them cheap, with the quality, they would effectivly decimate the competiton, then once you have the captive market you slowly ramp the price, and make your profits.

unfortunatly most business's use the profit before anything approach

mart

djuk

So I'm getting the impression you're not Bill's number 1 fan then Mart?

mykp

I think the problem here is that a large number of businesses and home users wont or cant afford to buy software. After all a new PC can be bought for £299 from the likes of Dell, so when you come to buy Windows XP for instance and your told thats £99 thats a third the price of the machine.

Plus even if you made the software 99p then people would still object to paying for it, just because they can download it for free. I know there are free OS's which can be downloaded and installed such as Linux but would the average man in the street do this, as its a perceived to be difficult and applications are few! (Wonder who started those rumours?)

On the flip side, I'm spending about half a day a week at present dealing with problems caused by windows genuine advantage. Even customers with legal copies have come into work one morning to find that their versions of XP are now no longer valid, thanks to Automatic updates. Even though the machines where bought with the OS installed and the disks where in the safe. However it doesnt help when companies like Dell stick the product codes on the machines, which means anyone can steal an product ID. I most cases I end up speaking to a Microsoft rep to sort out the problem. So I can understand why some would use cracks, hacks, etc.

Personally I wont be touching Vista until at least after SP1 or it comes on a new machine.

Iain Young

They're always getting referred to monopolies commissions. What do you suppose all those anti-trust law suits, being forced to share source code, forced to remove media player / internet explorer, and the huge fines that they keep getting are all about?

At the end of the day, MS has to make money. Revenue from XP etc is dropping, and any company (no matter how much money they have) has to change and innovate in order to survive. Giving out an operating system that has cost billions and taken several years to develop for free is not a sound business decision, (in fact it would be commercial suicide).

mart360

would it???

who would oppose them?? if anything it would strenghten there market position

Mart

Iain Young

Apple might have a thing or two to say about it in the courts...

besides, there's no point in everyone having your software if nobody has paid for it. You just end up having to pay developers to support it with no income from the product itself. Just doesn't make business sense.

mart360

ask AVG they do vwry nicley with a slightly tweaked model.

Home use free, business use is paid for,

MS have so much on the go, they could use the profits of the other stuff to cover the other bits they need to push.

and when everyone is well and truley dependant on your s/w you bring the enhancements in at a slight price, people pay as its reasonable, the next time it ramps again, and so on.

you have to drop the traditional profit vs sales outlook.


Mart

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

avg no longer free come jan 2007

mike1210

which raises the question who in their right mind would install AVG, yet alone pay for it

Iain Young

Amen to that.

Also consider that AVG is ever so slightly less complex than an operating system, and isn't even vaguely in the same league when it comes to development costs.

*Sonic*

We get Vista free through work, are we installing it, erm short answer NO

Will we recommend it to our customers, erm short answer NO

Our PC's would need to be severly upgraded (ie all replaced) to run Vista at any kind of level that we run XP, or even Win2k with some of our customers

Its almost like Microsofts new FSX, you need to spend a grand or two on a system that is capable of running it anything like what FS9 will run at on todays PC's

Vista - Todays operating system for tomorrows PC's
FSX - Todays Flight Sim for next years PC's

Hardware is only just starting to come out that is DX10

My PC is a 6 year old Celeron 1.2Ghz, 256Mb Ram, 4200Ti GFX card, DVD Writer, 400 Gb disk space it runs perfect, plays the games I want to play, OS is as fast as I need it to be, runs all other apps I want it to, and is capable of surfing the net

Why should I fork out probably around at least a grand to run Vista etc etc

I do have a better spec'd Laptop, that also does everything I need it to do, and want it to do

It is capable of running Vista, but the speed at which my laptop has now slowed down to, with the update of IE7, everything can stay as it is for another few years,

Iain Young

Well, don't buy it then I don't recall anyone forcing you to?

From what I've seen so far, Vista is a good step ahead from XP. Sure it has higher requirements, but that happens with all operating systems, (especially as customer expectations increase). The biggest part of Vista (for home users) is probably DX10. The difference this will make to gaming in the next couple of years will be great. Is it worth upgrading now? Probably not, but they have to release it sometime....

Intersting that you say IE7 has slowed things down for you. On my machines, it runs significantly faster than IE6 (and Firefox 2).

Out of interest, what sort of games do you run on that PC? I can't imagine that any games written in the last 2 years will even run on that specification...

SirFozzalot

Anyone know when are we likely to see Vista installed on new pc's?

I am looking at buying a new laptop before xmas. Is it worth holding out for one with Vista or is it going to a long time before we see it as standard equipment?

boxst

Hello

You should ask for a voucher to upgrade to Vista for free in January.

Steve

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I bought an OEM copy of Windows Media Centre Edition 2006 which comes with the voucher to upgrade free to Vista Home Premium

mart360

just downloaded my free 2007 model from them , so its free untill 2008


Mart

InvisibleMan

Will be installed on new machines in the new year.
installed vista ultimate at work yesterday, works fine on 1Gb but ideally could do with a fully compliant dx9 graphics card as not all apps worked on a slightly older laptop.