Posted on 06/26/2010 5:58:57 PM PDT by PugetSoundSoldier
I have a couple of things to tell you about today. First off, we are excited to announce that Windows 7 has sold 150 million licenses to-date. As I’ve said before, Windows 7 is the fastest selling operating system in history with 7 copies of Windows 7 sold every second. Earlier this month, I published a post about Tami Reller’s keynote at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Technology Conference. One of the points that stood out for me was her comment that between companies actively deploying and evaluating it, approximately 75% of enterprises are looking at Windows 7 for their organization. That’s amazing! And of course people continue to be excited about the features and benefits of Windows 7, and the PCs that our partners are delivering for Windows 7. You can read about many of the awesome Windows 7 PCs from my colleague Ben Rudolph (Ben the PC Guy) over on the Windows Experience Blog.
(Excerpt) Read more at windowsteamblog.com ...
Apple users don't have to insult Windows users. They enjoy an OS (BSD Unix with a fancy GUI) with a few technical advancements Windows does not yet have. And Windows has a few that OS-X does not yet have.
But Windows has marketshare 10:1 (the topic of this thread), and that is unarguable.
It would be really stupid for any Mac fanbois to come over here and trash Windows, after the ungodly crap that the Windows fanbois dumped on the Apple threads lately. The contrast really is notable, isn't it?
And as far as market share, it's closer to 20:1, Windows over OSX. Of course this will probably be construed as an attack on OSX, and yet another sign of hate-mongering... Better to just leave the mis-statement (note I didn't charge LIE! like Mac fans are quick to do) sitting than to dare suggest a lower OS penetration.
Let's not revisit those threads. They were so disgusting I damn near dropped off FR until they went away. Thanks.
> And as far as market share, it's closer to 20:1, Windows over OSX. Of course this will probably be construed as an attack on OSX, and yet another sign of hate-mongering...
Not at all -- that's what I said -- Apple has about 5% worldwide to Microsoft's 90%. I think you'll find that's about 20:1 (actually 18:1 but all these numbers are inexact).
In the US only market, it's closer to 10:1.
I don't know what method "netmarketshare.com" uses to get their figures, and I'm not going to analyze it at 3AM, but let's not argue the details. My point up around comment #53 was that it looks damn silly, even stupid, to compare the uptake of Win7 to the uptake of OS-X -- in number of copies sold. Win7 has to blow the doors off OS-X in raw numbers of copies, just to do as well relative to their respective markets. That's all.
I guess I see it differently; it took Vista a lot longer to eclipse OSX, and many Mac adherents used that slow uptake to rally for the advent of OSX (and of course, those misguided Linux fans once again declared 2010 would FINALLY be the year of Linux-on-the-desktop).
It was inevitable that Win7 would overtake OSX; what’s shocking is that in just 8 months it’s tripled OSX. That is some amazingly fast adoption.
Yes, but Vista was god-awful. I won't go into the details, read the history of the development of Vista, it's all there. MSFT had to bail and make radical improvements and cut it way back, which is how Win7 came into being.
Businesses (including mine, where I'm Director or System Admin) ignored Vista, and rightly so. Thus, by the time Win7 came out, everybody was hungry and impatient.
Nothing wrong with that. Just saying, it's no surprise that Win7's uptake is way better than Vista's.
> and many Mac adherents used that slow uptake to rally for the advent of OSX
Sure, why not? It was a terrific opportunity. Vista was the best marketing campaign Apple ever had, and Microsoft paid for it.
> (and of course, those misguided Linux fans once again declared 2010 would FINALLY be the year of Linux-on-the-desktop).
Everybody's gotta have a hobby. I like Linux, have a few dozen servers running it. But it ain't a desktop OS.
> It was inevitable that Win7 would overtake OSX; what’s shocking is that in just 8 months it’s tripled OSX. That is some amazingly fast adoption.
You and I only differ in the "shocking" aspect. I'm not shocked one bit. It would be shocked if this were NOT happening.
No big deal... you're welcome to remain shocked. :)
I better get to bed, I'm to tired to be typing. I'll look for your further comments in the morning. TTYL...
I must say a lot of the slick you may or may not like is quite functional as well. Aero-peek, alt-tab,dragging the windows to the side for side by side viewing and other neat features are fantastic. When I am writing a report for some bacteria I am investigating it is great to have my notes on one side and word on the other. If I have something pinned on the background such as a calender or clock, or even a newsfeed it is great to just go down to aero peek and take a quick look.
Interesting... I bought my copy of Windows 7 a very long time ago...but still using XP...hmmm... Wonder how many like me there are?
Actually, I’ve tried Windows 7 and it is so much better than Vista that I could cry about it...but, It is a bit of a hog compared to XP and my simulators run so well now that I’m not going to change anytime soon. There is just no reason to change a working formula.
For those that want to jump on this - I actually have tried Windows 7 several times (keep hoping for change), both 32 and 64 bit versions. Unfortunately, my Flight and Train Simulators run faster in XP...so...
Eventually, I will have to upgrade but until I have to...
It is really good compared to Vista - compared to XP, not so much...
Let he who is without sin cast the first segmentation violation?
Cheers!
Operating system vendors *WISH* they had a model where your right to run the OS was timed, e.g. by the year, like the annual licenses are for big applications.
This is one of those circumstances where it could benefit the user as well -- you could continue to run an older version, as long as you kept your license fee up to date, and you'd be guaranteed support, etc.
But the model in play -- where you only pay Microsoft or Apple once for your license to run a given release of Windows or OS-X -- means that they not only WANT you to upgrade often, they have to FORCE you to upgrade often. That's their revenue stream.
Apple is more restrictive about running old versions -- they drop support for old versions fairly quickly. This is in part because with only 5-10% of the market, they don't have the resources to maintain support for long periods. (By contrast, MSFT will support XP until 2014 or so -- that's 13 years!)
Microsoft doesn't have that option. Their business customers would not tolerate a quick rate of OS upgrade because of the cost of testing custom apps, etc. for a new version. New releases break things, fact of life.
If Microsoft did not support old versions for a longer time than Apple, you'd see businesses dropping Windows and going to Mac at a higher rate than now.
You'll be forced to drop XP, but not for a few more years.
I spend most of my day doing half a dozen tasks in parallel. (I direct my company's System Admin department, and do a lot of detailed tech work myself as well.)
I typically have 10-12 windows open and visible, and have to refer to, or copy/paste between them, constantly. So I have three monitors running: a central 1600x1200, and a smaller 1280x1024 on each side. That almost gives me enough room to have the active windows all visible at one time.
When I have to work on my laptop away from my desk, my productivity drops tremendously, even with tricks like Aero, or OS-X's multi-desktop spaces. Those are slick, as you say, but they do not substitute for having everything spread out in front of me at once.
The small HP desktops are a piece of junk and if it wasn't for the Dell systems that our engineers purchased 3 years ago I think we would have already had that mutiny I spoke of earlier.
I've put in a requisition for some high performance Dell towers and hopefully we will get those soon, but the engineers will only use them if Windows 7 is installed on them. If it comes with Vista, they will rot in a closet until 7 is implemented.
From an end user standpoint, I find nothing good about Vista and I hope and pray for its speedy replacement. My engineers absolutely despise it, our IT repairmen hate it as well, and the only ones who like it are the ones being paid big bucks to push it.
No offense, but in my view, Vista stinks.
I’ll confess. My main machine is:
[IMG]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i300/AllenDB/Win98.jpg[/IMG]
As others have said, I have software and hardware that I use and XP would choke on.
I checked out the Samsung N150 and until Feb of this year they were marketing it with XP. Now if I can get XP Pro on it???
Stupid HTML!!!!
Skewered with the NULL pointer! :)
Actually, I think Microsoft’s approach going forward will be emulation, either lite or full-on. For example, Win 7 Pro 64 bit lets you run old programs with Windows 95 compatibility - that’s a 15 YEAR lifespan so far. Assuming that Windows 7 is supported for the same amount of time, we’re talking an OS supporting 30 year old software. It conceivable a person could work their entire life with a single OS and a single program.
I know that for some applications (like some hardware-centric 32 bit only programs I have) I use the XP virtual PC built-in to the OS, and it works perfectly. And for others, just running them in Windows XP or W2K compatibility mode is enough.
I suspect that is the future for Microsoft; dynamic emulation of older OSes depending upon how you choose to run a given program. With the horsepower of modern computers and OSes this becomes a viable option.
I’m a technical guy myself (lots of schematic capture, PCB layout, and 3D CAD work). And because I travel a lot, I use a wide-screen 17” laptop.
I LOVE Aero for the ALT+TAB and taskbar preview alone; it GREATLY improves my productivity because I can find the right datasheet/document that I need right at that second (having 8-10 data sheets and 4-5 browsers open for different documents makes things cluttered).
Your engineers are smart to demand Win7; it’s a great productivity boost for those who need to look at multiple documents in parallel.
I use it for development purposes, some apps (and when doing cross-platform development) require I use XP Pro. So I fire up the Virtual XP, run inside it as needed, and even switch easily between Win7 and XP, since the Virtual XP appears as a separate window/process to Win 7:
Here's a link to my current screen showing that very functionality. The Virtual XP PC is the smaller, inset window on the right, and my Win7 is everything else.
You can make the Virtual XP go full screen as well, if you want to live within XP only.
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