Microsoft makes business case for Windows 7
SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft trotted out some of its biggest customers on Tuesday to make its case that it still makes sense to spend money on software in a tough economy.
The gathering of invited corporate IT users here is designed to serve as the beginning of the business push for Windows 7, which is already available to larger businesses and goes on sale to consumers and small businesses on October 22.
A panel of Microsoft executives and customers talked about the pending launch of Windows 7 at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday.
(Credit: CNET News)Among those already trying out Windows 7 is Intel. The chipmaker did a lot of work to make Windows Vista work, but like many companies, it decided not to put it on its own desktops.
By contrast, Intel is adopting Windows 7 rather quickly. Already about 500 employees from throughout the company are testing the software, said CIO Diane Bryant. Of those workers, 97 percent said they would recommend the operating system.
"It's a very strong pull," Bryant said.
Although a good business case can be made for upgrading our machines, it can still be a tough sell, said IDC analyst Al Gillen.
CEO Steve Ballmer presided over an event that was, effectively, the business launch of Windows 7.
(Credit: CNET)"The problem is it costs money to save money," Gillen said.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who earlier Tuesday sent out an e-mail to customers arguing for "the new efficiency" driven by software, is slated to speak shortly at the event being held at the at the University of California, San Francisco's Mission Bay campus.
Update 9:55 a.m.: The panel has wrapped up and Ballmer has taken the stage. So far, we're hearing familiar talk about doing more with less and his case that technology is at the early stage of its influence on business.
10 a.m.: Ballmer starts his pitch for Windows 7.
Ballmer said his hope is that, once the new operating system hits the market, that individual workers will be going to businesses asking them to put Windows 7 on their corporate computers. "I think we are going to see a lot of that kind of demand," Ballmer said.
But, he acknowledged that alone won't sway businesses. "Even with that swell of interest, you are still going to have to confront the new efficiency."
There, he said, it will come down to whether Windows 7 really can make business workers more productive, something he clearly believes it can.
10:20 a.m. Ballmer has switched into the full-on sales pitch, highlighting the cost savings that can be achieved. Customers can expect to save $90 to $160 in costs each year per computer that they move onto Windows 7, largely from lower support and management costs. (It wasn't clear if this was as compared to a PC running XP or one running Windows Vista.)
Windows 7 can also make it cheaper to deploy new software, though Ballmer acknowledged that skeptics will point out the cheapest thing is just not to deploy new software at all. "I got that," Ballmer said.
Still, he said, it's a "very good place in the product cycle" to embrace Windows 7," Ballmer said, noting that businesses that move now would be early adopters, but not the first companies to do so, pointing to a list that included Ford, Fiat, BMW, Bombardier, Continental Airlines, Intel, Halliburton and Starwood.
Ballmer said he expects most companies will start moving to Windows 7 as they add new PCs, but won't do large-scale upgrades of existing machines and probably won't rush out to replace all their PCs either.
10:30 a.m.: On to questions and answers. Microsoft starts with a few written ones that came in over the Internet. First off: No, Ballmer is not free for golf next Monday--he'll be in London.
10:32 a.m.: Well, he took a couple more written questions but no live questions from the audience before the event wrapped up.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Oh what a card you are! That's very witty of you indeed. Please, do go on. :)
Windows 7 is going to succeed and **** all over whatever OS you use in terms of market share and application support. Deal with it.
I am sure once the new CADs are out, that takes advantage of GPGPU and DX11 to speed up rentering, calculations etc, you will reconsider upgrading to 7.
It'll also cure cancer, do your laundry, get you dates (and turn your wife into a supermodel), and change your brake pads when they wear out. Windows 7 will then bring about world peace, make your male member larger, get you a home equity loan, feed your cat, keep the hot tub chemicals topped-up, and reverse global warming. Of course, if you get the Ultimate package, Windows 7 will then make you immortal, violate quantum mechanics, and then design a spaceship that goes faster than the speed of light. Oh, and it washes the boat for you every time you get back from the shore with it... can't have that salt water eating your prop alive, now can you?
...says so right there in the ad copy.
No it's not. Just the market share and the application support.
You can still troll here if you like. It's not going to make any difference. :)
Most people focus on the desktop side. But you know 85% of microsoft's revenue comes from server products. Thats where the big money is and why MS trumps everybody else in scope and reach. But I think businesses will adopt win7 because they held off with vista. They can't sit on XP forever. Much smaller businesses probably can wait longer but mid to large companies cannot.
Hopefully Microsoft will continue its long tradition of releasing shoddy product so that I can make good cash fixing trashed operating systems from desperate users."
Not too long :)
I am pleased that Win 7 is coming out and that it should address a lot of the issues and concerns that consumers had about the operating system. But then again, I said much the same thing about Snow Leopard with OS X.
I get paid when machines don't boot, fail, hardware dies, or end users need training on how to use new products. I benefit any time there is a new release from any OEM.
But as for Microsoft getting praise from the vmedia and Windows 7 getting high marks from reviewers, I can certainly understand why you are so unhappy.
I work at a company with ~20 Vista machines, and I have yet to see a single machine get any type of virus.
Vista works.. And Windows 7 just works better.
Windows XP is obsolete, I never cared for it 1/10th as much as I loved Windows 2000.
>>>>Riiiiiiight. And your evidence? Oh, that's right, you're just wishing out loud. Some penetration tester, LOL.
Just Google "Pwn2Own," and see how "NOT secure" Vista and 7 are. You might be surprised to find that the laughingstock of security is not Windows anymore.
Vista got "pwn"ed in that contest as well. Not exactly an example you would want to point to...
JInitiator is the only thing that I have seen an issue with so far, so some Oracle based web apps aren't liking it, but that's IE and not Windows.
As for the Linux/OSX clubs... Both have great OS's with awesome potential to their clients, but this is the best thing Microsoft has made in a long time. Coupled with Office 2010, other groups might feel a bit of a pinch, because this combination to chip into other market shares.
I use all three and I enjoy them for what they each bring to the table.
>>>>Yes, I know, but it took longer. And you do recall what the hackers have been saying in the interviews afterward, don't you? They've said they can find 5-10 OS X bugs in the amount of time it takes to find one for Vista. And they've also stated how much harder it is to reliably exploit one of them, because of the mitigations.
Each of them has stated plainly that OS X has no defenses against remote code execution. All it has is authentication to prevent root infection, and that can be circumvented with a privilege escalation exploit, as can a limited user account in XP. Once again, how is Vista LESS secure than its competitors?
Pretty sure I won't hear from you until we meet again in the next blog forum, where you will repeat the same chant. Keep wishing!
...a few whole minutes (if not seconds) longer. Not exactly reassuring, is it?
"They've said they can find 5-10 OS X bugs in the amount of time it takes to find one for Vista."
So explain why Miller won it with a bug he sat on and kept closely guarded for well over a year, instead of using one of those mythical "5-10 bugs"?
I really put no stock into these events. All this shows is that the current OSs are all vulnerable. That it takes longer for Vista is really rather immaterial because the real-world evidence still shows that you are less likely to encounter malware with a Mac or Linux machine. Maybe this is because the platforms are less popular and maybe that will change if they become more popular. All I know is that there is a lot of "maybes" here and therefore I prefer to go with what is known and for that reason I would rather use a Mac or Linux machine if I don't want to have problems with malware today.
The prize was for the 1st, not the second or third or fourth or fifth. . .
and one more tidbit, OS X was actually popped twice in the most recent one as it was about browsers and not really the OS. It went Safari(OS X) then Firefox(OS X) then IE. When asked why OS X was the victim for the Firefox exploit he replied that while the vulnerability existed on OS X and Windows, but it was easier to exploit on OS X.
I put a lot of stock not into the contest itself, but the explanations given by the hackers themselves. As we're seeing in the wild, it proves nothing to observe which platform is being attacked the most. But when someone gives a semi-technical explanation as to why it's easier to infiltrate one platform than another, that should and does mean something, especially when these are the people the software makers pay to find bugs before the bad guys do. If you don't believe Charlie Miller, then who will you believe?
BTW, there are Trojans for the Mac, just so you're aware. And just like with the Mac, all the malware out there for Vista right now requires user intervention. I've stated before that, to me, your position is that of a sitting duck, quietly and motionlessly hoping and waiting for the hunter to spot a larger animal and pass you over. But if the hunter is actually carrying a 410, then what do you do? To me, there are at least three good reasons as to why you should be worried. 1) The latest versions of Windows have been foiling hackers for the past three years, and W7 is even tougher now than it was when Nils managed to break through in March. 2) Security researchers have been saying for three years now that Mac OS has supplanted Windows as the most vulnerable of all platforms. 3) Criminals are writing more and more malware for the Mac these days; it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to write a drive-by download for it. And when they see how easy it is, they'll have a field day.
@Penguinisto:
Are you a penetration tester? If so, then please set Mr. Miller and the others straight. As it were, no one has questioned since 2007 that the Mac is the most vulnerable of all platforms, except for the Mac romanticists themselves. I seem to remember having told you before that if it helps you sleep at night to keep telling yourself that Windows is the easier target, and not JUST the bigger target, then go ahead and do it for your own sake. But as long as you continue to spread such misinformation here, it will continue to be refuted. These hackers aren't making empty assertions like you are; they're explaining WHY Windows is more secure. When I said seconds, I was talking about how long it took to EXECUTE the attack, not plan it. And it takes proportionally longer to plan an attack on Vista as well, because you basically have to find three vulnerabilities (one for the browser, one for ASLR, and one for DEP). If you think it's so easy, and takes no longer than the Mac, then set the record straight.
Vista does not default to superuser, as XP did. Vista has its own form of authentication, complete with registry virtualization and other such technologies with fancy names that may have impressed on you once upon a time that the Mac was supposed to be some kind of fortress. Both can be circumvented, as can a limited user account in XP. But Vista has ASLR and DEP, which Leopard does not (at least not functionally implemented). Do you think Apple would have added ASLR to Snow Leopard if they thought it wouldn't become necessary eventually? They're preparing for attacks to come. And Snow Leopard still doesn't have DEP, Safe Unlinking, or behavior monitoring (it has a signature scanner, though). Be thankful, but not cocky. You're still very vulnerable.
XP is not stable, I have to reboot my computer twice a week and it bends under heavy load, crashes, freezes, its not good.
My bet is there are teams of people fighting through the bugs trying to make things as compatible as possible for launch...
I think real progress is being made in the MS world!
Especially if it is Vista to 7.
What a pain it's been. MS no longer has my trust in their new technologies.
Tom
Win7 64-bit will have even more support, and will eventually become the defacto OS for all new high end PC's.
No one who actually cares about driver support would touch xp64bit with a 10 foot poll. However, as ewsachse has mentioned, vista 64bit has full driver support. When I used it before win7, I never had trouble finding drivers for it. And with win7 64bit, not only does it have full driver support, but I don't even have to find them anymore - its automatic driver finding and installation works flawlessly.
Yeah... what you ran into was a lack of support not from Microsoft, but from the hardware OEM's. Remember, Microsoft can create some fairly generic drivers in the OS, but they are dependant upon OEM's to write their own drivers for their own hardware. if that OEM chooses not to do so, then that's not the fault of the OS maker.
Support in Win7 has been very very good.
And BTW, where is it better than XP?
BTW, I missed your comments on how it is better than XP. Comment?
True, I have seen some benchmarks of Win 7 vs XP (Forget Vista....slower than all). XP beat Win 7 usually less than a second in many applications, but Win 7 destroyed in boot and shut down times. Plus the much better interface and driver support, it is a win win for me personally.
Now if you a have two machines with XP and Win7 for comparison, then try using Win 7 for a week solely and see what you think of it. If you just have it loaded on a test system that you aren't actually putting to work, then it's not a very good comparison.
But here's' another good reason: XP is retired and no longer in production. Support will be disappearing as well. You can't buy it new if you wanted to.
I suppose you can forever stick with driving a 1995 Taurus if you really want to, but the world does move on. Your choice if you want to be left behind.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116511
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018RCAD4
Just to name a few...
MS makes case for business and Windows 7.
OK, cool.
But all I see are commercials with a little kid drawing cartoons with animals saying "Every IT pro I talked to loves it"
LOL
I mean, come on.
No, really.
What planet is he living on?
Being a Network Administrrator for a major gov't department I can tell you that not only do clients NOT do this but it would have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the decision to change the desktop environment.
That is done through months and months of acceptance testing and pilot rollouts and that is only after a viable business case can be made, including hardware and software upgrade costs.
Who does Balmer think he is talking to...he only serves to make himself look foolish.
Certainly, there are always some geeks like us that want the new OS at work, but I think 99% have no clue.
Apparently, Ballmer has none either.
And Ballmer is way, way smarter than you guys. Hell, my cat is way, way smarter than you guys.
> from the audience before the event wrapped up.
I think this speaks volumes.
As corny and professional as their "Host A Windows7 House Party"
idea http://www.cnbc.com/id/33007219/
My organization does not allow its users to determine the IT infrastructure.
If Windows7 makes it to our desktops, almost all of those cutesy
trinkets (errr features) will be disabled to prevent productivity losses.
You can't honestly try to defend the Windows 7 House Party idea. It's the dumbest thing since... ever.
And this is someone who uses both a Mac and a PC. If Apple came up with this marketing idea, I'd have the exact same reaction.
>>>>And neither is pentest. He continues to swear - without citing any sources - that Windows 7 and Vista are insecure. A real penetration tester would know how many remote exploits (including drive-by downloads) are in the wild right now affecting these two. The answer is 0.
As pentest continues to chant his wishes from forum to forum, he will eventually find that he can't bear to look himself in the mirror. Sucks to be him!
Even you, who was very much the doom and gloom about all things Microsoft were very negative about the product before you actually tried used it, and now your tune had changed a lot.
Other OS's can have all the same features but on a much smaller footprint. Why isn't MS competent enough?
You keep talking about Windows 7 being insecure. Where are your sources? Amongst the REAL penetration testers, Windows Vista was considered to be one of the VERY most secure desktop platforms in existence. And Windows 7 only adds to that security with Safe Unlinking and behavior monitoring (it also protects against hardware-assisted rootkits if XP Mode is activated). We've heard your whole spiel about UAC in W7, but that only comes into play if an ItW exploit actually manages to get past the main defenses, which only white hats have accomplished (the only exploits we saw for Vista were in '07, before browsers fully implemented ASLR). And if this ever does happen, then we can simply raise UAC back up to "always notify." UAC is not "broken" like you say it is.
All this FUD from you comes really late in time. Vista users are just fine, so long as they don't open attachments in spam, or download from dodgy Web sites and P2P networks. Can you still look yourself in the mirror?
If you've got something constructive to say regarding the article, let's hear it. Let me put words in your mouth: "Business should use OS X instead of Windows 7 because ..."
Both great systems based on personal choice? Check.
Really, THS, you make me ashamed to use a MacBookPro at times. You really do.
@WileySkier:
Yes, it's an ego thing. THS doesn't like to see anyone say anything positive about Microsoft. They feel threatened and instead of just letting OS X stand for itself against other operating systems, they feel the need to attack and belittle any and all challenges to their own set of values. The phrase, "There can only be one," comes to mind.
@Blackspyder1:
Now you're falling to THS's level. No need to embarass yourself like that. They need no help to look ridiculous. They are doing a fine job all by themselves.
@Techie33:
The_happy_switcher isn't happy unless mocking others or talking trash about all things Microsoft. Sad, really. I find it hard to have a person focus their entire life to such a pursuit, but who knows what drives that sort of person.
@ The_happy_switcher: Duh, Windows (7) user, Check. Resorting to insult of windows users saying they don't have imagination(inferred from words), Check. :P
A copious amount of gin flows.
It's unproductive to use it,
One only wants to abuse it,
As valuable time in the bin goes.
While Windows 7 is said to be better than Vista, from what I've seen and heard about Vista, it's far worst than XP so what are you really getting but Microsoft dropping support for XP and forcing you to yet another big change in their software and operating system. If you want to try something new, something many large businesses run on the backend, ie reliable, stable, etc, then try putting Linux on a multicore system and run Windows XP in a virtual machine( VMware is tops, VirtualBox is good too, KVM, Zen, and others require more under-the-hood know how but are free ) and see how Windows 7 compares to what you get with a proven solid OS under Windows.
There's also VMware Fusion on the Mac which is an option too but because money was mentioned in the article, the idea was getting more for less money.
Sources, please. It's my understanding that you have to recompile the code in order to address more than 3.2 GB.
Then I later after the wrap up, picked up your pink blackberry from the floor ;-)
- by sargess25 September 29, 2009 2:54 PM PDT
- "CEO Steve Ballmer presided over an event that was, effectively, the business launch of Windows 7"
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (127 Comments)this is going to be fun :-)