Comments on: Is Vista helping boost PC sales?

It's tough to get a handle on whether Microsoft's OS is spurring people to buy, or if they'd be buying anyway.

[oncfari]

Consumers DO care about OS

What makes you think that users don't care about the OS on their
PC? Walk into any Best Buy, Circuit City or CompUSA store and you
will find an endless stream of people grumbling about having to
buy more memory just to get Vista to work at all and others
(including me) talking about how they will avoid upgrading to Vista
for as long as they possibly can. If it weren't for the OEMs being
force fed Vista (MS tried to maximize Vista initially by making XP
unavailable), Vista would be in even bigger trouble than it already
is.

[Thomas, David]

Time for Reflection

Does Microsoft really want that answer to be yes? The TCO of
Vista seems to be quite steep. But then again, you could always
settle for a watered down version of what they promised
you.

I really do not recall Micsrosoft planning to sell
us multiple versions, of this long awaited operating system. I
guess, when they neared completion, there were few, and far
between consumer PCs that could actually run it.

So
the question has to be asked. Unfortunately, we have
found just how shaky the ground can be, under Vista. That
reality hurts Vistas image, and you can't blame the users. They
were told, by Microsoft, that Vista was ready.
Whatever, we never learn.

[john3347]

Vista may be boosting PC sales in a negative way.

My feelings and personal observations leads to a possibility that Vista in pushing customers who are planning to buy a new computer soon to rush to buy one while they can still find them with Windows XP. I hear and see more negative reports on Vista than positive and know first hand of a couple of people who have recently bought new computers because they could still get them with XP. I, for one, have bought a new computer with a "free" upgrade to Vista and, after hearing reports on how much development it still needs, I decided not to jump through the hoops and pay the $10 shipping for the upgrade version.

[john3347]

Typo in above post

Meant to say "Vista is pushing customers" rather than "Vista in pushing".

In the early days of PC popularity, there was a buzzword in OS and application circles: "backward compatability". This has unfortunatly been replaced with the un-published buzzword "planned obsolence". This is the foundation of all the problems we are currently discussing.

[Ted Miller]

We will all know the truth soon.

They are called quartley reports and they are required by law if they are on the stock exchange. I believe there will be many hardware companies going out of business and soon the PC will be like a MAC with only one sole hardware company. Now who will that be??? Microsoft??? But I thought they where buddies and friends with all they hardware providers...NOT! What a bunch of mindless fools they are for not seeing the big picture.

[thedreaming]

Yes

When Xp came out Bill Gates stated, "If you want to guarantee 100% compatability with your hardware, buy a pc with XP already on it." People did this. It's the same with Vista. You want 100% compatability? Buy a pc or laptop with vista already on it. This is what is boosting pc sales somewhat. The rest comes from people buying machines that still have xp on it, but have the necessary hardware requirements to run vista, just in case. What's left is all apple sales and more and more people are buying apple and why not? With a mac now you can be safer with macosx but still run windows and play games, so why not?

[hazel70]

Is Vista helping boost PC sales?

Not from me, after spending $300. to upgrade 2 computers, I had to give up, these were 6 months old computer, I had to remove Vista and go back to XP. The money is lost and now I'm looking to purchase a Mac. With the intention of never re purchasing a window PC.My last PC is a HP M7680N, and at time I could not even get windows mail to work without restarting, My HP printer would not work properly etc.etc. You name it I had it with Microsoft they were no help and HP would not do anything as the computer was purchase without Vista.No refund hoping for a class action suit to come around.

[ZachThurston-21728418704322188]

Computer...

You mention that the computers were 6 months old, but you neglect to say whats under the hood. Microsoft has said it themselves, Vista is NOT going to work on a $300 eMachines. (assuming thats what they are) I think that everyone should just use XP until they want a new computer, then buy it with Vista on it.

[strautman]

Vista disrupts PC aftermarket

As an exporter of used PC's we see a current shortage of
Pentium 4 computers which leasing companies attribute in part
to the introduction of Vista. Apparently many corporate leasing
customers are renewing their PC leases for an additional one or
two years while they wait for the inevitable Vista bugs and quirks
to be worked out. Microsoft has conditioned the market to
expect a half baked, inferior product on their early releases so at
least the corporate market is waiting until this new operating
system, which they mostly don't need at the moment, to be
patched up while the consumer market has to take what they get
on new machines. If consumers really want or need the features
touted in Vista, I suggest they buy a Mac running OS X which
had incorporated and perfected many of these features several
years ago. Corporations are still locked in to Wintel boxes but
seem to not be playing along with Vista so far - maybe next
year.

[qprize]

Short answer: NO!

This time Vista has made the PC the victim of (unintended) FUD.
Which do I buy? Can I afford a new PC that can run Vista? What
if I buy the wrong one? Why isn't there someone who can
actually tell me what I need? How much does it cost?!

Windows 3.1 was easy: Buy it or don't. Win95 pushed
Workgroups from a niche to mainstream choice. ME was simple:
don't buy it). 2000 added the Professional version (essentially
Workgroups) which clouded the waters. XP added SE to the
alphabet soup, but it was still basically a Home or Pro choice.
But Vista is a mess of ill(un?)-defined versions, options, and
hardware requirements. It's simply a mess. Can you see the
poor guy at Best Buy trying to explain it all to your Mom?

And then there are those pesky Mac/PC guy ads. Add that to the
mix and you can see why Apple is about to take over the number
4 place in sales: because Vista makes it so easy to switch.

[phwang_]

No - I waited, will wait more

I was going to upgrade end of 2006. However, with Vista coming I waited. Now (May 2007) that I hear that Vista is so resource intensive, I'll wait until end of 2007 so I can get a much more powerful system at my "affordability" price point. So in summary, Vista actually hurt PC sales - at least in my case.

[ben332211]

Waiting is good

Adopting a new Operating System (on your primary - or any important systems at least) is generally considered a bad idea until it has had time to mature... Large problems resolved, and fixes in place, with a support network available of a large number of people who are familiar with it's irks!

[LILO109]

VISTA

I AM A USER OF VISTA AND BILL GATES DID IT AGAIN AWESOME. IT IS HERE TO STAY. AND I LOVED IT

[willdryden]

vista?

If youi realized how much more work you could get done on your hardware with XP instead of Vista, you would be amazed. Thatis why I still run 2000 on most of my machines. I even keep a 486 with MS-dos for all the programs that run better withut windows.

[iZune]

Anyway, Apple Still Sucks!

Apple has the worst OS ever created

[axsimulate]

Yep iZune

Based off of rock solid FreeBSD, 64 bit, uses Samba, Apache, CUPS,
TomCat, JBoss, BIND, VNC, Java, PDF, Open LDAP, NTP, SNMP,
Fetchmail, MySQL, Postfix, Cyrus, SpamAssassin, Clam AV, iCal
standard, HTTP standards, Jabber, just to name a few open
standards it adheres to.
Come to think of it, you suck not OS X.

[masked dummy]

How can you buy a PC WITHOUT Vista ?

Or in a general manner:
"How can you buy a PC without paying Microsoft for an OS you
do not want to use ?"

Unless you are a geek who will assemble his own PC from parts,
how can you avoid Windows ? (Yes, buying a Mac, but I am
talking PCs...)

And you think it is a competitive market ?

With such a starting point, any declaration about the success of
VIsta sales is just void.

What's the point of this article, then...

:(

[Fil0403]

Buy a Dell.

Didn't you read the big headlines on every tech news site about Dell selling PC's with Windows XP and Linux because of consumer demand, or are you just retarded?

[sanctus17]

How can you buy a PC WITHOUT Vista ?

Actually, if you go online, it is quite easy to buy a pre-built desktop PC or laptop with Windows XP as opposed to Windows Vista. Also, you could buy a new PC with Vista, take it home, format the drive and install XP with no problems. Additionally, I build all of my own PCs, but I am hardly a geek, not that there's anything wrong with that!

[Fil0403]

Yes, Vista is helping boost PC sales.

"One reason it's hard to suss out Vista's impact on PC sales is that consumers don't really decide whether they prefer a new operating system."

That's a very interesting comment to make just some weeks after very same CNET made huge headlines that Dell was selling/shipping PC's with Windows XP and Linux because of consumer demand.
Are people who write these news just retarded or bashing Microsoft is the (not) new sport in town (CNET)?

[sanctus17]

Please!

As the article states, there is no concrete evidence that Vista is boosting sales. Unless you purchase a new, prebuilt PC with Vista, there is no compelling reason to buy Vista. I have tested it and studied it and it does nothing exceptional. Since I build all of my own PCs, I do not forsee going to Vista for several more years. Regardless of the press, there are still compatability issues with software and hardware. Vista is not a smart purchase at this time unless you buy a new PC with Vista pre-installed. Businesses going to Vista!! That is funny. Vista vis a vis XP provides very little value per dollar if any at all. I work for a huge corporate law firm and we have no plans to go to Vista any time soon.

[labazzo]

Not buying

First off a new operating system needs to work the bugs out. Second, computers might seem they get cheaper but if you look at the specs close enough you will see that is will be the bare miniumum to run the OS. Vista requires a lot of memory and people buying a computer with 1 gig of it will start to see the system slow down when they load up more things. I always make sure a lot does not boot up with the system. The next thing they realize it they need to buy another computer or upgrade components. I say wait, Vista is too big for computers right now unless you have the cash to buy a suped up system.

[ShareLife]

Vista is not ready...

Vista has invalidated 20% of my peripherals and 1/3 or my applications including MS Office, and I can't afford to repurchase everything, let alone Office.

If my laptop came with an XP option, I would have returned the unit to get the XP one in a minute.

[rgnglzrd]

What about Linux?

If Vista is so, why isn't anyone (else) recommending a switch to Linux?

I'm a full-time Debian GNU/Linux user and have been for about 8 years now. I can say that Linux is just now reaching its maturity as a desktop/laptop OS. My poor little Dell L400 (700MHz P-III / 256MB RAM) runs Linux like a champ and even takes the "abuse" of graphic design and CAD in stride. And everything "just works." Sure, I had to do a tiny bit of tweaking to get my Linksys Wireless NIC to work but a quick search of the Internet and I had answers. No big deal.

At my office, I have a P-4 3.2GHz PC with XP on it as a CAD and graphics workstation. When the network it's attached to goes wonky and prevents me from working, I switch over to my backup; a P-III 500MHz Debian box; and keep going. Problem solved.

Linux will run on practically ANY hardware with minimal interference / configuration by the user or admin. I've had Linux running on 386's with positively arcane hardware to AMD64's with the hottest and best. There is very little that Linux can't run on.

It's a simple choice: If you don't want Vista and can't afford a Mac, switch to Linux. You'll be glad you did.

[sktuarim]

Depends on how you look at it

Yea, Vista is moving by the volume of computers being sold. However, unlike every version of Windows in the past, when Vista came out, people did not have the choice of having XP (the only other currently supports OS by Microsoft.) Thus, taken in that content, one can surmise that Vista is helping to push new computers.

Many online vendors (Dell, HP, Tiger Direct...) now give costumers a choice of either XP or Vista. Also, computer stores are selling many versions of XP in the box. Apparently, from what a few friends at the local Fry's Electronics and Best Buy have told me, people are formatting out Vista and installing XP...not a good way to benchmark sales.

[paraclete]

Let me put it this way

I bought two new computers this year, a desktop and a laptop, both vista capable. My desktop came with XP media center and the laptop was preloaded with Vista. I got the upgrade to Vista for the desktop only to find that it would not run my other programs (games, DVD burner, etc.) So my desktop is now back to XP and to tell the truth there is very little difference that I can see, except now all my stuff works again. I believe as the word gets out, fewer people will be buying a machine just to be vista compatible. Why buy an operating system that necessitates buying a whole new catalogue of programs when XP doesn't require this sacrifice. Buy the way when I went to my local retailer to get a copy of XP media center, they told me Microsoft recalled all of the non-OEM versions, so you have to reformat if you want to go back, interesting wouldn't you say. So I guess if you don't want Vista, you have to buy a new computer, maybe that will spike sales. And to put it in other words, Vista Sucks and Microsoft has lost a lot of respect, at least from the viewpoint of this humble consumer

[Dango517]

Yes, with dual core assistance

Microsofts XP operating system is alleged to receive support from Microsoft for the next five years. Mircosoft 7 is alleged to come out in three. This doesn't look good for Vista. Has Microsoft given up on Vista?

Yes, sells will pick up but not because of Vista alone. The advent of dual core technology will certainly make a significant contribution as well. Single core processors are simply too slow to keep pace and in fact are slowing down technological development as many individual and corporation hesitate to embrace the new processors.

The Big question is can the Microsoft model of massive OS development survive against the continued and fragmented develop of applications by Google and Yahoo? Take the hardware controls out of the OS and redirect them to the Hardware Manufacturer and you have a whole new ball game with search engines taking the lead. The tilt to this new approach is on the horizon.