Microsoft on Monday briefly posted pricing for Windows Vista on its Canadian Web site, giving an eye into what the company will charge for the new operating system.
The posting indicates that the Home Basic edition of Windows Vista will be priced the same as Windows XP Home, at $233 ($259 Canadian). The Home Premium version, which includes support for Media Center and tablet PC abilities will sell for 13 percent higher rate, a price that translates to about $269 in American dollars.
Microsoft quickly removed the price information, but blogger Ed Bott, who spotted the price list earlier Monday, included the price list in a ZDNet posting. Bott cautioned that those trying to figure out U.S. pricing would be better off comparing the Canadian Vista prices to their XP counterparts than to try and just convert to U.S. dollars.
A Microsoft representative said the company "inadvertently posted Windows Vista Canadian retail prices" on its Web site but said it has removed the posting and is not ready to share U.S. pricing information. The company said it would announce those prices when it ships the "Release Candidate 1" test version, due out by September.
On the business side, Microsoft listed Windows Vista Business at a price that equates to $341 in U.S. currency, 7 percent less than what Microsoft charges in Canada for Windows XP Professional.
The company is still wrapping up development work on the oft-delayed Windows update, which will come more than five years after its predecessor, Windows XP. After issuing the near-final release candidate next month, the company hopes to finalize the code in November in time for a mainstream launch in January.
Microsoft has yet to announce publicly its pricing plans but has said they will be generally similar to Windows XP prices, with a higher tag planned for Windows Vista Ultimate, a new high-end version that combines advanced media features with business-oriented features.
"We don't expect significant changes in our pricing strategy," Windows unit head Kevin Johnson said at a July meeting with financial analysts. "However, Vista Ultimate is a new (product), and we will sell that at a modest premium to today's offerings."
The information that was posted on Microsoft's Canadian Web site suggests that the premium will be hefty indeed, with that version priced at $449, again translated into U.S. dollars.
"The thing about list prices for full versions is that no one pays them, anyway," Gartner analyst Michael Silver said. "Most people will get Vista as part of a new PC, and the price will be buried in with the cost of the hardware."
And those that are upgrading their existing PCs pay the lower upgrade prices, Silver said.
On the upgrade front, a Vista Ultimate upgrade is priced somewhat above today's cost for upgrading to XP Professional. Windows Vista Business, meanwhile, is priced slightly below the XP Pro upgrade price. The upgrade to Windows Vista Basic is priced at the same rate as that for XP Home Edition, while Vista Home Premium is priced 54 percent higher than the basic edition.
The software maker announced in February that it plans to sell six versions of Windows Vista, including Vista Starter, which will be sold only on new PCs in emerging markets.
Is this (plus the cost of the hardware upgrade required) enough to make enterprise consider migrating some desktops (primarily those who just surf and email) to open source? Just wondering...........
If all you have at your company, is people browing (for what) and reading email, then Ya!
Linux, free...
No reason to buy Windows or OS X for that matter.
That's what scares MS, and is working. If I had 30 employees, and each with a copy of Windows XP that cost $200, and all they did was email and browse the web, bet your life I would discontinue using Windows.
LINUX is free... why dont PC makers use LINUX... it would half the price of PC packages....therefore bring PC stores more business. Bundling Vista with your PC's is only going to increase by alot the final price of a PC bundle offer... start thinking LINUX... www.ubuntu.com
...has a 4 percent penetration, it must suck that bad. Don't ask me if I have used Linux, I have and from a useability standpoint it at about the same level as windows 98, it has a long way to go before it catches up with XP. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, else no one would pay.
Because PC makers have agreements with MS that doesn't allow installing another OS. For that, they get deep discounts on Windows. Take Dell. They nowadays offer PCs with Linux installed, but it is quite hidden on their website. I have a server from Dell, which is apparently not covered by their agreement with MS. They were able to offer it with Windows or without an OS, with the latter being cheaper. I am running Linux on that machine, and didn't have to pay the "Microsoft tax" for an OS I wouldn't use.
You say Linux is on the same level as Windows 98? Well I work on a lot of computers that are still using Windows 98, some still using windows 95. Linux Suse 10.1, which I use is an excellent operating system. I can do anything on it but one thing, I do my invoices on XP. Other that that I don't see the justification of Vistas prices. They are too high for me.
You say Linux is on the same level as Windows 98? Well I work on a lot of computers that are still using Windows 98, some still using windows 95. Linux Suse 10.1, which I use is an excellent operating system. I can do anything on it but one thing, I do my invoices on XP. Other that that I don't see the justification of Vistas prices. They are too high for me.
I heard the figure $80 or $100 for the current XP and something about $150 for Vista. Now i really really hope Apple is going to sell OEM's at $80 just to kill off M$.
osX only for new hardware that is, no retail version for older PC's.
I think the real winner here will be Apple OS X Leopard. It will run XP via Boot Camp...and for folks like me who want to take computing to the next level while protecting my XP investment, a Mac (maybe even a Mini) is a better investment than buying into the next Microsoft bloatware OS. Even some of my MS friends here in Seattle are completely not bought into Vista...and they are using it every day at work...it is slow and they see a clear productivity tank vs. XP SP2.
Mac OS X a niche product, but it's the hardware Apple wants to sell
As a multi-platform user and advocate, I can tell you right now that Mac OS X is a niche product and will always be that way because that's the way Apple wants it.
What Apple wants to sell is its new Intel hardware with Mac OS X, even if many users load and install Windows.
Apple wants to make the best PC, whether or not its users run Mac OS X or Windows on them. Many PC magazines now say Apple makes the best PC hardware in several categories.
This time, Apple has made a shot across the bow of PC manufacturers, not across Redmond.
It doesn't care if people buy Macs to run Windows at this time and it's offering people a very attractive hedge to a failed Vista launch.
First time a new Windows release costs more than PC?
I suspect this could well be the first time that at the time of a new release of Windows (est Jan 2007), the OS costs more than the PC it would run on! With monitorless white box PCs hovering around $250 (US), the retail edition Vista Home Premium will cost more than the machine it could run on, though with the resource-hogging OS that it is, maybe Microsoft are assuming that low-end whiteboxes can't run Vista anyway?
It makes you wonder what sort of OEM discount Dell will be given by Microsoft to "recommend" Vista (by annoyingly bundling it with all their desktops and not even giving the end-user a "no OS" option that would be much cheaper when Vista comes along). Especially when their business Dimension desktop is now $299 (yep, $42 less than retail Vista Business!). Wake up, Dell, and give your customers a *choice* on desktops - why can't we buy OS-less desktop PCs (and forego any OS/software support of course, which many of us would be willing to do to save $50+)?
It's common knowledge that for large computer makers Windows costs $50-75 (US).
Why bother to release a "no OS" computer? It makes buying Windows much more expensive, needs some technical skill on the part of the buyer, and isn't wanted by almost all buyers.
Funny that nobody tells Apple to release a "no OS X" computer for $129 less.
The reason they dont bundle Linux, is that it might be 'free' but for the vast majority of users it is far more expensive to run. ie the TCO is much higher.
e.g. the average Linux distribution has roughly 3 times the number of security patches to deal with compared to Windows. And on average it takes twice as long for a patch to be released for a Linux security vulnerability compared to a Windows one. Not to mention the much higer integration costs and management effort required to setup and run Linux in an enterprise.
The only "studies" that claim Linux TCO is higher are either from MS directly or sponsored by MS. Same for the time it takes to patch things. Patches to Open Source software are usually out within days, while Microsoft needs months, or in some cases years to patch security issues. Management efforts for setting up Linux are actually lower since Linux uses standard tools and formats that lots of people know vs. the proprietary stuff in Windows. Next time you talk about management efforts, try to fix a corrupt Exchange Server database...
only reciently the total security problems for linux passed 100. virtually all of them were fixed virtually immediatly (often the same day)
this whils, Micro$oft overpriced bloatware has accrued thousands of problems, that you needed to wait 3-8 weeks to get even half of them fixed.
now there are more unpatched problems in M$ than total problems in linux
what about the ones that won't be fixed?
Firefox only has a handful and if I remember correctly, they all have to do with WWW standards... to fix them you would have to dissallow preset WWW standards
Microsoft, which doesn't adhere to the WWW standards in all cases, has refused to fix some problems claiming they are "features" of the operating system
YEA! My system has the feature that someone can take over my computer without my permission!
Anyone who has had the sense to remove themselves from the Microsoft FUD machine will know that this has been manufactured from the FUD Factory.
Find me someone who's Linux box has been turned into a spam bot. Find me a Linux box that has been compromised and data stolen or corrupted. Find me a Linux box that has been destroyed because of a virus.
Now do the same for a Windows box and see how different the results are.
Here's another way of putting it. Recently there was a news article on some news channel that was about, shock horror, an ERROR in a certain Linux distribution's newest version! The error was that instead of booting into the graphical interface it "broke" and only the terminal was shown. It was fixed shortly afterward. At the bottom of the article, there was a short bit about how another exploitable flaw had been found in Internet Explorer. You see, we're so used to having problems in Microsoft programs that we don't even consider it news anymore.
Personally I find Windows much more constrictive than Linux. It is slow and frustrating. I wonder if Microsoft's so-called "TCO analyses" included lost productivity from the fact that MS stuff is crap, and it makes workers stressed?
The problem with all the comparisons I've seen comparing bugs and patches in Linux vs. Windows, is that they are never (and probably never can be) apples to apples comparisons, regardless of which OS comes out on top.
The biggest problem is that usually at least 50% of all patches for "Linux" have nothing to do with the Linux kernel, but rather they are application patches. Microsoft does not release application patches except for it's own products, and some of those (eg. patches to Office) are distributed separately.
For an example, take a look at the security advisories for SuSE Linux:
Just looking at the security advisories logged between the start of July and the end of August, there are some that affect the Linux kernel, others that affect OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. Certainly the kernel vulnerabilities can directly compared to similar components from Windows, while Firefox definitely would not. Obviously simply counting bugs and patches is completely wrong and any report doing that can and should be immediately ignored as being totally invalid.
However there is also a note logged about security issues in KDM, where would that fit in? It fills a similar role to 'Winlogon.exe' in Windows, as well as some functionality that is probably roled into Explorer, so should it be counted? But if you count KDM, do you then ignore bugs in GDM and XDM? In Linux you have these three options, while in Windows you've only got Winlogon.exe. If all 4 applications have bugs, do you count that as 3 security holes for Linux vs. 1 for Windows? Or how about if a bug is only in XDM which hardly anyone uses anymore? Is that still counted as a security hole?
As for time to patch, that's probably even harder to estimate because it depends on WHICH patch you're looking at. Due to the open-source nature of Linux you will often have more than one patch created for any given security flaw. A security hole might get patched in SuSE one day, Redhat and Debian the next, but it might not make it into another distribution for 2 months. With Windows there is only one "distribution" to check.
As with pretty much everything else, a lot of it comes down to trade-offs being made. In running Windows you make one set of trade-offs, while running Linux makes a different set of trade-offs. Trying to compare two things that are not a direct 1-for-1 match is always going to be hard, and when billions of dollars are at stake, it only gets harder.
Vista at C$259? Who says Apple costs more than Windoze? Mac OS 10.4 ("Tiger") is retailing at $149 Cdn, for a single-user package, and C$248 for a five-license "family pack". Why pay more, and still have to spend a fortune (and hours of work) on antivirus, etc? An Apple a day keeps the malware away&
Every heard of Lock-in? Because that's what MS has more or less successfully done. But more and more businesses realize that and get out of the lock-in. Linux and other operating systems are steadily gaining market share in the business world.
over the last three years, we've seen large migrations of corporate desktops to Linux.
These are mainly in the clerical and data entry positions, where the OS main role is to run the computer as a host for their enterprise system.
Those desktops that still need to run on Windows usually get along just fine with older versions all the way back to Windows 98.
By scrunching so many features into XP, then Vista, these operating systems have become jacks of all trades which are suitable only for niche markets instead of mass deployment desktops.
The pricing is also off the wall. What got you a fully functional operating system with Windows 98 gave you less with Windows XP home and will give you even less with Windows Vista Home Basic.
Where is the fully funcitional enterprise OS with complete networking features for mass deployment to beige desktops? At the $500 level?
VISTAPOCALYPSE NOW: Vista Will Implode Upon Release
Within hours of its release, hackers will tear into Vista to find hooks for stealing home users and businesses' bank account credentials. Billions will be lost within hours and Microsoft will call the publicity of the thefts "gross exaggerations by the company's infinite enemies in the press."
The scandals will completely devastate the release of Vista and most businesses will refuse to deploy Vista when their IT staffs tell them the new OS will only attract even more attacks than patched XP systems. MS will be reduced to issuing press releases about victorious deployments in "a bakery in Ottawa" and "a car wash in Sierra Leone" which the press will reveals were bought by MS a week before the software was installed.
Ballmer, always regarded as completely insane and emotionally immature, will disappear without a trace. Psychics will lead police to his final resting place, his station wagon, parked behind the Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Spokane where police will determine he had shot himself 9 times in the face, a story that will briefly provoke skeptical reactions from the press.
The exploits are ready and waiting to release to security mailing lists January 2007 or whenever Vista is officially shipped. Hackers want to cause the most PR damange to Vista as possible, especially after Microsoft said Vista will be the most secure ever. A mistake for Microsoft to say such a thing, because now they've invited the security underground to prove them wrong. Microsoft are under the impression we'll tell them about vulnerabilities before its shipped. No, hackers have been researching Vista security for months and have already found multiple vulnerabilities, which are being stock piled as we speak. The Vista launch promises to be something special...trust in the underground to deliver what we promise. We haven't let you down so far, so why would we let you down now? Asta la vista baby!
Im sure they will try. As to if they succeed is another matter.
Microsoft has spent a massive amount of dosh and R&D on security. I expect that security will be significantly improved compared to previous OS versions.
I use both Windows and Linux and I would rather use windows cause linux is annoying to use but it is free. Also, how much will it cost to teach your employees to use linux? Yeah exactly. And a 22 year old college grad with heavy linux server experience? "That will be 125 grand a year, Thank you!"
Linux and Mac people annoy me, who gives a crap if its free Windows could be considered free too if you buy a new PC its already there and it still a 500 dollar PC! Am I going to buy the full version of Vista? No. Will I keep my XP until I buy a new Laptop/PC? Of Course!! And lastly, Mac is just like WIndows now cause you get what you pay for; key words PAY FOR, its not free but you think it is cause its in the laptop already.
> Linux and Mac people annoy me, who gives a crap if its free Windows could be considered free too if you buy a new PC its already there and it still a 500 dollar PC! In no way it's free.You have to pay 500$ for a 400$ hardware - there is no wizardry.So, you have to pay $600 for 500 dollar PC, etc.In fact it is annoying that MS is put kind of "tax" on PCs.What if I do not need their stupid XP Home at all?(usually, PCs are shipped with a dumb, lame and restricted XP Home and probably, will be with equivalent Vista).As for me, it was enough WGA to see real nature of MS.Thank you, I'm preferring to decide myself what to run on my PC.And I'm tired of stupid marketing restrictions in Win XP.If you need REAL OS you have to at least buy Win2003 (and still face with some few licensing limits).Win2003 costs slightly more than lame XP crap.
The Home Premium only takes advantage of one processor, right? Then why compare that to OS X, which does all processors, like in todays Quad dual core machines?
Oh well, not much of an incentive for most businesses and banks to switch from the venerable old Windows 2000, on their existing Model T's when you think about the pricing.
Say come to think of it, if Homeland Wonder Boys? are still using the even older Windows 95, why bother to upgrade if the old systems are still fully functional!
Choices, it would seem, need to have very deep pockets indeed!
Perhaps, I will stick with the venerable old model T, she's still got quite a few terabytes under the bonnet to go before she's ready for the recycle yard!
Businesses buy volume licensing and you can get a lot for great prices really same thing with Office. Point is we heard the same thing on every release of Windows and what has happened absolutely nothing. I don't hate Linux I have my personal uses for it but get real Linux wont ever be a direct threat as an OS just an alternative.
There are also many studies not from Microsoft - e.g. Gartner etc. that show exactly the same thing. The volume of evidence showing that Linux is not cheaper is overwhelming.
And you are simpy wrong about the patching. Its a verifiable fact - acknowledged as correct by the Linux companies involved in the study in question - 3 times as many patches on Linux and on average twice as long for a fix than Windows.
Try Linux and you will see it is FREE. No FUD, no Anti-Virus, no SPAM Blockers and SECURE. Try it on your desktop an see, and it is FREE, no FUD. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7" target="_newWindow">http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7</a>
Richto: link to the study you are constantly referring to that "Its a verifiable fact - acknowledged as correct by the Linux companies involved in the study in question - 3 times as many patches on Linux and on average twice as long for a fix than Windows." Provide the proof instead of throwing out stats and then we can verify the integrity of your claims.
M$ managed to annoy me too much.Lets shift to alternate OSes.
Microsoft has finally managed to get me tired of their crap and ugly behavior.I'd used Windows since '95 beta.However I'm better to move to Linux (probably, KUbuntu) right now.It's FREE, it's fully featured and without any dumb restrictions home versions of XP\Vista are about to have.It does not installs ba$tardized privacy-breaking crap like WGA, it does not requires activation and does not f..ks my brain on hardware upgrade with re-activation.It does not being hacked each and every day and not requires me to have a very powerful PC just to be able to launch it.Finally, Vista is actually differs in a very small degree internally from XP except in look anf feel.You already can tune your XP to look and feel like Vista.So, actually it looks like MS about to sell same crap twice.As a "bonus" they are abusing their monopoly even further than before.It looks like it is a proper time to say "goodbye" to such bastardized business manners of Microsoft.
If it weren't for BILL GATES, windowing software would cost $7000 per PC.
Bill gates and i had a very long phone conversation back in the 70's.
This was right after the ALTAIR 880, which had ZERO software came out.
Microsoft (in new mexico then) had a vision of a computer on every desktop back when the state of the art was a TTY ASR33, and storage was rolls of punched paper tape.
Computer Dialup time cost $10 per hour. (at 110 baud (10 bytes per second)
Bill was damn near the only guy thet really got it. He delayed the joys of marriage and fatherhood for many years in order to pursue his vision.
Now, as Mr. Gates moves away from day-to-day operations at microsoft, let us hope he can keep the bean counters from spoiling the soup.
As usual, you appear to have no idea what you are talking about. Your post implies that all the items listed were contemporaneous, which even a quick, cursory internet search would show was not the case. Very soon after the Altair came out, there was a flurry of development. There were a number of titles for the Altair, albeit that had to be entered via toggle switches, before the first kits came out allowing dumb terminals, keyboards, and mainframe floppy drives to be connected. In fact MS wrote one of the first. When the Altair came out, there was no such thing as dial up services, at any price. As for Gates being "damn near the only guy thet [sic] really got it" that is just a bunch of BS. Besides the obvious answer of Jobs and Wozniac (two people who actually DID something about it, as opposed to Gates, who did squat) there were hundreds if not thousands of people in homebrew clubs, basement labs, and corporate industrial parks who "got it." As for delaying the "joys of marriage and fatherhood," I suspect there might have been other, more pedestrian, reasons. And claiming that windowing software for PCs would have cost $7000 is both absurd and farsically arbitrary. From whence comes this ridiculous figure? Certainly not from any historical precedent: GEM and DRDOS (superior in EVERY way to Windows 1.0) cost under $100, an entire mac 128 cost less than $3000. If anything, THAT price point had more effect on Windows than decisions by Gates, fronting a company that has never came out with s SINGLE innovative product in its HISTORY (with one debatable exception, but I have already alluded to that.)
You have read one too many Gates fan-books... Gates didn't have any "vision" back then. He didn't even get windowing until he saw the first Mac. Windows 1 was a clear rip-off of the Mac (I know, I had it... and it was a piece of crap.) And the "delaying the joy of marriage and fatherhood"... LOL He was a geek. Did you ever see old pictures of him? No sane woman would have dated him...
We should thank MS for lots, history is good but we're living TODAY
We have to thank MS for a lots of things.They were a good company in some old times.However times are changed.There were times when I'd respected MS a lots.However I'm dislike their current policy.I'm not willing to play this game using their new rules.For example, activation.Pirates are never have problems with it.They are using cracked or corporate versions.So only ordinary users are f...ed up by this crap.Now even corp. versions of Vista about to include this crap.Can you imagine amount of headaches admins will have in well-firewalled enterprises?Microsoft managed to go further, though.They distributed WGA.I'm unable to treat this in any way except as attempt to inject trojan into my system.The problem is: I DO NOT NEED THIS CRAP, IT DOES NOTHING USEFUL FOR ME.What's the hell MS knows better than me what to run on MY system?!It is I AM who owns this system.It is up to me to decide what to run here.Where to connect.Once microsoft trying take over rights to make decision on "what to run on my system", that's too much.I do not need system where someone else except me decides what to run here.So, microsoft can fight with pirates as they wish but for me it looks like they fighting with legal customers as well.MS is simlpe getting too bothering, non-trustworthy and always "MS knows better than you what you need".I'm tired of this, sorry.
But of course THIS time, windows will be a solid product ( :~\ ), with enhanced security (lol), isolated apps to prevent lock-up/premature reboots and crashing (lmao), great performance that does what you want it to when you want it to (hehehe), and end all compatibility issues with the ability to fully utilize all the hardware proficiently (HAHAHA) just like 3.0, 3.1, 95, ME, 98, xp, nt, 2000, yadayadayada...
Ya know they're still not putting all the h/w requirements on the microsoft site to "fully" use all the features of 'vista' just so the average consumer will waste money NOW buying suboptimized pc's allowing oem's to dump their inventories... no wonder sales are lagging and suspicion is rising.
Its really the mac attitude that steers me away from apple
No one ever really gives me solid reasons for buying a mac. It always just turns into a malicious "who can flame microsoft faster war." If you dont like Microsoft, thats fine. If you like apple thats fine. But to constantly have the apple gospel shoved down my throat makes me glad that they have such a small marketshare.
Every OS has its problems. Microsoft has done LOTS of things wrong, but so have the other companies. MS's mistakes are just easier to spot because so many people use the OS. But this is a serious plea to mac fanatics, if you read a story about Microsoft, please actually think out what you write before just flaming everyone on cnet to death about how they do everything wrong. Apple is a great company, but they arent perfect.
I personally don't understand why they bother, except maybe to get back at the M$ users who waste their time as well flaming them. Flaming and reaming does not win converts on either side. But it will, no doubt, continue...
Alas, anyone who even mentions these reasons is usually branded a "zealot", "fanboy", "Windows basher", etc. It's almost pointless.
One reason I prefer the Mac is because it can run OS X/ Windows/Linux. Also OS X software development tools are free, so no need to spend $100's on MS Visual Studio.
You're right about mac zealots, neither company is 'all good' or evil. But to your first sentence I might share my 'solid reasons' for choosing Apple. 5 years and no virus program. Now I have an apple with intel and can run both Windows (for testing web- pages & serving asp my clients who need websites run on asp code). It works great. Also, for those high-end buyers, you can get a MacPro plus vista for cheeper than a comparable Dell with only Vista pre-installed (along with other vendor-ware).
Why not just purchase the OEM XP Pro, and then the SA on top of it. It's what, about $260 on the high end? That way you get Vista when it comes out. The only drawback is that you have to get a minimum of 5 of the Software Assurance to start out.
> Why not just purchase the OEM XP Pro, and then the SA on top of it. > It's what, about $260 on the high end? > That way you get Vista when it comes out. Thanks dude, but REAL high-end OS is Win2003 which has a way different pricing.WinXP is kinda limited and restricted OS.You cannot use it for heavily loaded server due to connection limits.You can not remotely login into system by lots of users via remote desktop.You can not... (quite big list of things).With linux, you can.There is NO dumb marketing restrictions, at all.Need 500 TCP connections?Wanna to log in by 20 different users on same machine?Just come on and do it!And that's for FREE.And I already wrote about some drawbacks even XP has.In Vista things about to get even worse.I do not see a clue to pay 260$ for almost nothing.If I'll want to get Vista's look and feel, XP can be tuned to look and feel like Vista.In fact, for free.And it is likely that except $260 you also have to pay for hardware upgrade because Vista is really resource hog and a lots slower than xp on equal hardware.
With XP for legacy devices: i.e. XP with luna and all that other rubish striped out, without having it's support droped, as 2k support must be coming to an end soon.
Apple are just bunch of cheaters (businessmens if you like this better) who're in fact sells just usual PCs under unusually high prices.I'm fine with my PC.And I'm preferring AMD.Apple ignores this! :) (I have to admit: x86 sucks anyway...AMD64 is a bit better but I'm wanna to see stupid x86 architecture in hell, where the proper place is reserved for long years ago).
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Samsung Galaxy mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
Tor's "obfsproxy" technology would make encrypted data look innocuous and let it dodge government censors. That could help citizens in Iran reach blocked sites as antigovernment protests reportedly loom.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
Linux, free...
No reason to buy Windows or OS X for that matter.
That's what scares MS, and is working. If I had 30 employees, and each with a copy of Windows XP that cost $200, and all they did was email and browse the web, bet your life I would discontinue using Windows.
Because PC makers have agreements with MS that doesn't allow installing another OS. For that, they get deep discounts on Windows.
Take Dell. They nowadays offer PCs with Linux installed, but it is quite hidden on their website.
I have a server from Dell, which is apparently not covered by their agreement with MS. They were able to offer it with Windows or without an OS, with the latter being cheaper. I am running Linux on that machine, and didn't have to pay the "Microsoft tax" for an OS I wouldn't use.
If people don't go for this version, I think the next one will do it for them.
As for boxed versions of the operating system, "suggested retail prices" are often inflated, so retailers can look good by discounting them.
about $150 for Vista. Now i really really hope Apple is going to sell
OEM's at $80 just to kill off M$.
osX only for new hardware that is, no retail version for older PC's.
expect everybody to buy a Mac like they did with the iPod.
What Apple wants to sell is its new Intel hardware with Mac OS X, even if many users load and install Windows.
Apple wants to make the best PC, whether or not its users run Mac OS X or Windows on them. Many PC magazines now say Apple makes the best PC hardware in several categories.
This time, Apple has made a shot across the bow of PC manufacturers, not across Redmond.
It doesn't care if people buy Macs to run Windows at this time and it's offering people a very attractive hedge to a failed Vista launch.
It makes you wonder what sort of OEM discount Dell will be given by Microsoft to "recommend" Vista (by annoyingly bundling it with all their desktops and not even giving the end-user a "no OS" option that would be much cheaper when Vista comes along). Especially when their business Dimension desktop is now $299 (yep, $42 less than retail Vista Business!). Wake up, Dell, and give your customers a *choice* on desktops - why can't we buy OS-less desktop PCs (and forego any OS/software support of course, which many of us would be willing to do to save $50+)?
Why bother to release a "no OS" computer? It makes buying Windows much more expensive, needs some technical skill on the part of the buyer, and isn't wanted by almost all buyers.
Funny that nobody tells Apple to release a "no OS X" computer for $129 less.
e.g. the average Linux distribution has roughly 3 times the number of security patches to deal with compared to Windows. And on average it takes twice as long for a patch to be released for a Linux security vulnerability compared to a Windows one. Not to mention the much higer integration costs and management effort required to setup and run Linux in an enterprise.
Same for the time it takes to patch things. Patches to Open Source software are usually out within days, while Microsoft needs months, or in some cases years to patch security issues.
Management efforts for setting up Linux are actually lower since Linux uses standard tools and formats that lots of people know vs. the proprietary stuff in Windows. Next time you talk about management efforts, try to fix a corrupt Exchange Server database...
this whils, Micro$oft overpriced bloatware has accrued thousands of problems, that you needed to wait 3-8 weeks to get even half of them fixed.
now there are more unpatched problems in M$ than total problems in linux
what about the ones that won't be fixed?
Firefox only has a handful and if I remember correctly, they all have to do with WWW standards... to fix them you would have to dissallow preset WWW standards
Microsoft, which doesn't adhere to the WWW standards in all cases, has refused to fix some problems claiming they are "features" of the operating system
YEA! My system has the feature that someone can take over my computer without my permission!
yeah, RIGHT!
Find me someone who's Linux box has been turned into a spam bot. Find me a Linux box that has been compromised and data stolen or corrupted. Find me a Linux box that has been destroyed because of a virus.
Now do the same for a Windows box and see how different the results are.
Here's another way of putting it. Recently there was a news article on some news channel that was about, shock horror, an ERROR in a certain Linux distribution's newest version! The error was that instead of booting into the graphical interface it "broke" and only the terminal was shown. It was fixed shortly afterward. At the bottom of the article, there was a short bit about how another exploitable flaw had been found in Internet Explorer. You see, we're so used to having problems in Microsoft programs that we don't even consider it news anymore.
Personally I find Windows much more constrictive than Linux. It is slow and frustrating. I wonder if Microsoft's so-called "TCO analyses" included lost productivity from the fact that MS stuff is crap, and it makes workers stressed?
The biggest problem is that usually at least 50% of all patches for "Linux" have nothing to do with the Linux kernel, but rather they are application patches. Microsoft does not release application patches except for it's own products, and some of those (eg. patches to Office) are distributed separately.
For an example, take a look at the security advisories for SuSE Linux:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories.html</a>
Just looking at the security advisories logged between the start of July and the end of August, there are some that affect the Linux kernel, others that affect OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. Certainly the kernel vulnerabilities can directly compared to similar components from Windows, while Firefox definitely would not. Obviously simply counting bugs and patches is completely wrong and any report doing that can and should be immediately ignored as being totally invalid.
However there is also a note logged about security issues in KDM, where would that fit in? It fills a similar role to 'Winlogon.exe' in Windows, as well as some functionality that is probably roled into Explorer, so should it be counted? But if you count KDM, do you then ignore bugs in GDM and XDM? In Linux you have these three options, while in Windows you've only got Winlogon.exe. If all 4 applications have bugs, do you count that as 3 security holes for Linux vs. 1 for Windows? Or how about if a bug is only in XDM which hardly anyone uses anymore? Is that still counted as a security hole?
As for time to patch, that's probably even harder to estimate because it depends on WHICH patch you're looking at. Due to the open-source nature of Linux you will often have more than one patch created for any given security flaw. A security hole might get patched in SuSE one day, Redhat and Debian the next, but it might not make it into another distribution for 2 months. With Windows there is only one "distribution" to check.
As with pretty much everything else, a lot of it comes down to trade-offs being made. In running Windows you make one set of trade-offs, while running Linux makes a different set of trade-offs. Trying to compare two things that are not a direct 1-for-1 match is always going to be hard, and when billions of dollars are at stake, it only gets harder.
OS 10.4 ("Tiger") is retailing at $149 Cdn, for a single-user
package, and C$248 for a five-license "family pack". Why pay
more, and still have to spend a fortune (and hours of work) on
antivirus, etc? An Apple a day keeps the malware away&
The people who upgrade, who'll pay considerably less than one version of OS X.
And then they'll look at how many bought OS X upgrades at $129 U.S. during the time when XP had no paid upgrades.
And then they'll say, "Wow! OS X costs a lot more than Windows!"
And they'll be right.
They dont because it isnt.
Linux is more expensive than Windows to own and use, even though you pay a license fee for Windows.
Every heard of Lock-in? Because that's what MS has more or less successfully done.
But more and more businesses realize that and get out of the lock-in. Linux and other operating systems are steadily gaining market share in the business world.
These are mainly in the clerical and data entry positions, where the OS main role is to run the computer as a host for their enterprise system.
Those desktops that still need to run on Windows usually get along just fine with older versions all the way back to Windows 98.
By scrunching so many features into XP, then Vista, these operating systems have become jacks of all trades which are suitable only for niche markets instead of mass deployment desktops.
The pricing is also off the wall. What got you a fully functional operating system with Windows 98 gave you less with Windows XP home and will give you even less with Windows Vista Home Basic.
Where is the fully funcitional enterprise OS with complete networking features for mass deployment to beige desktops? At the $500 level?
I don't think this will fly with the enterprise.
The scandals will completely devastate the release of Vista and most businesses will refuse to deploy Vista when their IT staffs tell them the new OS will only attract even more attacks than patched XP systems. MS will be reduced to issuing press releases about victorious deployments in "a bakery in Ottawa" and "a car wash in Sierra Leone" which the press will reveals were bought by MS a week before the software was installed.
Ballmer, always regarded as completely insane and emotionally immature, will disappear without a trace. Psychics will lead police to his final resting place, his station wagon, parked behind the Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Spokane where police will determine he had shot himself 9 times in the face, a story that will briefly provoke skeptical reactions from the press.
Microsoft has spent a massive amount of dosh and R&D on security. I expect that security will be significantly improved compared to previous OS versions.
Linux and Mac people annoy me, who gives a crap if its free Windows could be considered free too if you buy a new PC its already there and it still a 500 dollar PC! Am I going to buy the full version of Vista? No. Will I keep my XP until I buy a new Laptop/PC? Of Course!! And lastly, Mac is just like WIndows now cause you get what you pay for; key words PAY FOR, its not free but you think it is cause its in the laptop already.
In no way it's free.You have to pay 500$ for a 400$ hardware - there is no wizardry.So, you have to pay $600 for 500 dollar PC, etc.In fact it is annoying that MS is put kind of "tax" on PCs.What if I do not need their stupid XP Home at all?(usually, PCs are shipped with a dumb, lame and restricted XP Home and probably, will be with equivalent Vista).As for me, it was enough WGA to see real nature of MS.Thank you, I'm preferring to decide myself what to run on my PC.And I'm tired of stupid marketing restrictions in Win XP.If you need REAL OS you have to at least buy Win2003 (and still face with some few licensing limits).Win2003 costs slightly more than lame XP crap.
Then why compare that to OS X, which does all processors, like in
todays Quad dual core machines?
Say come to think of it, if Homeland Wonder Boys? are still using the even older Windows 95, why bother to upgrade if the old systems are still fully functional!
Choices, it would seem, need to have very deep pockets indeed!
Perhaps, I will stick with the venerable old model T, she's still got quite a few terabytes under the bonnet to go before she's ready for the recycle yard!
And you are simpy wrong about the patching. Its a verifiable fact - acknowledged as correct by the Linux companies involved in the study in question - 3 times as many patches on Linux and on average twice as long for a fix than Windows.
Try it on your desktop an see, and it is FREE, no FUD. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7" target="_newWindow">http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7</a>
This was right after the ALTAIR 880, which had ZERO software came out.
Microsoft (in new mexico then) had a vision of a computer on every desktop back when the state of the art was a TTY ASR33, and storage was rolls of punched paper tape.
Computer Dialup time cost $10 per hour. (at 110 baud (10 bytes per second)
Bill was damn near the only guy thet really got it. He delayed the joys of marriage and fatherhood for many years in order to pursue his vision.
Now, as Mr. Gates moves away from day-to-day operations at microsoft, let us hope he can keep the bean counters from spoiling the soup.
DLZ
Your post implies that all the items listed were
contemporaneous, which even a quick, cursory internet search
would show was not the case. Very soon after the Altair came
out, there was a flurry of development. There were a number of
titles for the Altair, albeit that had to be entered via toggle
switches, before the first kits came out allowing dumb terminals,
keyboards, and mainframe floppy drives to be connected. In fact
MS wrote one of the first.
When the Altair came out, there was no such thing as dial up
services, at any price.
As for Gates being "damn near the only guy thet [sic] really got
it" that is just a bunch of BS. Besides the obvious answer of Jobs
and Wozniac (two people who actually DID something about it,
as opposed to Gates, who did squat) there were hundreds if not
thousands of people in homebrew clubs, basement labs, and
corporate industrial parks who "got it."
As for delaying the "joys of marriage and fatherhood," I suspect
there might have been other, more pedestrian, reasons.
And claiming that windowing software for PCs would have cost
$7000 is both absurd and farsically arbitrary. From whence
comes this ridiculous figure? Certainly not from any historical
precedent: GEM and DRDOS (superior in EVERY way to Windows
1.0) cost under $100, an entire mac 128 cost less than $3000. If
anything, THAT price point had more effect on Windows than
decisions by Gates, fronting a company that has never came out
with s SINGLE innovative product in its HISTORY (with one
debatable exception, but I have already alluded to that.)
Gates didn't have any "vision" back then.
He didn't even get windowing until he saw the first Mac. Windows 1 was a clear rip-off of the Mac (I know, I had it... and it was a piece of crap.)
And the "delaying the joy of marriage and fatherhood"... LOL He was a geek. Did you ever see old pictures of him? No sane woman would have dated him...
Lay off the crack.
That was easy...
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Adell.com+linux" target="_newWindow">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Adell.com+linux</a>
Ya know they're still not putting all the h/w requirements on the microsoft site to "fully" use all the features of 'vista' just so the average consumer will waste money NOW buying suboptimized pc's allowing oem's to dump their inventories... no wonder sales are lagging and suspicion is rising.
Every OS has its problems. Microsoft has done LOTS of things wrong, but so have the other companies. MS's mistakes are just easier to spot because so many people use the OS. But this is a serious plea to mac fanatics, if you read a story about Microsoft, please actually think out what you write before just flaming everyone on cnet to death about how they do everything wrong. Apple is a great company, but they arent perfect.
Roberto
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.apple.com/getamac/" target="_newWindow">http://www.apple.com/getamac/</a>
But I suspect you don't.
Alas, anyone who even mentions these reasons is usually
branded a "zealot", "fanboy", "Windows basher", etc. It's almost
pointless.
One reason I prefer the Mac is because it can run OS X/
Windows/Linux. Also OS X software development tools are free,
so no need to spend $100's on MS Visual Studio.
evil. But to your first sentence I might share my 'solid reasons'
for choosing Apple. 5 years and no virus program. Now I have an
apple with intel and can run both Windows (for testing web-
pages & serving asp my clients who need websites run on asp
code). It works great. Also, for those high-end buyers, you can
get a MacPro plus vista for cheeper than a comparable Dell with
only Vista pre-installed (along with other vendor-ware).
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/" target="_newWindow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/</a>
2006/08/23/AR2006082301226.html
> It's what, about $260 on the high end?
> That way you get Vista when it comes out.
Thanks dude, but REAL high-end OS is Win2003 which has a way different pricing.WinXP is kinda limited and restricted OS.You cannot use it for heavily loaded server due to connection limits.You can not remotely login into system by lots of users via remote desktop.You can not... (quite big list of things).With linux, you can.There is NO dumb marketing restrictions, at all.Need 500 TCP connections?Wanna to log in by 20 different users on same machine?Just come on and do it!And that's for FREE.And I already wrote about some drawbacks even XP has.In Vista things about to get even worse.I do not see a clue to pay 260$ for almost nothing.If I'll want to get Vista's look and feel, XP can be tuned to look and feel like Vista.In fact, for free.And it is likely that except $260 you also have to pay for hardware upgrade because Vista is really resource hog and a lots slower than xp on equal hardware.
Choices means dollars spent on system upgrade costs=less profits=black marks/downgrading from WALL STREET!