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Microsoft

Microsoft tries to find its 'wow'

By Ina Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: December 19, 2007, 4:00 AM PST
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A giant human billboard on a frosty January morning marked the long-anticipated mainstream launch for Microsoft's two flagship products--Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007.

"The 'wow' starts now," the software maker promised. However, response outside of Redmond was more muted. Reviews for the software were decidedly mixed, while consumer demand for Vista remained tepid, prompting some computer makers to bring back Windows XP, while other PC makers started including XP discs in the box with Vista machines. Microsoft also agreed to let big-name PC makers sell XP longer than originally planned.

Aerial dancers

The company also missed its goal on the business side, with business uptake for Vista roughly on par with that of XP in its first year. Microsoft had hoped to see an adoption rate double that achieved by XP in its first year.

Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to move ahead with its "Live" services push. On the Windows Live front, the company finally hit send on a new version of Hotmail that was years in development. After spending much of 2006 launching a range of disparate services to see what stuck with consumers, Microsoft attempted to unify and refine many of the tools it launched over the past year. It also began opening up a bit about its longer-term plan to offer developers the ability to build their own applications on top of core Microsoft services such as storage and authentication.

On the Office Live front, Microsoft moved beyond small businesses and in December started testing Office Live Workspace, an online tool for viewing, storing, and sharing--but not editing--Office documents.

Even as it looked to find ways of taking its existing software online, Microsoft continued to branch into new areas. In May, the company took the wraps off its surface computing effort, a product that it had worked on for years, in uncharacteristic secrecy.

In business computing, the software giant continued its move into telephony. In October, the company released its Office Communications Server, a move that put the company in competition with Cisco System and others in the "unified communications" market.

Milan

Microsoft was also busy on the acquisition front. In March, it bought Tellme Networks.

That deal was followed up by the company's largest-ever purchase, its $6 billion bid for Aquantive, an online advertising company that few outside the industry had ever heard of. Late in the year, the company beat out Google to take a stake in Facebook.

During the year, Microsoft also continued to strike deals with the open-source community, including agreements with Samsung, Fuji Xerox, and TurboLinux. However, the company continued to raise the hackles of the Linux world, particularly with its claim that open source violates 235 of its patents.

2007 Highlights

Windows chief bows out

special report As Vista hits store shelves after a long five years, Microsoft veteran Jim Allchin heads for retirement.

January 29, 2007

Microsoft turns to telephony

Company veteran Jeff Raikes talks about how Microsoft plans to make its big investment in telephone technology pay off.

March 6, 2007

Vista for the masses

special coverage After long delays, Microsoft is finally releasing the Windows update to consumers. See all of News.com's stories and more.

April 4, 2007

Hotmail redesign: Too Hotmail to handle?

special report Microsoft embarks in a years' long redesign of its Web mail program only to find most of its users like things the way they are.

May 7, 2007

Microsoft to buy Aquantive for $6 billion

Spending spree on advertising companies continues, as the software giant issues a rejoinder to Google's plan to purchase DoubleClick.

May 18, 2007

Microsoft hopes Milan table PC has magic touch

Years in the making, company's new tabletop computer is controlled entirely through touch--there's no mouse or keyboard.

May 29, 2007

Microsoft to extend Xbox 360 warranty

Software maker says it's seeing unacceptable number of repairs; investigation finds several factors could lead to hardware failures.

July 5, 2007

Microsoft's 'Cloud OS' takes shape

Once ethereal, Microsoft's plans to try to replicate its desktop position on the Web are starting to become clearer.

July 12, 2007

Microsoft and Facebook: The $240 million poke

Microsoft taking a stake in Facebook, as well as gaining the right to sell ads for Facebook internationally.

October 24, 2007

Windows Live hits the toddler stage

In an interview, Windows Live exec Chris Jones talks about what the 2-year-old is up to and comments on another youngster--Apple's iPhone.

November 6, 2007

At software giant, pain gives rise to progress

special report Security practices at Microsoft have been transformed since threats like Slammer and Blaster first wormed their way onto the scene.

December 3, 2007

Additional Headlines

Behind Redmond's Tellme deal

Making sense of Redmond's $6 billion buy

How Milan was born

Mystery surrounds Microsoft's virtualization flip-flop

Microsoft looks to improve its name game

Gates still has long to-do list

Windows gets a Mini-me

The balance sheet on Windows Vista

Microsoft fires its CIO

 

73 comments

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MS's best days are behind them.
Vista is a flop, more so than ME ever was, yet Microsoft remains adamant in pushing it on the world regardless of the resistance.

I maintain IT systems for health care providers and I see two interesting trends:

One is the total lack of support by practice management systems a year after launch. When asked about Vista support last month, 4 out of 5 vendors replied No!. The 5th? We have one doctor's office that reports he has our client running on Vista, but we won't support that PC if you do the same. The hospitals that I have to interface Dr.'s with, such as for PACS systems or VPNs, are also strongly resisting Vista hoping it 'just goes away' like Windows ME.

Two, the doctor's and staff I support range in age the full spectrum from 'just out of college' to 'could have retired 5 years ago'. The younger set, as in <35, are interesting in that barely a single one of them owns or uses MS Office and many avoid IE at all costs. A large percentage own Macs or are considering one. Just yesterday one clinical staff says to another "MS Media player sucks, I use WinAmp" and another chimes in about a player in AIM. Anyhow, I can see a revolution happening here. Give the younger set a smaller device that does what they want, does it well without the problems and overhead a legacy Microsoft product brings with it, and the full Microsoft PC is history faster than MS could ever rewrite or fix Vista.
Posted by Microsoft_Facts (109 comments )
Reply Link Flag
I disagree!
I don't think Vista is a big a flop as ME. ME was an unmitigated
money grab. Vista was a major Windows upgrade that MS was
unable to achieve.

It's OK, but that's about all I can say about it. Will I use it? Nope.
We're staying with XP while we move to more Macs & Linux PCs.

Other than that I agree with most of what you wrote. The day of
the big honking desktop has peaked. Ten years from now, I
seriously doubt MS will be the powerhouse they are today.

Twenty years from now, I doubt if the name Microsoft will mean
any more to the average computer user as Cisco does today.
Posted by rcrusoe (1307 comments )
Link Flag
me was for home users
ME was meant for home users, not businesses. Saying Vista is a bigger flop than ME is just ridiculous. Go back to school.
Posted by jlm429 (48 comments )
Link Flag
XP Was A Different Time
The problem for Vista when compared to XP is simply that the
need for it is much less. XP was the first release of Windows
that unified the business and home versions of Microsoft's
operating systems into a single product that brought the
stability and features of the NT line to the home user. XP gave
quite a bit more bang-for-your-buck over Windows 9x and
even 2000 that selling it was pretty easy. Unfortunately, the
need for Vista is much reduced which is testament to how good
XP was at the time in as much as Vista failed to achieve the
goals that were set for it.

The other problem that Microsoft faces now that it didn't face
when XP was released is that the competition is now getting its
act together. Apple is no longer the joke that it was even in the
early 2000's and Linux is making in-roads into Microsoft's
territory.

Personally, I was very happy to pay for XP at the time because it
promised a much more robust computing environment than I
had with Windows 98SE because that was important to me. With
Vista, however, I honestly can't find anything compelling enough
to make me want to buy it so the only way I would use it is if it
came with a new computer and ran OK. This brings up the
important question: once you've mastered the basics of
implementing a good OS, what do you do that will enough to
make a new version sufficient that people will pay for it?
Eventually (if not already) people will decide that Windows is
"good enough" already and just not want to pay for it again so
Microsoft will need a new source of income.
Posted by kelmon (1403 comments )
Link Flag
Thats what they said about Intel...
...and now look where Intel has gone. Microsoft has shown a very similar trend to that of Intel when they first were met with competition, then they realized to keep ahead they had to plan ahead and use the resources given them to shoot back into the powerhouse they are.

This year will be a deciding factor really in how Microsoft handles the new age. They won the OS war once and the question is can they win again, can they pull off the same victory twice against newer and better prepared competition. This is something that remains to be seen, but either they will raise a fight like Intel and beat to a without a doubt assurance they are the best software maker around or they will slowly fade. It all comes to quality and if they are willing to put the work into it to make their products what people expect.

As for the Windows Media comment, I would agree that its a common thing for people to go to other players, but for the most part, this is true with even Quicktime and such, people just don't use players that come standard anymore unless they have too, because better ones do exist.
Posted by Rimer (25 comments )
Link Flag
I think You're right.....
Most of what they are doing is just rewrapping the old with eye candy, widgets, etc. That wrapping is all it is wrapping but at the expense of millions of added lines of code and ineffient code at that.
I use both XP and Vista at Work but only because I have to support it. The only thing I can say that is positive about Vista is that they did do an excellent job on the total redesign of the TCP/IP stack as it is much faster on the network than XP. That is the only positive thing I can say about Vista.

Face it, it's a consumer OS. You don't need all of that junk getting in the way of productivity. If you are in an enterprise then you are pretty much already protected. Vista is trying to protect the user from the user and that is lame.
Posted by fred dunn (772 comments )
Link Flag
Get a Game Console for "WOW"!
Ya buy a car that's twice as heavy, burns 4X the gas, and doubles in price to get the purdy trim accents...Ya want "WOW"? Get a game console with HAIRO Graphics. Ya wanna compute? DON'T get VISTA CRAPSTA! XP wont be supported, but I'll guarantee you it will run for many years past M$ supoort life!
Posted by JRude667 (18 comments )
Link Flag
Vista vs XP
XP's marketing campaign was stronger than vista's. I saw one or two commercials for vista which didn't really show the os in action, they just showed people doing things with a computer, but never showed the os.

In the xp campaign, they showed lots of close ups of the os as it helped people get their computing tasks done. They also ran more frequently.

I haven't seen a vista commercial lately, but I've seen plenty of "I'm a mac, I'm a pc" commercials.

Maybe Microsoft should do what Apple is doing and actually advertise their product more. They want to show us the Wow, then SHOW US THE WOW!
Posted by thedreaming (574 comments )
Reply Link Flag
There is no WOW to show, unfortunately
They tried showing clips of network shows on the floating
windows, but I don't think anyone made the connection to Vista.

The trouble is, Apple can run ads because they've been getting
good press on their products for the past few years.

MS can't say the same. The only good press they have gotten
says that Vista or Office 2007 is NOT a 'must-have' upgrade.
And that's in the midst of some harsher criticism.
Posted by ppgreat (702 comments )
Link Flag
what channels are you watching?
the reason that anyone doesn't notice the Vista commercials as much is because they SUCK especially for a marketing company.

I don't see how hard it was to simply ad DirectX effects to the GUI instead of all their so called improvements, and modifications to EULA scheme.

I've seen better features in windows 3.1 and instead of the super+tab they had a cascade feature that had more function.
Posted by ColdMast (188 comments )
Link Flag
Stop "improving" office
As I sit here listening to my coworker yell "I hate MS" I have to wonder how much longer they can keep this up.

See, the problem my coworker is having is that she is trying to edit a simple word doc but apparently all the built in MS auto stuff (to supposedly help her) is actually hindering her work.

She's spending more time fighting with word than it would have taken to simply rewrite the document. That's not a productivity improvement, so you have to wonder why we spent $250 on a product that actually making our work harder.

Now I suppose some word expert might have gotten the job done quickly, but how many of us have time to become word experts? and as she just told me, you just get to the point where you know how to use office and they put out a new one and change it all around.

So at the end of the day, you have two people sitting here wishing MS would stop "improving" office. That's all I really have to say...
Posted by Arrgster (85 comments )
Reply Link Flag
I agree
Office 2007 sucks, everyone hates it here at work, all those changes, no one likes them, including the management, which usually is made up of older people (who hate change), and even the younger people hate it.

Open Office much better, you can record and playback Macros in Excel in 4 different languages, not just VBA.
Posted by RompStar_420 (766 comments )
Link Flag
agreed, why change the the menu with clutter
the ribbon is for kids, it's not cost effective to retrain employees on standard office applications no matter how much market research Microsoft has done, give us office old timers back our old menu.

Microsoft has to stop being predatory on its consumer base {forcing us to upgrade and removing compatibilities}, start giving us the the things we want and not the things that their "market research" tells them we want.

Microsoft, quit treating paying customers like idiots.
Posted by ColdMast (188 comments )
Link Flag
Typifies
"See, the problem my coworker is having is that she is trying to edit a simple word doc but apparently all the built in MS auto stuff (to supposedly help her) is actually hindering her work."

This sort of thing is a great example of Microsoft thinking it knows better than you what you want/need. Hence the annoying 'help', like 'clippy' and other auto stuff meant to help the user. I hear my boss screaming from the other room at least once a day, too, complaining about Word.
Posted by The_happy_switcher (2049 comments )
Link Flag
You can turn that off, you know
it is quite easy.
That and the new Office doesn't 'autocorrect' any differently then the old, so she must have been swearing all along? Or is this simply made up?

You don't need to be an expert to use Word, and use it well. Spending a little time (and I mean a little) to learn the tools you use on a daily basis really makes sense.
Posted by catch23 (436 comments )
Link Flag
Office 2007 Rocks
I don't use Office in my everyday tasks. I have Office 2007 and every time I open one of its applications and I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use and how much faster I can get things done.
Posted by cb3431 (68 comments )
Link Flag
All that and no bag of chips.
They do all that and their tech support can't even get Media Center Running on a laptop designed to run Vista and so they quit.

My new MicroSoft Mantra. STFP. Solve The F*^#ing Problem.
Posted by Renegade Knight (10807 comments )
Reply Link Flag
JLTNOL
not to get into another OSX vs. MS debate, but I think one of the
big differences between the two companies, is that MS wants
you to do it the MS way, wheres Apple allows you to do it your
way.

Yes there are lots of examples contrary to that statement in both
OS's, but generally, I think it's true.

I use both OSX and XP, and still fine XP gets in the way of work
all the time.
Posted by jltnol (85 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Wow... it really does suck.
Prolly not what Microsoft envisioned when they launched their "wow" campaign, but really, even I was impressed by how much of a bloated sack of sheep manure Vista turned out to be, and my expectations for it were lower than most.

So I guess their marketing slogan did success after all... sorta.

/P
Posted by Penguinisto (5058 comments )
Reply Link Flag
The marketing is off, for sure
They didn't have the big change like they did for 95. Vista is basically an upgrade no matter how much you try to call it a new product or put it in a shiny wrapper.

Apple is going through the same thing with Leopard. Glitz, glamour, no real content change. Not enough to warrant going to a new OS.

I don't really see any company releasing revolutionary products at this point.
Posted by Vegaman_Dan (6699 comments )
Link Flag
MS is clueless on how to improve windows
They think they have to add new features to get people to upgrade, and then they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing, to convince customers they need these features. Well, we don't need them. Instead of creating slow, complicated, backwards-incompatible software, MS should focus on making faster, leaner, and easier to use software. People will gladly pay for a new version of windows that loads in one tenth of the time, and lets you switch between tasks in the blink of an eye, and office apps that don't re-format your documents, and software that doesn't suck up 150% of all of the performance improvements of new microprocessors and memory.

Having used DOS and windows machines for almost 25 years, I really didn't want to waste all that acquired knowledge by moving over to a mac or linux, but that's what's happening. I have one system that runs Vista, and if it was the only system I had to use every day, I will have a stroke, so I will not buy any more of them, as strokes are bad for you.

MS has just become another giant company, with no ability to innovate, which must convince consumers to buy their products, rather than sell products that people want to buy. They have a lot of inertia, but eventually that will all be overcome by indifference and disgust.
Posted by kgsbca (185 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Question
"I have one system that runs Vista, and if it was the only system I had to use every day, I will have a stroke, so I will not buy any more of them, as strokes are bad for you."

What is it that would give you a stroke?

Lots of people say it sucks but what of the system makes it suck?

I know personaly I had slow down issues on boot and shutdown. But that turned out to not be Vista related (at least for me)

Is it IE7?

Is it DRM?

Or is it they dumbed down so many things that it now takes more mouse clicks to do something simple? (Until you figure the shortcuts?)

Was it bad hardware as in my case with the 680i?
Posted by wolivere (568 comments )
Link Flag
Really?
They improved XP with what the market told them they wanted, they held surveys, they used suggestions, and they used what they thought would work... it didn't. However when is the last time you had to design and plan out an entire OS? Some things work and some things don't, much like the game industry, you really won't know what hits or misses if everyone in the company likes it, market response is hard to gauge and honestly Microsoft has proven to be decent at reading this response, just not as good as Apple these days.

No matter how many people call Microsoft idiots, it comes back to this, they are not, they have some of the best and brightest working there and if anything that is their downfall, they have so many people who are computer savvy that they are almost incapable of building a OS for those not, and when they try you get Vista.

Honestly they should have listened to the crowd that matters the most to them as its what kept them afloat for many years, the developers.
Posted by Rimer (25 comments )
Link Flag
MS = Your Father's Oldsmobile
Microsoft ... it really is "Your father's Oldsmobile"

MS basically has no more "wow" than IBM did, back in the days when MS was "cool".
Posted by USDecliningDollar (243 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Solution for MS
MS could really improve its "wow"ness by giving a retirement package to the guy at the top. Turn the company and direction back over to the developers, basically freeing their creativity. Otherwise, we are left with what we have now ... I'll leave it at that.
Posted by USDecliningDollar (243 comments )
Link Flag
Vista
Windows Vista is an improvement over XP, regardless of how many cloudy-eyed Mac users there are posting on this thread. I use both, but it's quite intense to read people attack the operating system, when they as a user do nothing more than browse the internet. Vista is what XP was when it launched, in time this will fade, and it won't be such a surprise. Until then, people have the OS X service back with new fancy features like "backup" and "transparencies" to keep them warm at night (and this is coming from someone who uses Macs).

Let the flames begins.
Posted by AdamMoore (49 comments )
Reply Link Flag
The dissatisfaction has nothing to do with OS X
what infuriates me is that when I have a CPU that is 2x faster, and 4x as much memory, yet for the same simple task, the system runs muuuuch slower. There is no excuse for that. You can't attribute all of the negative reaction to Vista to Mac or linux lovers. MS doesn't care about performance, they only care about the size of their feature list.
Posted by kgsbca (185 comments )
Link Flag
Improvement, Yes but No Wow
The problem is this: Vista improves over XP but not enough.
Seriously, there is no "Wow" factor in Vista, just an incremental
update that leaves you wondering both where all the time and
effort went to and why really you should pay for it. There's little
doubt that Vista will replace XP but this will come through
upgrades of hardware rather than people upgrading the OS on
their current PC because there is almost nothing to justify the
cost.

Vista is also not XP. When XP launched it was a revelation -
stable computing at home and that in itself justified the
upgrade from Windows 9x. XP was so much better than
Windows 9x that people wanted to upgrade but with Vista that
isn't the case.
Posted by kelmon (1403 comments )
Link Flag
Meh, not a Mac fan
but Vista does suck. nLited XP install is so much better for gaming and everyday use than a vLited Vista install. And now that Alky has ported DirectX 10 to XP, there isn't even a remote reason to switch to Vista.

MS really needs to release a bloatfree base OS like the Linux distros with all the added functionality as addin packages, so those of us interested in a lighter, faster performing workstation can get our fix.

Since my goal is speed + reliability, Vista has nothing to offer me over XP in either department. And since my livelihood doesn't rely on imposing DRM on the innocent, I have no reason to shill for Vista.
Posted by tarrantm (41 comments )
Link Flag
Yes, it is a Vistapocalypse!
People in offices that have migrated to Vista are all furious at how clumsy the new OS is in terms of design and how screwed up it is technically. One guy I spoke with on Tuesday at a company party said keeps getting freezes from Internet Explorer - MS's own browser - and weird episodes in which the computer goes into slow motion.

No wonder manufacturers everywhere are giving downgrade options to customer so they can get back to XP which is at least stable and kind of usable.

Hilarious.

And it's not your father's Oldsmobile. To make that analogy stick the car would have to burst into flames and kill all the occupants a mile and a half from the dealer's lot.

Roberto
Posted by Sumatra-Bosch (525 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Forgot their uses/priorities
Xp is easy utilitarian that is somewhat easy to use and one can somewhat set it for a minimalist install or add themes and whatever eye candy you want. Vista is just too hoggish and sacrificed much of trying to be utilitarian and tried and failed to mimic the mac with slick and pretty interface.

Mac=Slick and Pretty interface refined. Winning over the users that want easier to use software

Linux= Pure utilitarian. But, they are taking that easy utilitarian market with newer more friendly distributions. Could have already put a huge crunch on Microsoft if they were more organized and combined several good distro features instead of having hundreds of variants.

For instance new computer users when faced with pop up warning messages in vista may think. What does that mean? Are you sure? Maybe not.

Power users will say ugh this is annoying get out of my way. Are you sure? H*ll yes now move!

This also is bad for them that they bent over backwards to kiss Big Entertainment's butt by sticking much more DRM on the whole OS. Customers learn from experience that when DRM doesn't work right they are the ones going to get burned because neither Microsoft nor Big Entertainment care when your fancy new dap dies and all the content is lost. You are S.O.L.
Posted by Sparky650 (50 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Bottom Line: "Wow, I can't beleive we released this.."
Intel Core Duo 2 (2.0) 2GB Ram, 32GB Solid State: XP OS, the laptop is very fast, to where it almost hovers because of the speed. Vista OS, the laptop is slow and MSFT Apps (Office2k7) take twice as long to load. The laptop was certified (whatever thats worth) for Vista Business.

I did not like XP at first, but it had nothing to do with performance. I hated their "disneyland" GUI make over.
Posted by ncftech (14 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Why there is no Wow.
There's no Wow in Vista because other than some eye candy, security features which hinder the user rather than protect him/her, a high price tag, multiple versions, and an incredibly long development cycle, Vista doesn't bring anything new to the table.

On top of this, Microsoft isn't exactly advertising Vista heavily. When is the last time you saw a competing ad for Vista? I've seen plenty of "I'm a mac, I'm a pc" ads, but no ads showing what vista can do for both the home user and business users.
Posted by thedreaming (574 comments )
Reply Link Flag
 

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