[wellylug] OT in some sense (I guess), but a fun read ...

Rob Giltrap rob at kiwihq.com
Wed Feb 21 09:39:31 NZDT 2007


andrej at paradise.net.nz wrote:
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Maybe I'm missing something...

I got why Windows 95 was an improvement, it was a big step up in terms 
of multitasking, 32bit support and a nice interface upgrade

I got why Windows 98 was an improvement as it fixed a number of issues 
that Windows 95 and had substantial enhancements for the Internet

Windows ME was a joke and reduced functionality greatly (primarily 
through breaking a lot of hardware support) while providing little 
benefit in terms of enhancements (just a few small ones) hence few 
people purchased this version.

I got why Windows XP was an improvement, the use of the NT kernel 
improved the underlying system greatly and my personal experience was 
that it more stable (but not nearly as good as I would desire).

Now we come to Windows Vista, and I just don't get it. It provides a new 
interface which looks like it will take time to gain familiarity with 
but is not going to improve my productivity. It restricts the use of my 
media files, it apparently requires a great deal more hardware resource. 
A lot of negatives and I don't really see many benefits, a couple of 
games, DVD authoring software and not much else.

So now I wonder will Vista be successful as it doesn't 'completely' 
screw the hardware vendors like ME did or will it fail because it just 
doesn't deliver sufficient value?

Personally I think Vista version 1 won't do well, Vista version 2 may be 
a different story but it certainly is a opportunity point for the *nixs

Rob.








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