Windows Vista To Be The Official Name of Longhorn

[Bob Russell]

Engadget is reporting on the upcoming official name from Microsoft for Longhorn... "So there’s been some buzz on this and now it’s looking confirmed by a few insider sources — the official name for the new Microsoft Longhorn operating system is going to be Windows Vista. As in “a view into the distance” which surely refers to the prolonged development timeline of the OS (ouch, we had to.). Look for the official announcement tomorrow morning." Also see story at ActiveNetwork.

My question is how it will affect future handheld computers running full Windows OS like the OQO. They are on Model 1, and Model 2 is surely just around the corner. But up against the much greater hardware demands of Vista/Longhorn, I wonder if they might not be forced to either accept XP for a number of years, or if they will make a jump to Linux. Hopefully they will at least ensure that it can perform decently. Nothing like a really slow handheld to frustrate a user.

[Chaos]

Longhorn is the place I think Linux and OSX will really begin to gain much more momentum. After such a long time between releases, and with, to our current knowledge, not much in the way of great features, Longhorn will be the OS people won't want to upgrade to.

And with the rumoured system specs, I'm betting some people won't be able to handle the upgrade...


The list of features we know is rather sparse...
IE 7? It'll run on XP, and Firefox is better anyway. (Offtopic, sorta: )
WinFS? I believe they ditched that.
Avalon/Indigo? Weren't they going to have these backported to XP as updates?
A new GUI design? Wow, yeah, that's worth several hundred dollars, or a new computer (if you can't handle the sys requirements).


Basically, why should anyone upgrade from XP? And why wouldn't they just upgrade to a Mac (if they'd have to buy a new computer for Longhorn, no harm done), or upgrade to Linux (say Ubuntu or Kubuntu - both very easy to use).

[TadW]

Originally Posted by Chaos

(Offtopic, sorta: )

Cool!

To me, all the news around Longhorn (and how Windows Vista) sound like a big market campaign AGAINST upgrading to the Windows XP successor. Why would Microsoft do this to themselves? It's not that they were ever loved by the geek community, but all the DRM plans and ridiculous hardware requirements make Longhorn even less attractive than anything I've seen from Microsoft in the past.

[hacker]

Is that Vista... as in Hasta la Vista? <grin>

[hacker]

Originally Posted by Chaos

Longhorn is the place I think Linux and OSX will really begin to gain much more momentum. After such a long time between releases, and with, to our current knowledge, not much in the way of great features, Longhorn will be the OS people won't want to upgrade to.

More-importantly, it'll be at least 3-4 years after Longhorn is released before any businesses begin to deploy it.

At my wife's work (biggest pharma in the world) and at portions of my day job, we perform our work on Windows 2000 machines. Her work is just planning on rolling out XP company-wide for next year. XP in 2006. You think they're going to upgrade to Longhorn/Vista in 2007? Highly unlikely.

By that time, the entire nature of the software industry is going to change so dramatically, that Microsoft Windows will end up looking like BeOS or Amiga does now.

[Brian]

1. Vista is a bad name. Seriously, Microsoft seems to be missing the mark a lot lately and I think it's a sign they are in trouble. Even though they have some serious cash reserves and still a 95% or so market share, they're constantly taking hits or making missteps on a number of fronts.

There is also a serious brain drain in Redmond with a number of top thinkers and developers going to the competition. If you're a young, motivated software programmer or CS major coming out of college who wants to make some innovative and quality software, are you going to look to Redmond or somewhere else as the best outlet for your talents?

2. I am not "upgrading" to Vista, either through a new PC purchase or as a boxed upgrade. After years of dealing with Windows, I just switched back last week. My first computer was an Apple ][e. I'm typing this on a new PowerBook G4 running Tiger. I can't believe I've been missing such a pleasant computing expereince for so long. I'm never going back . Too bad I have to use PCs at work.

3. I must not be the only one who's had enough of Windows. Apple just jumped to #4 in computer sales, and their growth rate is the fastest of any US company.

Hasta la Vista baby .

Brian

[Brian]

By the way that video of the official naming was one of the most lame attempts at artificial hype and buzz that I've seen. It looked like an infomercial for some Ronco product.

And what was with the crappy video .WMV quality? Haven't they seen how it's done right?

Both the lame attempt at buzz and the embarrassingly poor video quality are indications that MS is in some serious trouble and is struggling to put out a positive message. Google's Moon got more buzz than most of Microsoft's recent announcements and ZDNet has an article about Microsoft losing out in the buzz factor.

Brian

[TadW]

There is zero buzz in Windows Vista. In fact, if I didn't know it better, I'd say the whole Microsoft campaign was sponsered by the Linux community to draw the whole thing into mockery.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by ballistic

By the way that video of the official naming was one of the most lame attempts at artificial hype and buzz that I've seen. It looked like an infomercial for some Ronco product.

Thanks for the link, ballistic. That video is almost grotesque. Hard to believe that we are talking about the successor of Windows XP here!

[Brian]

If I were Bill Gates and I saw that video with such poor quality, someone in the marketing department would have lots o 'splainin to do. The most powerful software company in the world is trying to hype their next OS as the most innovative OS in the history of the world, yet the video quality for people tuning in to the hype (using MS's own proprietary format requiring their own proprietary player, by the way) is so bad that you can't read the text in the infomercial? Sad...

I think their message on the Windows Vista page is kind of strange:

Introducing Windows Vista™

It enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it.

It introduces clear ways to organize and use information the way you want to use it.

It seamlessly connects you to information, people, and devices that help you get the most out of life.

1. "It enables a new level of confidence in your PC" suggests that Windows users are not confident, or have an inadequate level of confidence in their PCs.

2. "It enables a new level of confidence....in your ability to get the most out of it" suggests that Windows users are not currently confident in their ability to get the most out of their PCs.

3. "It introduces clear ways" suggests that the way Windows users are doing things now are not clear.

Does this strike anyone else as ironic when you consider the fact Microsoft is targeting Vista mostly at current Windows users due to their 90% + market share?

They preface this list with:

Today we live in a world of more information, more ways to communicate, more things to do. There is more you can do and even more you can discover.

Every day, millions of people around the globe rely on their Windows PC to manage their increasingly digital lives. While familiar tools for managing digital information are powerful, today's world requires more.

In today's digital world, you want the PC to adapt to you, so you can cut through the clutter and focus on what's important to you.

So it's due to information overload and not all of the spyware, adware, viruses, an outdated web browser, and lack a cohesive and integrated suite of common applications (photos, music, movies, email, PIM)?

All hail Vista! It will solve all of your computing woes (that we helped create) and give you more confidence!

I vaguely remember a similar message when XP was announced.

Brian

[Colin Dunstan]

Bink.nu has just posted some screenshots of Vista. In one word: unimpressive!

http://bink.nu/Article4587.bink

[Bob Russell]

It may look pretty and boot faster, and require less rebooting, but I don't know if all the "improvements" will be worth it. Here's a summary of the changes in Vista from a news.com article (via Slashdot).

Among the features in the OS are security improvements, some snazzy new graphics, and a new means of searching and organizing information. ... In addition, Microsoft is trying to simplify an array of other tasks, such as adding a PC to a home network or connecting a laptop to a projector.

We'll see, but I may become one of those that tries to get a few extra years out of Win XP by buying a hi-powered PC without Longhorn while I still can. Every time I hear that Microsoft is trying to simplify something, it scares me!