Microsoft reboots
After the Vista debacle, Microsoft changed the way it makes software. The result – Windows 7 – is winning raves. Can a new operating system (and a new attitude) help the company take on Google?
With Microsoft's founder and chairman, Bill Gates, trotting the globe in a quest to abolish diseases, his handpicked successor, CEO Steve Ballmer, has had most of a decade to move the company beyond its two biggest cash cows, the Windows operating system and the Office productivity suite. So far, not so good.
The company's web forays, such as MSN, have only highlighted the dominance of Google and Yahoo. In software for smartphones, there is Apple, RIM (RIMM), and everybody else. MP3 players? Microsoft's Zune hardly merits a mention. And even the core franchise has suffered. In the face of slowing PC sales and the economic pall, Microsoft's fiscal 2009 revenue actually contracted, to $58.4 billion from more than $60 billion in fiscal 2008 — and the company missed its earnings estimate by more than $1 billion.
Fresh Coat of Paint: Artist Ricardo Richey, commissioned by Fortune, spray-paints a street-smartversion of Microsoft'sname and Window's logo on a San Francisco wall.
But the biggest failure under Ballmer's tenure was self-inflicted. Vista was meant to be a wholesale reimagining of Windows, the brand name for Microsoft's operating systems dating back to the early 1980s. Every so often the company unveils a new OS, blandly named for the year of the release (Windows 95, Windows 98) or a geeky abbreviation (Windows XP is short for Windows Experience). Vista had a marketing-friendly moniker, a fancy user interface, new security architecture, a better file-storage system, and much more.
After a protracted six-year development process, much internal squabbling, false starts, blown deadlines, and broken promises to partners, the engineering team mopped up 50 million lines of code, wrung it all out into a shrink-wrapped box, and heaved it onto the world in early 2007.
The timing couldn't have been worse. Vista required top-end hardware to operate even while users were downgrading from desktops to notebooks. The bloated OS was incompatible with printers, web cams, and device drivers of all sorts. Early adopters scurried back to Windows XP; many corporations skipped the upgrade altogether. Worst of all, Vista energized the cloud computing chorus, led by Google (GOOG), whose vision of the future involves ubiquitous broadband, a good web browser, and everything else hosted on the Internet. No sophisticated operating system necessary. "Vista was the biggest debacle in the history of the company," says one former senior executive. "People were ashamed to say they worked on it."
But here's some good news: On Oct. 22 Vista will be safely behind Microsoft (MSFT). On that day, the company will introduce a successor, Windows 7, and guess what? It doesn't suck. In fact, it's really pretty good. For all the pomp around each new version of the iPhone, the latest Kindle, or Google's next beta, Wave, Windows 7 is sure to go down as the technology launch of the year. Critics love it, and IT managers are ready to buy. A recent Credit Suisse survey says that a quarter of corporate customers plan to upgrade within two years. Analysts estimate that the new OS could boost Microsoft's revenue by more than $3 billion over that time and ignite the entire ecosystem built on Windows — from computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to third-party software vendors, resellers, and system supporters. It could be the shot in the arm the entire tech sector has been looking for.
On a warm September day in Redmond, Wash., sitting in a conference room in Building 34, the economic epicenter of the Northwest, Ballmer is not ready to declare the doldrums over. A stock market turnaround means little in the face of staggering unemployment. But he remains hopeful because he thinks this version of Windows is a winner. "It's a great product. We did our best. Is that going to cause huge increases in spending by the world's businesses? I can't make that promise," he says, "although I think things are becoming slightly less cautious. There's some hope that says, ‘Hey, look, maybe this is part of the turnaround.'"
Back from the abyss
It's just a hint of optimism from an executive who has been bearish on the economy of late, an indication that the mood is shifting at one of the most self-loathing, hypercritical corporate cultures you're ever likely to encounter. As bad as the Vista years have been, Microsoft seems to be getting its act together. The Wall Street collapse stunned the company, and management reacted with uncharacteristic alacrity. "There was a week or two where everything seemed to come to a stop," says CFO Chris Liddell, "and we said, 'We're going to have to operate in a different way.' "The company laid off 5,000 employees and instituted a "10-point plan" to cut wasteful spending, from vendor allotments to travel and entertainment.
Meanwhile, executives ramped up development cycles. This past summer the company kicked off, in its words, "a year of product launches unlike any other in Microsoft history." Since then, Ballmer et al. have revamped Windows Server and unveiled the Zune HD line of MP3 players. On the way: overhauls of Windows Mobile, Office, Internet Explorer, Xbox Live, Bing (its new search engine), and the introduction of Azure, a plunge into the enemy territory of cloud computing. Microsoft is also about to venture into retailing, an area conquered by longtime nemesis Apple (AAPL).
All this, says Bob Muglia, president of the server and tools division, is part of what he calls Microsoft v.3 — a play on the old saw that it takes the company three releases to get a product right. "In the Vista era, we lost track of a bunch of things," he says. "Now Windows 7 has shipped, and it's the official start of [a time of] mature leadership, competitive focus, aggressive competition — and I think you see the results. You could say it's us getting our mojo back."
If Steve Ballmer has one attribute of a great leader, it's an ability to inspire the troops — which is what he's about to do standing onstage in July at a convention center in downtown New Orleans. The Big Easy is broiling in a midsummer haze. The locals have cleared out, making way for the 5,000 Microsoft partners — resellers, builders, software developers — who have gathered at a conference organized in their honor. Ballmer is, naturally, the headline act. He's peeled off some pretty outlandish keynotes over the years, including "Steve Ballmer Going Crazy" (2 million views on You- Tube) — in which he huffs, "Come on, give it up for me!" — and the much-remixed "Developers" (1 million-plus views), where a heavier Ballmer performs a sweaty, arrhythmic stomp dance.
Today job one is to inject some optimism into the crowd. Ballmer had a tough year. He took a modest (for a man worth $11 billion) pay cut. But his small-business partners are reeling from the downturn. "This is the most phenomenal year we've ever had for technology releases," he rumbles, ticking off reasons to be hopeful about 2010. Microsoft vows to keep investing $9 billion-plus in R&D, it'll increase spending on partner support, and most of all it will keep fighting competitors — because, well, that's what the company does best. "We don't go home," he says. "We just keep coming and coming and coming. We're tenacious, tenacious, tenacious. Boom!"
That's not entirely true. Over the years the company has cowered at least a few times. It bailed on Microsoft Money (a personal finance product designed to oust Quicken), would-be YouTube killer Soapbox, the long-forgotten BOB operating system for kids, tablet PCs, web-enabled TVs, etc. But the company has surely disrupted many markets — from web browsers to console games — by offering a fresh perspective. "Novell said, ‘The world is about single purpose operating systems,' " explains Ballmer, back at Building 34."We had to say, ‘No, the world is really about multiple-purpose operating systems.' Lotus and WordPerfect said, ‘The world is character-based,' and we said, ‘No, let's try some graphics.' Apple said, ‘The world is a proprietary software-hardware combination,' and we said, ‘No, the world needs to be open to choice.'"
The enemy within
Such conquests, while dated, have earned the company a reputation for being obsessed with competitors — a characterization Ballmer does little to diminish. Unlike most executives of his ilk, he says what's on his mind, which can include calling Google a "house of cards" or referring to Linux as a "cancer that … attaches itself to everything it touches." He once laughed derisively on camera at the prospect of the iPhone ever succeeding. But in Microsoft's core business, there is no real competition. Various versions of Windows run more than 95% of all PCs. So when it came to preventing another Vista, Ballmer had to find the enemy within.
Windows 7 is a departure from Vista in many ways. It will be unveiled on time after a three-year development cycle. It's compatible with previous versions and has excised all the security-permissions protocols that were lampooned in Apple's "I'm a Mac" ad campaign. It's sharp-looking, almost as sleek as the Mac OS, and has a few cool new features, like support for multitouch monitors and Aero Shake, which allows users to clear the desktop with a jiggle of the mouse. Perhaps most impressively, it requires less computing horsepower than Vista. That just never happens with a new OS. But the biggest departure comes in scope and ambition. Ballmer claims to have learned something from Vista: It's no longer advisable to try a "big bang" rollout — i.e., completely reimagine a product as sophisticated and interconnected as Windows.
So he hit control-alt-delete. He brought in a new taskmaster, Steven Sinofsky, to oversee the engineering. Sinofsky became known for hitting deadlines while overseeing the Office group from 2000–07. An executive close to the Windows team characterizes his changes as such: "Reset — or reboot — is something that we hear a lot about the transition," he says. "What we did was [give] the development team a clarity that was probably missing." With Vista, teams worked on features simultaneously without an awareness of other schedules. When separate features came together, they were often incompatible. "The goal was to produce a plan for features, but not just a plan — also the motivation, the business rationale," the executive says.
Sinofsky oversaw the largest beta test in history — more than 8 million users — blogged tirelessly about every little tweak, and kept lines open with partners. The team scrubbed inefficiencies and ushered out a fully functional, backward-compatible OS on time, earning Sinofsky a promotion to president of the Windows division. The new openness has resonated in the marketplace. According to Credit Suisse, 58% of corporate customers were either dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied with Vista. With Windows 7, it's 21% dissatisfied and none extremely dissatisfied. The PC makers seem happy too. "With Vista, the expectations were very high, and the customer reaction was not so positive," says Satjiv Chahil, senior VP of global marketing for HP's Personal Systems Group. "This time the response has been very positive. It's what the market has been waiting for." In the end Windows 7 is what Vista should have been the first time.
Software fades
With its house in order, Microsoft can safely get back to its imperialistic ways. And there's no bigger land grab than web search. Ballmer has pledged to fund his new search engine, Bing, with as much as 10% of operating income over the next five years (potentially $11 billion). Why do something so risky when he's lost so much online already? Because the opportunity is simply too big to ignore. Microsoft considers the global search market to be worth as much as $80 billion. And Ballmer recognizes that there's even more power than money in being the leader. Google.com is what Windows used to be: leverage. Controlling the on-ramp to the web allows a company to distribute a broad array of products, which is what Google does so effectively. "They promote YouTube, they promote Chrome," he says, referring to Google's web browser. "If it was us, people would call it an unfair advantage."
As the importance of client software diminishes, so too does Microsoft as we know it. Bing represents the company's best hope yet of maintaining its own unfair advantage. And Ballmer thinks that Google, despite its enormous market share, is vulnerable. "There are a lot of negative views right now of what's going on — Google Books, monopolization, blah, blah, blah," he says, simultaneously highlighting and waving away a growing anti- Google sentiment. "Put all that aside and you have to ask, ‘Has the experience really changed much? Is it easier to find what you're looking for? Is there a chance to do a better job?' I think there's a real opportunity to do that, and somebody had better seize it. Who's got the best shot?"
Microsoft launched Bing in May, and it confirms Muglia's assertion that the company has become more focused on customers. Rather than Google's minimalist homepage, Bing rotates stunning photos embedded with interesting snippets about various parts of the globe. Like Google, the site acts as a jumping-off point, but has just enough flair to make you want to linger. Visitors see more information than they do in Google results and can even play videos without clicking away. Bing is organized more intuitively, and it outperforms in real-time search — a big plus for the Twitter set.
Early returns have been promising. Before Bing, Microsoft's search engine, Live Search, had 8% of the market, according to ComScore. After three months Bing stands at 9.3%; meanwhile, Google's share has dropped 0.4%. Over the summer Microsoft struck a deal for Bing to power the search function across many Yahoo (YHOO) properties. Once the arrangement kicks in, Bing's share could jump to around 30%. "It's a pretty good start," says Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Microsoft's online audience group. "Best of all, it's really hot with certain demographics, like elementary school children and women, because of the aesthetic design and feel."
Of course the hope is that greater traffic will lure advertisers. Craig Macdonald is the chief marketing officer at media-buying firm Covario. He spends $250 million a year on search ads for clients like McAfee, Intel (INTC), and Procter & Gamble. Impressed with Bing's aesthetic and buzz, he initially increased spending, but has been disappointed. "We saw a 15% to 20% increase in impressions but a 39% spike in the cost of acquisition," he says. Compared with Live Search traffic, driven primarily from the MSN homepage, Bing users are younger, more web-savvy, and frugal. "They did a nice job creating buzz, but we said, ‘We're pulling back.' "
Microsoft may yet benefit from the anti-Google sentiment that Ballmer calls out. No one likes a monopoly, and everyone's favorite web brand has become a freeloader in the eyes of the telecom, book, and media industries. Some of Google's partners have grown disenchanted as well. "With Google, everything's a black box, completely opaque. You have no idea why things go up or down. They're impossible to deal with," says the president of a website that each year generates more than $10 million hosting Google AdSense ads. "Everyone who's not Google is rooting for someone to be a counterweight."
It's not obvious from walking around the company's sprawling campus that Microsoft is locked in combat with some of the business world's most ferocious competitors. There's little resemblance here to the 24/7 sleep-under-the-desk startup culture that permeates Silicon Valley. Many executives are tanned and fit from weekend sails on Puget Sound, hiking up Mount Rainier, golfing, or exploring Machu Picchu. People arrive promptly to meetings, smile broadly, and are exceedingly polite. If quality of life were the most important metric for a recent grad deciding between Redmond and Redwood City, there really would be no choice.
The Valley set sees this as a sign of age and weakness. "They're the IBM of this generation," says Tod Nielsen, chief operating officer of virtualization software company VMware, who worked at Microsoft for 12 years and now competes with his former employer. "They're profitable and successful, but there's not a lot of excitement. It used to be the velvet sweatshop. Now it's all about 9 to 5, 10 to 5 if you're good, and 10 to 4 if you're really good."
Some ex-employees and analysts, none of whom spoke for attribution, agree that the company remains hugely inefficient and lacks vision. They also question whether Ballmer is up to the task of taking on Google, Apple, VMware, and so many other laser-focused competitors. "If shareholders could vote, I don't think they'd pick Steve," says a former vice president who claims to have left Microsoft on good terms. "It's the whole 'dances with elephants' thing, and I don't think Steve can be Gerstner," he adds, referring to Lou Gerstner's book "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?", in which he details how he rescued IBM (IBM).
It's an easy analogy — the old IBM and the current Microsoft both bulked up in a bygone era. But pre-Gerstner, IBM was on the brink. Its finance team held weekly meetings to see whether the company could cover payroll. With $15 billion in annual net income, Microsoft, on the other hand, is a cash machine. Even the great Vista failure must be viewed with perspective: It runs 350 million PCs. Analysts expect the Windows division to turn an $11 billion profit in fiscal 2010. And really, that's Ballmer's unfair advantage. The profits rolling off Windows and Office subsidize any lack of vision and allow the company to go the safer, more expensive route of chasing down Goliaths after new markets have solidified.
In search, Microsoft is confronting a Goliath with arguably as much market power. (Google has a $158 billion market cap, vs. Microsoft's $230 billion.) Google's new Chrome browser could prove a significant threat to Internet Explorer, which has already been encroached upon by Mozilla's Firefox. Gmail is making headway with businesses in the battle against Exchange, not to mention consumers. Google Docs has spurred Microsoft to make parts of Office available online free in coming months. And then there's Google's Android OS for mobile phones. Launched in 2007, Android will operate more than two dozen heavily hyped phones by 2010, including T-Mobile's MyTouch.
The battle between these two titans isn't just about bragging rights or short-term profit. As our computing activity moves increasingly off our PCs into our phones, onto the web, and all around us, the most platform-agnostic company will rule. That presents Microsoft with a classic innovator's dilemma: It must diminish, or at least ignore, its prior success to secure a place in the future.
Which is why Google executives like their position in this fight. "They are a very large incumbent in an area that's shifting toward a new technology — cloud computing," says Dave Girouard, president of enterprise for Google. "We are a company that was born of the cloud, and we don't have to deal with the legacy issues they have to deal with."
A year ago it would have been easy to agree with Girouard and skeptics who dismiss Microsoft as a sluggish incumbent. But the Windows 7 reboot has reinvigorated the company. In November it will launch Azure, a platform for building applications that are delivered via the Internet; as with Windows 7, potential users seem optimistic. For a change, Microsoft is even getting under Google's skin: Google's Chrome OS basically looks like a PR ploy designed to drive Ballmer nuts.
Whether the company circa 2009 truly represents Microsoft v.3, as Muglia suggests — the version in which Redmond gets things right — Vista is a turning point. It will be remembered either as a harbinger of a bloated company in decline, or it will be the wake-up call that prompted Ballmer and his team to set down a new path. Of course it will be years before we know how the Microsoft story, post-Vista, will play out. As Ballmer himself will tell you, "Plenty of people say everything in tech takes off or fails quickly. There's nothing more laughable than that."
–Reporter Associate, Kim Thai
This article was so sweet and FLUFFy it looked like red, green, blue and yellow colored cotton candy coming out of my monitor. So I am not even going to dignify it with a reply, just the comments written below because they seem more intelligent and non-biased.
Yes, MACs have little if any current viruses, but not because "no body uses it", which even if it was the case…who cares? I'm guessing that comment is supposed to crush the long term vision of security people have with Apple. Well, I got news for you. People who say that are either lying Microsoft fanboys or know nothing about Unix architecture. MAC is very secure because MAC is based off of Unix, just like Linux is very secure because it is based loosely on Unix. And if anybody says "nobody uses Unix style systems" they aren't taking their lithium pills.
The fact that MACs are very much hated should mean that it is a glowing target for Virus writers, plus the fact that Linux runs many infrastructures for fortune 500 companies makes Linux even MORE of a target. How much money is there to gain off one Microsoft box running unsecured in some kids bedroom?
Also, will you MAC fanboys stopped referring to PC when talking about Microsoft, your precious MACs use Pentiums now. Linux runs better on a PC then MAC does the old PPC hardware anyway. Please lookup what "PC" actually means first before you even bash it, and stop relying on commercials as a source of education.
The os is only reliable to the extent of the hardware it runs on. The apps that you need to run define the os you pick. The apps only work to the extent of the level of expertize on the operator side.
Everything else is just fan boy warm air and trolling. Enjoy your mantra.
Suddenly, everyone agrees Vista was a dog, NOW THAT SOMETHING ELSE IS READY TO SHIP. That's a Microsoft self-serving paradigm.
This is to cloud and obscure another paradigm: If it's not broken, don't fix it. Ther is absolutely not a single reason, or incentive for a vast number of people, to move from Win XP.
The company is trying to stay RELAVANT. To steer people clear of the real question: Why would I want to change something about the way I work, if all is working perfectly for me? Just to humor Microsoft?
Well, to humour Microsoft, and hardware makers, columnists, corporate trainers, and a lot of other people, who, were it not for perpetual versionitis, would have to find something more productive to do.
All this guarded optimism now. All this two-faced talk if it's a big flop in 12 months. Yes this is a brave writer.
I'm running a MacBookPro with Mac OS X, XP Pro and OpenSuse using VMWare Fusion in an enterprise environment. Don't tell me that Mac's don't fit in the corporate framework. You need to work on your SysAdmin skills if you can't get things to work. Don't simply say they don't work because you can't get them to play nice in your environment. Usually it's problems with Microsoft products that cause connectivity issues. The Mac and Linux boxes have no such communication problems between each other. So don't use your title as a SysAdmin to convince anyone that Macs don't work well in an enterprise environment…because they do and very well thank you. 
>>> Lotus and WordPerfect said, ‘The world is character-based,' and we said, ‘No, let's try some graphics.'
Um. No. First the people at Xerox PARC said, "Let's try some graphics." Then the people at Apple said, "Let's try that also." THEN, Microsoft was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern world.
I am constantly looking for an alternative to Windows X. Tired of the bloat in OS, Office and IE. I need
1. OS that starts up quick.
2. Is secure.
3. easy to maintain and is compatible with other systems – kills linux, cool but still a pain.
4. runs on Non-proprietary hardware – kills Apple OS family.
So leaves me with MS family and I am not there by choice.
My experience with Vista was really horrible, though I'm a MSFT guy, I quickly switched back to XP.
Now with Win7, the issues have almost gone, however a major issue I see now a days is, there is way I can kill a thread (the old Task Manager and kill the process/thread) doesnt seem to be effective.
Hopefully, by releasing SP1 it will fix that.
"My question is which dog are they not counting? It would seem to me that Windows95, ME, XP, and Vista would be 4, 5, 6, and 7 following Windows 3.11. So are they owning up to the fact that ME was a total fubar of 98, or that Vista is the dog?"
You're just not counting versions like they do. 95/98/ME are the same 'family' (4.X), then NT/XP/2K/2K3 (5.X), and then Vista/2K8 (6.X). The next family is 7.X.
And yes, this appears to be the quickest they've ever moved up a full version number, implying that they are quickly moving away from Vista.
Vista got a bad rap early on — party deserved — for driver compatibility problems. Other than that, the main complaints about Vista seem to be that it doesn't offer any really compelling improvements over XP, and the minimum hardware requirements are somewhat higher. (The media center version is pretty slick, but other than that most of the changes were under the hood or, like UAC, are perceived as annoying or useless by normal users.)
The laptop I bought this year came with Vista. No problems to report. That said, I also haven't felt the need to upgrade my desktop from XP.
Nothing worse than views that are so strongly biased one way or the other.
"Apple has no security issues" (ummm, 33 issues fixed for MAc OS X indicates what then?) or "Microsoft is much better than any MAC I've used" (ummm, you cannot deny the great designs and engineering that AAPL have created) are comments that are as bad as each other.
Reminds me of past US foreign policy….and also how 99% of wars broke out.
Take a chill pill, respect others views and realise your desire to be right may not always reflect you being right. (Wow – I just saw that it was a pig in that helium ballon and not a 6yr old kid:).
@Luke: If you are going to critique someone's post, make sure your grammar is correct. I'm pretty sure it should have been "sure do show". Also, his post was unintelligible not illegible because it was typed and not handwritten.
Well SFO in CA your grammar and spelling capabilities sure does show your maturity level, if you had a Mac the spell check would have showed you the many errors that made ur comment almost illegible.
Are you guys kidding? you MAC people are like bunch of college teenagers, neither you will ever mature nor you will ever go back to being a kid, you are stuck in your own world called MAC. To start with Apple had its share of problem and still do, i had to exchange my suns ipod 5 times before it stops freezing, my iphone is linked to my computer to reset. HELLO? its a PHONE why the heck do ineed a computer toahve it run?, iphone got replaced once by apple, ipods ear lugs are causing shock to people and burning holes in the skin. Bottom line, if MAC is as popular as windows, they would have as many issues as PC's does. MAC does has virus i got mine reimaged two times at apple store in 4 months time! SO WTF? it all dpeend son how youc are for your computer and how many freaks are tryign to break into it and what you dow ith it. Its nothing to do with a OS, by the way Snow Peopard? why not PINK FAIRY
Coming up with the sidekick problem as a Mac fanboy might not be the best idea after people lose their data when upgrading to the new MacOS.
Just like many people I have been running Vista since almost day one on several machines without any issue. I have also been running Windows 7 since the first beta (both x86 and x64) and haven't had any issue whatsoever.
Well sorry to bust your bubble John in Indianapolis…
But as soon as you show me a Mac with a virus I'll believe you, but I do have to thank you for one thing, it's people like you that stop them from getting popular, which in turn stops them from getting viruses. So thank you.
P.S. I also enjoy that thats the only part of what I wrote that you can say is false. Sounds like you were looking for something to disagree with.
Sorry to burst your bubble John, Indianapolis, Indiana: October 13, 2009 2:32 PM
Mac's do not have viruses. What macs can have are security issues. Security issues are not viruses. PC's have security issues, viruses issues, and malware. Have fun.
Posted By Kyle, New York, NY: October 14, 2009 11:15 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
FALSE, I am a systems engineer and MACs can most definitely be infected with Malware. There is no magic line of code in a MAC that makes it resistant to malware. Just to set the facts straight Viruses are a type of Malware. Security issues, as you call them, are holes in code which make them vulnerable to Malware, such as Viruses, and to hackers. So you have contradicted yourself. Most people are completely unaware of this, but the MAC OS is nothing more than a polished up version of Linux.
I don't dispute that Macs are great products. If you want to sit in a coffee shop and look cool, or surf the web and play with itunes, they are great. For a business network environment, they are all but useless.
Sorry to burst your bubble John, Indianapolis, Indiana: October 13, 2009 2:32 PM
Mac's do not have viruses. What macs can have are security issues. Security issues are not viruses. PC's have security issues, viruses issues, and malware. Have fun.
What cool did they get back?
Serious flaws just discovered in Windows7; WinMo 6.5 is considered a waste, too little to late; WinMo 7 is next year; Project Pink looks aweful, and oh yeah, Microsoft/Danger servers crashed T-Mobile's Sidekick {lost of revenue for T-Mobile, can likely sue} and my favorite since the latter is about cloud computing… Microsoft Azure… Does this mean MS' Cloud computing does not work? Azure means cloudless blue sky! Good luck mr cool!
whoever who bought vista over the past years should definitely get their upgrade, free. Microsoft needs to show their credibility in these sort of things. I mean, rolling out a newer OS and leaving Vista when its still immature isnt a good move. The purpose of releasing Win 7 just means Microsoft get to tell people they wont support Vista anymore. (probably in a few years, or sooner. I'm sick of Microsoft. *give me my Macbook pro this holiday* a googlesniper review
My it guys installed Win 7 on a new Lenova desktop and were not impressed with the reliability. At least 50% of the time it would lock up on bootup and didn't get past the startup screen. Hopefully the final release will be more stable than the RC but I would wait and let others – and by that I mean real people you know and trust take the plunge first. If it's still got problems you can bet MS will release a Servie pack ASAP.
I am definitely looking forward to when I buy my next computer soon with Windows 7, and I am definitely convinced from the Betas and Release Candidates that I have tried on my machine that it is a great OS. The thing that I think the biggest concern for most people will be is the change in interface. Once they get used to it, I have a feeling that most people will like it, but not all people are willing to give it the chance it deserves.
well, it's always been the same: MSFT has the money, Google has the wits… can billions of dollars outsmart… the smartest guys on the block ? stay tuned…
I really would like if Microsoft changed their way of doing business and tried to serve their customers instead of ripping them off, but the image of happy, tanned, golf playing executives is not the one which give your confidence that company works hard for the customer benefits. Its portrayed company of fat cats scheming to leverage their monopoly position to spread into other areas instead of improving their core business.
I think anyone who had bought Vista or bought a computer that had Vista on it, should get a free upgrade. I am tired of paying Microsoft to fix software that was broke to begin with. How come the software industry seems to be able to ship defective product and then charge users to fix it?
Sorry to burst your bubble Joe Scott. But Macs indeed get viruses, once your stupid little macs gain more popularity, you will then see an increase in the amount of viruses written for macs.
Given Zune, XBox hardware and Sidekick failures, to name only a few, seems like Microsoft has "a lot of 'rebooting' to do…"
What I think is interesting is the lack of analysis on these failures plus the stagnation in Microsoft business (and stock price) within the business press. How -does- Ballmer stand up to either (a) Gates; (b) his current peers (e.g. Elision, Jobs)?
i find it funny that all the Microsoft junkies like to bash the mac for it's cost. So lets get a few things straight…
The Mac may be more expensive right of the bat yes, but lets take a look at the cost of their software. iWork costs $80 and with that you get pages, the equivalent of Microsoft Word, Keynote, the equivalent of powerpoint,and Numbers which is the equivalent of excel. All these programs are also fully compatible with their Microsoft counterparts. These three programs also supply you with more bang for your buck, iWork comes with an online publishing site to upload your work. The Microsoft Counterpart to this, Microsoft Office, costs around $120. Thats a $40 difference.
Then there's iLife, which comes STANDARD on all Mac's and only costs $80 to get on older Mac's. This gives you the Garage Band music recording and editing software, Microsoft doesn't have their own version of this software, iMovie which allows you to edit and make high quality videos then upload them directly from the program to your favorite video sharing sites such as youtube as well as iTunes. iWeb which allows you to create your own web page then publish it directly to the internet (no code writing is done what so ever), iDVD which lets you make Major Motion Picture quality DVD's complete with menu screen, and iPhoto which is a simple to use photo storing and editing program that lets you store your photos, edit the them with simple to use tools, then upload them to popular social networking sites such as Facebook and flickr. Similar programs that give you around half the functionality will cost you around $100 each. Microsoft doesn't offer their own version of many of these products with the exception of Movie Maker.
Then theres the OS upgrades. To upgrade from windows Vista to Windows 7, it will cost you a kingly fee of $120. To upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard on a Mac, it will only cost you $29 dollars at most!!!!!
Then of course theres virus protection software which is basically required on PC's unless you like having your system over run by hundreds of viruses and other malware. Mac's don't require this software at all due to the simple fact that MAC'S DON'T GET VIRUSES!!!
So in the end, it may cost more to buy the Mac, but think of all the money your gonna save with the software you need to run your Mac. Then look at the cost of the software costs for a PC.
Then theres the issue of "Anti-Compettitivness" in other software providers. You are not given the option of Internet Explorer on a Mac because Microsoft doesn't make a version for it. You can't use Zune on a Mac because the Software Microsoft uses for the Zune doesn't support Mac. So don't complain that "other companies are being anti-competition" when your the one causing it.
Corporations have to replace each computer every five years or so because the hardware becomes unreliable. Dust gets into the case on the motherboard, coats the parts and heatsinks and never gets removed. Chips begin overheating and behave erratically. The aluminum – wet electrolyte – capacitors dry out and their ESR increases and the capacitors no longer provide the reactance they are supposed to, sometimes exploding. Tantalum electrolytics with solid electrolyte don't dry out and last far longer but they are also more expensive, and are never used in consumer PCs.
There is no sofware that can handle these kinds of hardware failures on desktops and in laptops, not Linux, not Apple, not Microsoft.
So what is available ? New computers with a new operating system. And that system will be Windows 7. So Microsoft is drooling big time thinking of the new computer purchases to be made, although the overall market in the US has shrunk because so many businesses have shrunk, and so many people have lost their jobs – they have to get hand-me-downs from other people who discard their current computers.
M$ already killed Windows 7 with launch party video. Search on google for video. If that is how M$ bring coolness back to it brands.. then investors should pull the money out. 
I think in order for Microsoft to reinvent itself it would need to just start over. It's not doing anything that is revolutionary. It constantly comes up with solutions for problems that don't exist.
“Microsoft may yet benefit from the anti-Google sentiment that Ballmer calls out. No one likes a monopoly…”
I got a good laugh reading this and that entire paragraph. Microsoft has about 94% market share in operating systems worldwide, which is far greater than Google’s market share in search and online advertising. Ballmer should not try to stoke anti-monopolistic fears against anybody, unless he’s aiming for comical effect.
Commissioning artist to spray-paint Microsoft’s name and logo is really bizarre. I suppose this is Fortune’s way of saying that from now on instead of reporters they’ll be corporate cheerleaders. Btw, it would have been better to paint it in Seattle rather than San Francisco. San Francisco has many Apple fans, who knows what they might do to Microsoft logo.
All I can say is just try Win 7 before you bash it. It runs better than XP and has additions to the GUI that are very helpful and make for a smooth user experience across the board. Microsoft is not perfect just as any other company, but I have seen the get their act together over the years and Vista is just one of those unfortunant marketing beat downs. Vista was very stable but did have performace issues on occassion. Win 7 is the best OS from Microsoft hands down. Been beta testing it for roll out in my business and its a no brainer for me to upgrade. Vista was not so much because of the older hardware around here, but Win 7 can run on the older hardware with no problems.
Do I really care about Windows 7? Microsoft pushed Vista and Office updates with such arrogance that I have switched to Mac.
Don't forget that hubris and greed are still considered as deadly sins.
Tell me where I can sign up to be a contributor to this site. I'd like the nice payoff from Microsoft to be able to just do some wikipedia searches and some google searches of quotes by Ballmer.
Its ridiculous how one sided this entire article is. Its also hilarious that you barely even mention the XBox portion of microsoft and how much of a failure it is from a profit standpoint. Roughly a decade in and it has YET to turn a single dollar of profit.
The only item people should readily agree with on this is that Vista was an abomination.
Odd, I remember all the critics praising Vista before launch too. How did that turn out? And now we're supposed to believe that Windows 7 is computing nirvana? Uh huh. Fool me once…well, you know the rest.
Microsoft's best days are behind it, and that means a brighter future for computing and computer users in general.
Are TimboM and JK out of the same mold? $1500-$1700 for a new PC? The OS is "sluggish"? Issues with Office 2007 running in various PC configurations can on be described as limited at best? What world are you guys living in?
I have 14 client sites that I manage with a total of about 170 workstations, most running WinXP Pro and many running Office 2007. I agree that Vista was a disaster that is why I never upgraded anyone or even suggested it. My average cost for a new business workstation with a 22" monitor and all of the bells and whistles is around $600. Office 2007 has presented ZERO issues for any of my clients. And Windows 7 is as solid as I have ever seen in my 25 years in this business.
Are you sure you guys don't work for Apple?
I have a laptop with Vista that works, and a desktop with XP that works. Why should I spend the money to upgrade? I don't see anything new about windows 7 that will make me want to spend the time to "upgrade" either system.
I'm not entirely sure that "Microsoft Reboots" was an applicable name for this article; there's nothing new about what Microsoft is doing. Even though Windows 7 is supposed to "revolutionize" the Windows OS, there's simply no denying that this is a correction for one of Microsoft's worse (if not the absolute worst) mistakes in its corporate history. The fact that Steven Sinofsky spearheaded the Windows 7 development team does not reassure me, and mention of his leadership of the 2000-07 Office group only reinforces that belief. Ever since my office and contract customers upgraded from Office 2000 to Office 2003 and eventually to Office 2007, we've had no end of problems. Backwards compatibility and the ability of the software to run on the multiple various PC configurations can only be described as limited at best. If Office 2007 is what Sinofsky considers a success (even if he did manage to stay on schedule), then I'm similarly pessimistic about the release of Windows 7. I have to agree with TimboM; from my experimentation with the pre-release, the OS is sluggish and presents numerous driver issues with PCs and laptops purchased only 2 years ago. While it may be true that 2 years can be considered "old" in the PC world, multiple consumers who've shelled out an average of $1500+ for a new PC or laptop see their computers as investments that they expect to last a minimum or 4-5 years; in other words, in order to have the new OS run properly while sparing yourself the immense hassle of finding (or not finding) compatible drivers, you would need to invest an even larger amount of money (average $1700+) in an "appropriate" PC or laptop.
Windows 7 Upgrades were available for $50 in late June / early July. Everyone I know got one, unfortunately you missed your chance, but you can find it for under $100 online.
I had problems with Windows Media Player on my Dell. Dell couldnt fix it, told me to contact Microsoft. Microsoft wanted me to pay. I said it's your program, not 3rd party. They wouldnt help me. Customer service? They dont know the meaning of the term.
I'd prefer the $120 upgrade and free service packs for 4 or 5 years, than pay yearly for a new Mac OS upgrade that's basically just a service-pack.
What's annoying is new Mac software usually requires the latest OS so you're almost forced to upgrade if you want the latest itunes, or pages or photoshop.
"Don't trust the early reviews. Windows 7 will not age well. It is already showing signs of difficulty – sluggish startup, incompatibility with older harder – that will make it much less appealing when released into the wild. The reviews are done in very controlled conditions."
I don't know what you've been paying attent to TimboM, but you certainly have not been hearing the "real world" reviews. I've been using the product myself now for sometime in multiple environment and in short Windows 7 ROCKS! It is faster than anything I have seen in the past from MS and I have put it to extensive "real world" scenerios.
Time to your Apple "head out of the sand" moment TimboM.
"It doesn't suck" and "we're not Google". Somehow that doesn't sound like enough to grow a business.
But they are showing a bit more marketing savvy: buying articles like this one, for instance.
If the public face of the Windows is Sinofsky in these articles, the private face is Jon De Vaan, the head of Microsoft’s Windows Development now, formerly head of the Windows Core Operating System Division (COSD). Reporters often miss this important partnership that Mary Jo Foley noted in her article on De Vaan.
"DeVaan and Sinofsky have worked together for a considerable about of their Microsoft careers. DeVaan has kept a very low profile." http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1700
Without De Vaan and the core team, Windows 7 would not be engineering the success it is today. Sinofsky and Microsoft are lucky to have him.
This article is such a misrepresentation of reality that it's hard to know where to begin critiquing it. From the beginning, there's this amazing spin: "IT managers are ready to buy…. a quarter of corporate customers plan to upgrade within two years." Think about that. Almost nobody in the corporate realm moved to Vista, which has been out for nearly three years. About a quarter of corporate customers plan to upgrade within two years. That means that the other three-quarters will continue to run XP – or bail out of the Windows platform entirely. The recapitalization cycle for computing equipment is three or four years – so, with three years of Vista, and adding two years (as noted by the survey), we're at five years – and still only 25% plan to move to Windows 7. They've been running XP for about a decade now, and they're not jumping to Windows 7 technology – the overwhelming majority are hanging onto XP like grim death.
How you can interpret this as anything other than "corporate customers are extremely cautious about jumping on the Windows 7 bandwagon" is beyond me.
I'm also amused by the "Microsoft seems to be getting its act together" comment, and how the company is "back from they abyss", in light of the incredible screw-up that they, through their Danger subsidiary, perpetrated upon T-Mobile and their customers. No, I do not believe that I really want to trust Microsoft for my mission-critical data.
It's also tough to think that someone can crow about the Zune HD – whatever one might think of its hardware (the much-touted OLED screen that is basically unusable in daylight) – comes with an application store with approximately ZERO titles in it (not counting the Microsoft-provided adware). This from a SOFTWARE company.
Finally, citing Bing as a glowing success, in light of the fact that recent usage statistics show that Google has grown while Yahoo! and Bing have lost, shows that the author decided to write the story and omit facts that were not in accord with his predetermined conclusions.
As one last bit of evidence to support that assertion, I'll just ask: why didn't the author mention Microsoft's great success in the mobile space? Windows Mobile 6.5 just came out, right? Except that even Microsoft admits that it's treading water there – but reassures us that we should all be anxiously awaiting the release of Windows Mobile 7. Or Pink. Or something, anything, that might possibly work.
So, the biggest open beta test in OS history (Not counting linux Distributions) counts as "Very controlled conditions"? Personally, I've been running Windows 7 since the first beta and recently upgraded to full version (through Academic Alliance). I have NO idea what you people who say windows 7 slows down over time DO to your computers but mine is still cruisin along like the day I installed it.
Funny thing is when Vista came out all the "experts" said is was the best thing since sliced bread. Just like in the commercials you see now for Windows 7, CNN, CNET, all the PC magazines (who of course take millions in advertising from MS) said Vista was a can't miss. Learn from the past, wait one year from the October 22nd launch date to decide to upgrade as it was with Vista, Windows 7 might be a huge clunker that you drop $99 on.
Microsoft is firing on all cyclinders. Frankly, I've had no problems running Vista on several PCs and laptops over 3 years. And, early tests of Win7 have been good, too.
In the past year, MSFT has really gotten its act together. Win7, Bing, the latest versions of MS Office, Windows Live services like photo gallery, the live Mesh platform, windows home server, and the developer tools including Visual Studio, and the Expression Suite, media center, and windows home server and the other server platforms.
What people often miss about microsoft is the breadth and depth of its windows platform – nothing can touch it. And it seems like the company has finally gotten its internal teams working together across product lines. Windows mobile does need some work – we'll have to see what win mobile 7 looks like…?
Those that nitpick the Windows vs. OSX argument, totally miss point and fail to see the big picture.
Did MSFT make out your check for this diatribe to your name, d/b/a, or an alias?
What unadulterated crap!
Ayuh
My question is which dog are they not counting? It would seem to me that Windows95, ME, XP, and Vista would be 4, 5, 6, and 7 following Windows 3.11. So are they owning up to the fact that ME was a total fubar of 98, or that Vista is the dog?
If Microsoft really wants to win back customer support, they might want to consider a free upgrade to Win7 to everybody that got hosed by the Vista experiment. I got sucked into the hype last year when I purchased a new laptop loaded with Vista Home Premium. XP is a far better OS. They pawned off the worse OS ever and now expect you to pay $120 minimum to pay for their mistakes. How about at least a 50-50 split on the price? They will never get my $120 but I might consider a $50 or $60 "upgrade".
Steve Ballmer moved into the leadership position just as Microsoft was in the depth of its anti-competitive scrutiny. As a result, Microsoft has stagnated, confusing all potential market developments for a company of its size to be riddled with regulatory landmines. It has not developed, despite spending tens of billions in R&D since 2003. It doesn't need to be that way.
Don't trust the early reviews. Windows 7 will not age well. It is already showing signs of difficulty – sluggish startup, incompatibility with older harder – that will make it much less appealing when released into the wild. The reviews are done in very controlled conditions.
Do you really believe that Microsoft, under Steve Ballmer, can magically produce something elegant, when all momentum has been heading in the opposite direction? Is it clear that Microsoft really understands exactly how their products are used and what customers expect, or are they more concerned with the financial benefits from their upgrade cycle? This answer is pretty clear to the careful observer.
I would also point out that the attitude and work environment described in the final paragraph are precisely because of the moat that Bill Gates created, and have little to do with a passion to create something that customers will love. Microsoft may as well be a public utility. Its growth has peaked, it is regulated into a box (albeit of its own making), it pays a proper dividend, and it has employees who are fat (er, fit and tan) and comfortable.
I don't know what the intention of the article was but it backhandedly concludes with this point.
You forgot the raging success of the XBOX 360… if I'm not mistaken, Microsoft has managed to beat out Sony in console sales this decade… that's pretty impressive considering Sony has been undisputed for many years now… that's certainly worth a mention in this painted article.