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Internal Emails Released In Vista Capable Debacle
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:23 AM
from the circling-the-drain dept.
from the circling-the-drain dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As previously discussed, Microsoft's attempt to shield itself from further discovery over the Windows Vista Capable debacle has failed and more internal emails have been released. Although Microsoft has successfully kept CEO Steve Ballmer away from the witness stand on grounds the he 'has no unique knowledge of the facts in this case,' emails suggest otherwise. An email was released in which Intel CEO Paul Otellini thanks Ballmer for listening and making changes to the program allowing their 915 chipset to pass the grade: 'I know you did it.'"
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Microsoft Tries To Prevent Further Discovery 178 comments
An anonymous reader notes the considerable irony in Microsoft asking for relief from further discovery in the Windows Vista Capable debacle. This is the lawsuit that was recently granted class-action status, and Microsoft wants the wheels of justice to stop while it appeals that designation. It's easy to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs' email archives, with stories like this one from the NYTimes (registration may be required) revealing Redmond's highly embarrassing internal emails to a mass audience.
Firehose:Vista Capable Debacle - Internal Emails Released by Anonymous Coward
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Witness Chair (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Witness Chair (Score:5, Funny)
Developers.
Developers, developers, developers...
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Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Did anyone doubt that Microsoft and Intel are in cahoots? I mean, seriously, what cave have these people been hiding in for the last 20 years?
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? AMD aside, Intel and Microsoft have long had a "special" relationship. Whether that's proper or not is another issue.
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would hope all those companies have some sort of partnership with Microsoft. It's in the best interest of everybody to understand what the other is doing. Microsoft should understand how Seagate handles data, what graphics capabilities are on the nVidia roadmap, and what changes to instructions and new capabilities are coming down the line for new CPUs.
One example where communication with other component suppliers is SSDs, and the changes to software needed to better handle data for performance and reliability. Microsoft better be talking to the drive manufacturers directly, not with Dell, so they come up with a total solution for both hardware and software sides.
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Here's the link (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the email conversation in question: http://media.techflash.com/documents/intelvictory.pdf [techflash.com] (pdf)
People want cheap computers (Score:5, Interesting)
Shattered expectations aren't limited to computers either. Ever bought something that you should have spent more money on? I have a snowblower at home that's so underpowered that shoveling takes less time.
My personal belief is that this problem is to blame on hardware manufacturers and OEM's trying, and horribly failing, to deliver what consumers desire (fast computers with brand new technology) and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).
And what do we do about it? We bash Microsoft. In fact, we bash them so well that everyone, including people who have never used it and those who currently use it (without major issue) that Vista is not a viable choice for them.
Fast forward to December, 2009. Windows 7, which is almost entirely based on the now very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase. Not only will it improve perception of Windows due to its excellent compatibility and well honed kernel, it'll force me to shell out cash (unless I can get a Microsoft handout, which is how I got Vista) for the latest Microsoft OS, and prematurely outdate every single Windows License companies have bought in the meantime.
Want Windows Vista SP4...err, I mean Windows 7? $299 please.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Re:People want cheap computers (Score:5, Insightful)
[The] hardware manufacturers and OEMs [have been] trying, and horribly failing, to deliver [fast computers with brand new technology] and maintain their profit margins (which can't be done for a fast computer at $399 in a retail store).
The definition of fast can either mean a measurable metric like MIPS or clock speed, or it can mean what most consumers mean, which is "Look, Mom! Word started in less than 10 seconds!"
The problem is not that the hardware manufacturers have been unable to keep up with consumer demand for new ideas and more speed. Look at the numbers on a video card or stick of RAM today, and compare it to the same components from your computer a decade ago. They've gotten quite a bit faster and have quite a few more features, if you haven't noticed.
The problem lies in the software we're running on said hardware. The software has gotten so big and so bloated, it just "looks like" the hardware hasn't gotten any better. 30 gigabytes of HD space, a 256MB Graphics Card, and 2GB of RAM just to run an operating system? Absolutely unnecessary.
The reason we bash Microsoft is because we're not brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the only game in town. We've used Linux, Mac, and BSD. We know that they're all viable operating systems that do what Windows does, and in many cases, do it better. Is Vista a viable choice? Sure it is. Is Vista the best choice? That depends on who you are, what your goals are, and what your mindset is.
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Re:People want cheap computers (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista even the basic version requires a much beefier machine. So if you're an OEM, what do you do? Your basic machine can't handle Vista but MS is getting rid of XP. Really most consumers want a stable, secure OS. That Aero stuff looks cool, but most users can do with out it. In other words, fix XP.
We bash MS because they took 5 years to produce an OS that for most people, isn't an upgrade. Sure there are some nice features, but for the average user, most of the changes were cosmetic. Other changes actually were not beneficial. More DRM. Shifting security to the user by having them approve everything? And MS wasn't very honest about what the real requirements were.
From what I'm seeing Windows 7 isn't that much of a difference from Vista. By 2009, most of the hardware being sold by the OEMs will be able to handle it unlike when Vista was released. Hopefully MS learns from this fiasco and won't publish ridiculous hardware requirements (1GHz to run Vista, come on).
Parent
Re:People want cheap computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure people want cheap computers, just like they want anything else to be as cheap as possible. Nobody likes to spend more than they have to.
The fact remains though, a number of people will spend more as long as they believe that they "get what they pay for". That's why Apple has been so successful, really. They charge more for nicely configured systems with more expensive case designs and better support (you can still take one in to any of hundreds of retail stores for servicing, unlike any other major brand of PC I can think of).
Vista's problem is, it doesn't really make people feel like they "got what they paid for" in many cases. You generally need twice as much system memory as you did with XP to get comparable performance, and all the pretty f/x demand an actual 3D graphics card with decent capabilities. (Sure, it runs fine without that, but then you're negating one of the benefits that was supposed to make a user feel like they really had something "slick" when they used it.)
When you buy a machine that actually runs Vista well, you're not buying a low-end bargain machine -- so that means people have higher expectations for that extra money spent.
I don't think it delivers on those expectations -- and SURELY won't when you go the budget machine route.
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wait until people find out (Score:5, Funny)
Where is Intel in all of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The motion for summary judgement [nwsource.com] makes it pretty clear that Microsoft was in the wrong, but so was Intel.
It's pretty clear that Intel couldn't get it's shit together and kept foisting its shitty 915 graphics on HP, Dell, etc., for use in high-margin notebooks. The OEMs were screwed because Intel was the source for chipsets that made the value proposition of low-end notebooks work.
Microsoft is the one getting sued, but Intel is at least as culpable and incompetent, IMHO.
Re:Where is Intel in all of this? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, a large part of why Intel graphics suck on Windows has to do with architectural issues on the Microsoft end of things. If Intel chips were lacking the raw power for Glass, I suppose they wouldn't be able to run Compiz either, but here I am, typing this from an Eee with Compiz Fusion enabled on my Intel i915-based chipset.
At the risk of stating the obvious...
Not to say that Intel's a victim here, but perhaps the raw numbers for "Vista Capable" are just too high.
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Re:Where is Intel in all of this? (Score:5, Informative)
Aqua works great on Intel graphics too. The problem really does seem to be Vista.
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went to a small tech show this week (Score:5, Interesting)
It was hosted by a local IT shop looking to introduce new technologies to potential clients. There was a Microsoft guy there talking about Server 08. He used one of the talking points that really annoys me: "Yeah, I used to work in open source, played with Linux and stuff. But then I decided I actually wanted to make money." Huh? Ok, that argument might have held water years and years back but it doesn't even make sense these days. Yes, Vista was a failure but Microsoft is still here and even the most pessimistic of realistic assessments doesn't have them going away anytime soon. They may be the 600lb gorilla instead of the 800lb gorilla but that's still a whole lotta gorilla. But to dismiss open source so, well, dismissively?
If watching the tech industry has taught me anything it's that nobody's indomitable and it pays not to get cocky. And the bigger a company gets, the more entrenched the bureaucracy, the more potent the kool-aid, the less likely it becomes to pull out of a tailspin. A company becomes functionally incapable of not fucking up. There's no way to turn the company around apart from firing every manager and starting over but those managers are exactly the ones who will fire everyone else in the company until they are the last ones left in the bunker. We're seeing this play out with the American automotive manufacturers right now, the Japanese are proving it's possible to make cars and make money at the same time while the Americans are busy proving it can't be done. Hell, our whole country is going through this same kind of dysfunctional malaise right now.
My prediction is that Microsoft will, over the next fifteen years, shrink in preeminence until it is a 400lb gorilla, dominant in certain niches but more comparable in size and power to the other big name IT companies rather than the world-shaker it was at its prime.
Re:Link goes to a Google News Search (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Windows 7ven? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Windows 7ven? (Score:5, Funny)
It'll kill your wife, cut her head off, gift wrap it, send it to you, and allow you to edit the movie in Windows Movie Maker like never before!
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Not evidence that Ballmer knew Vista was crap (Score:5, Insightful)
If Ballmer *didn't* know that Vista was crap, then he is incompetent. If he *did*, then he's a crook. Pick one.
On second thought, pick both - incompetent crook is SO reminiscent of the "Old Microsoft".
Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."
Parent
The irony of this situation (Score:5, Insightful)
is that Microsoft has, in the past, successfully navigated this kind of situation before. In fact, they were the beneficiary.
Remember OS/2? Highly regarded for its technical quality, however it required a princely amount of RAM. Ideally you needed something like 8MB of RAM, back in the day when this added over $500 in current era dollars to the price of the system. Add this to the cost of the OS itself, and you didn't have high adoption.
Microsoft did a classic market segmentation move: they had Windows 3.1, which ran in 2MB of RAM, and NT 3.x, which ran in 8MB, and provided easy upgrade paths between the two products.
What seems really ... odd to me today is the way Microsoft is trying to segment and position its markets. All this Vista Home/Professional/Ultimate business. You may think Windows 3 was a POS, but it addressed a legitimate market segment: people who didn't wanted to do basic computing tasks without dropping the better part of a thousand dollars more for a more powerful system. There may have been all kinds of good reasons for them to go with a better system, but they had other uses for the money.
I look at a box of Windows Vista Super-Duper Ultimate, festooned with bullets, sitting next to Vista Business, Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Basic, and I'm supposed to sort myself into the appropriate market segment by studying the bullets festooning each package. What in the world were they thinking? Don't they study their own history?
Going by their own history, they should release Windows Basic and Windows Advanced. Windows Basic would be XP stripped down to nothing and capable of running in 512MB of RAM on any chipset manufactured in the last five years. Windows Advanced would be Vista with all the bells and whistles and need the latest and greatest chipsets.
I'd make Windows Basic really cheap, but make network login and sharing an add-on, so that corporations who wanted to use it would pay something between the cost of Windows Basic and Windows Advanced, and feel like they're getting a deal. Even the UAC business would have been less of fiasco here. People who wanted to take their chances could go with Windows Basic. IT Departments choosing Windows Advanced could piously tell their users that they were being protected from harm.
Microsoft failed with Vista because they wanted to drag the world onto a product it wasn't ready for, and tried to segment the market in totally meaningless ways.
Parent
Re:Yeah, and? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or the fact that Microsoft is composed of little fiefdoms and each major "team" often has a snapshot of code from other teams that doesn't get synced? E.g., Windows teams use a compiler that is older than the dev tools team is creating, Office uses DLL code that's been branched/modified/extended from the WIndows Shell, and is quite incompatible (ditto on dev tools as well). Which is why you can end up with 3 incompatible versions of the same DLL - one that ships with Windows, one that ships with Office, and another one that developers use for their projects (that ships with Visual Studio) - I believe one such DLL is common controls or common dialogs.
Or how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?
So not only is DLL hell created from different versions of a DLL with the same code lineage, there's also the troubles caused by the same DLL with different code lineages living on the same system.
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Re:Is anyone really surprised by this???? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Winmodems and other controller-less hardware represented something much more sinister than that. They largely tied you to one platform; Windows. It took a significant amount of work and sometimes bending the "rules" to get a lot of this hardware to work under open source operating systems.
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Re:The pointlessness of software-by-lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
If I purchase a product because it will work with X. And it does not work with X, then I have been harmed. I am out the money paid for the product. If the vendor promised me the product would work with X, and knew the product would, in fact, fail horribly with X. That's usually called fraud. In any event, I am due a full refund of the purchase price, and potentially some recompense for the time lost and aggravation caused by the vendor being a dipshit. Generally speaking, if a product fails to perform as a vendor advertises, they will refund your money *and* offer you some form of apology, be it verbal, or in the form of monetary gain.(gift cards, 10% off next purchase and the like)
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Re:Pseudo-Intellectuals (Score:5, Insightful)
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