MS Vista pirated half as much as Windows XP
It's true, Steve Ballmer (#2 at Microsoft after Bill Gates) has twisted the figures yet again!
Apparently, Vista is being pirated half as much as Windows XP.
Obviously this can be interpreted in one of two ways. Can you guess in which way Steve chose to interpret it?
"..Microsoft claims the sharp dip in piracy is due to Vista's amped up authentication system, which it says is a 'proven and effective way to combat piracy.'.." (taken from engadget.com)
Of course, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that Vista is a complete botch-up, and a disaster 6-7 years in the making (yup, that pile of deuce took over 6 years to make).
There's proof of work being done on it as early as in 2000.
It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003. Can you believe it! It was delayed over 3 years. Now, this isn't some po'dunk company with lack of funding, or some actual valid excuse. They just made so many incorrect design decisions, that they had to keep starting over.
So, to answer the question and title of this post, I'll use the best comparison I can think of.
Fords are stolen half as much as Hondas, therefore one can conclude that Ford must have much better anti-theft security.......
Get the point?
Within its first month, 20 million copies of Vista were sold, an increase from the 17 million sales of XP within its first two months in October 2001, five years earlier.
Does this not seem funny? With the massive increase in the number of computers in each household (my household had 1 when XP came out. now it has 7).
It's because of this that I recommend all my friends get a Mac. Sure, they're a little more expensive, but it runs on a Unix derivative BSD kernel that is super stable and secure.
I use a mac at work, and do like it, but I prefer the flexibility of a GNU/Linux system, that'll run on my custom built computers. Still, GNU/Linux is far from being easy enough for me to recommend to your average Joe. Then I'd just be their free tech support for years to come!
My advice. Get a mac. If you need windows, just stick with XP for as long as you can. Despite Microsoft not officially admitting the problem, I'm sure they are aware that at least everyone else hates it, and are probably rushing out the next version codenamed Windows 7. I think the next windows is Microsoft's last shot. If they botch that up, they can kiss goodbye their market dominance, as there will be many more options by 2010. Apple will probably have OS X 10.7, there will be Ubuntu 10.4, Open Solaris: Project Indiana. FreeBSD 9, Fedora 13 etc.. All of which are becoming easier to use. Not to mention the recent gOS and EeePC stuff going on.
And, to end, an actual picture of Bill Gates showing off the latest version of windows in a press conference as it crashes :)
3 comments:
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There's is lots of people who don't have issue with Vista, especially after SP1. Sure, nothing was perfect when Vista was released (but even then I didn’t have major issues) and most of the important bugs are ironed out. I’m not surprised to see so many people on Amazon reviewing it as junk, while people at Newegg more and more rate it with the full 5 stars. The main mistake Microsoft made with Vista is that they didn’t educate people well. Take for example the numerous posts about people complaining that their system automatically turns off during the night; it wasn’t a bug, it was feature, it’s called hibernation and doesn’t have any negative effect, it actually saves hydro.
People complained about it using lost of memory. Again, wrong. It doesn’t use all that memory, what they see is the result of Superfetch. Microsoft concludes that even unused memory should be used, so they use that to speed up the opening of applications. If an application does need the memory, then superfetch will free this memory. Again, no bug, but a feature and a good one too.
Then you have the issue with people not upgrading their outdated hardware or expecting Microsoft to solve driver issues with brand new 8xxx Nvidia cards. It’s simply unfair to blame issue with video on Microsoft when Nvidia refused to write good drivers. It’s wishful thinking to expect that any brand new OS, driver or hardware will have no issues. Have you any clue how so very few people actually update their bios to increase Vista compatibility? I had 5 updates since I bought my Vista compatible board. People ignore, so they have to pay for the consequences. That’s simply the issue with PCs; if you build them yourself, then make sure that you know what you’re doing and the problem is...most people don’t. Then out of desperation they start to blame everything on Microsoft, when you have people who go to YouTube who even complain about Vista’s chess program, saying that it has a bug, when the “bug” they’re actually looking at is an en passant move they never heard of (true story).
Even Mac has issues and it’s so fanboy like to just point at the Mac, without considering what the consequences are. My wife and I have 4 kids. All have a computer. Have you any idea what it would cost to give all a Mac? The cheapest Mac is Mac Mini, costing 695$ CAN in my country. That’s the first problem already; you can’t buy cheaper than that, even if you don’t care about losing some performance. Then the price itself, what do you get? You get a core2duo 1.8, 1GB RAM, 80GH Hard Drive. To build that same machine as a PC would cost you a lot less. But he’s the other issue; you can actually by a much better machine and still save $104 CAN (trust me, I had it all calculated a few days ago). For $591 you can build a core2QUAD 2.2, 4GB RAM and 500GB hard drive (all A-brand parts)
Then we have fanboys who still insist that the Mac mini for 695$ will outrun this powerful core2QUAD. You tell me how 2 procesors at 1.8Ghz can outrun 4 processors running at 2.2. How can 1GB outrun 4GB? How can it be as good to have a 80GB instead of 500GB hard drive? Let’s get real, ok?
People don’t understand; it’s not simply about whether a Mac is better than a PC or OS/X better than a Windows. Families like me first have to look at their current machines; XP is pretty stable, PCs are cheap and although there are security issues, pretty much most of them are solved in Vista (no system will be 100% safe). Now let’s say the Mac is more reliable or secure, the current situation of Windows is simply not bad enough to make the switch because the Macs are so freaking expensive and leave you with very little choices. A cheapest machine that is 695$? A machine that allows you to have the space inside to place numerous hardware upgrades because of the larger case will cost you almost $3000? Sure, it’s very powerful, but take me for example; I simply want a core2duo with 4GB of ram and a 7xxx or 8xxxx nvidia card and space for a max of 4 hard drives. The Mac doesn’t have that option; the Mac mini is too small, the Mac Pro offers way too much power than I’m not prepared to pay for.
Again, it’s not about X vs Y being better or worse, it’s about the lack of options (price, hardware).on
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"And, to end, an actual picture of Bill Gates showing off the latest version of windows in a press conference as it crashes"
And that's what wrong with people nowadays. Instead of listening what people's needs are, they are simply ignored. Instead they not only feel the need to show an image that should encourage(?) them to switch to Mac, not they also fake the image and spread false information, since Vista never crashed during a Bill Gates speech. It's incorrect, it's childish and simply ignores the honest thoughts of people like me who are trying to explain why they haven’t switched to Mac. It amazes me still, and I’m 45 now, that people still can’t have a normal conversation about these issues. This generalizing of Windows users, that they’re stupid, can’t think for themselves, are followers, are forced, too lazy to learn something new, etc pretty much reflects how we nowadays think about society. Don’t point a finger at a person when he lives in a rental house, when you decided to buy a house instead. Don’t point with a finger at a person who drives a 5 year old Toyota, when you drive your brand new BMW. Let society be a place of understanding and not based on assumptions and finger pointing and don’t waste our time on filling blogs and web sites with stories how you switched to a Mac, Jazz music, German cars, etc and telling others they should do to because their choices are wrong. It’s childish, wasteful and serves no purpose, especially if we start faking the facts like happened with this photograph.on
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You seem to have misunderstood me.
I am not a MAC user. Never have been, probably never will be.
I'm a GNU/Linux user.
When I compare windows and OS X, I'm doing just that. I'm comparing Operating Systems, not hardware.
I have used both Vista and Leopard extensively with my job, and Leopard is FAR more stable, and has less problems.
If it were a choice of just Windows and OS X, I'd definitely choose OS X, and I'd put up with less hardware for more money, as the OS is really the most important thing. A quad core on a slow, unstable OS is not as useful as a dual core on a stable OS.
I agree with you. Apple doesn't make the best hardware, and they still have fanboys get obsessed with it. (MB Air is a classic example)
p.s. there's no Core2Quad 2.2.
The slowest Intel sells is a Core2Quad 2.4 (Q6600) and I'm running it in my custom built machine that runs Ubuntu :)
see here
http://www.antonywilliams.com/2007/12/quad-core-desktop-finished.htmlon
