2CPU.com » News » December 2007 » Analysts Predict a Better 2008 for Microsoft

While bad press have served a negative impact on Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista. The company has taken a major step with the release of Service Pack 1 Beta for testers. Now with 2008 underway, the company looks to a more lucrative year in Desktop sales. Peter Galli talks with MS analyst, Mike Cherry about the current and future challenges the software giant will face.

"I know that Xbox is not an enterprise product, but it raises the question of what happened to the testing. How did a product with so many problems get released? Did Vista suffer from the same lack of focus on quality? Many of the problems people are having, and which are being addressed in SP1, like slow copy times and oddities in the behavior of the display sub-system, had to have shown up in beta testing, but appear to have gone unresolved," he said.

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aryan SMP Junkie Posts: 761 Joined: 2000-03-04

#39806 Posted on: 12/30/2007 11:10 AM Well, troughout the years of pre-release/alpha/beta & RC testing microsoft products and service packs I found that since the XPSP2 cutoff days the testing has gone on much more behind the curtain decisions of suits that have no idea about the true status of a (not yet) released product but much more have their eyes on profit taking through calender-based launched. This, naturally, has backfired and I know that the suits were warned by the techies, but hey... IT Life imitates the comic 'User Friendly' more then once. I believe that this has everything to do with the swap at the top of the microsoft tank as all should know mr. Ballmer is more of a suit then a techie. KFN5D dual 2352@2485, 4x2Gb, 2x1Gb, 2x512Mb Kingston ECC DDR2 2xGTX260c216 SLI, EN7600GS, Ageia PhysX 100 [URL="http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=275136"]This OCL is for real[/URL] [URL="http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=592269"]This one too[/URL]

MultimediaMan S3n10R D3s!gN 3ng!n33r Posts: 1490 Joined: 2000-05-12

#39807 Posted on: 12/31/2007 10:46 AM Agreed: Microsoft released a product which was essentially an "Alpha" in terms of many of it's core functions and testing/validation. I doubt seriously that Vista SP1 will addresss all of those issues, either: they are still issuing "Performance Updates" at a frantic pace which are not part of the SP (at least not at the present time...). This is not about "raising the bar" as far as hardware compatibility is concerned, this is much more fundamental; an OS should work as advertised: Vista does not currently. SP1 I am looking at with a very gimlet eye; it is a collection of hastily prepared hotfixes (extract some of the updates and look inside...nearly all of them say QFE [Quick Fix Engineering] - which is Microsoft-speak for "let's make a quick code change and see how things work".); I really don't like to roll the same patch again when Microsoft get around to releasing a completely validated revision for a previous update. The pitch Microsoft was making all of this year was extremely strident and insistent that we "needed" Vista, but the reasons were thin - don't get me wrong, there are a LOT of good Vista Features, but unless they work, they don't do much good. Professionally-speaking I have yet to see anything but trouble from Vista so far. This will eventually all get fixed and things will transition to Vista: The real question is when. Some of the tech prognosticators are predicting a better 2008 for Microsoft...how could it not be? Considering the disaster that was 2007 for them, they've got nowhere to go but up. Thus far, you have been adrift within the sheltered harbor of my patience. Heat All of my heatware comes from Transactions on this board. 2CPU.com is the only board I trade on. I can provide references from other board members on request.

Foolee Certified Fan Boy Posts: 77 Joined: 2006-08-19

#39808 Posted on: 12/31/2007 06:06 PM Well I don't know of many problems with the Xbox. If there is something Microsoft does know how to do right its hardware. They make a quality product in that department. As for there software it does need more beta testing. All the Microsoft made hardware I have works great. Although its not really fair to compare Windows to the Xbox. [SIZE="1"] [QUOTE=Slash] What you are doing here is the equivalent of complaining that your headlights dont turn on when you roll up the power windows. [/SIZE]

DPMitchell Retired Researcher Posts: 155 Joined: 2004-08-21

#39809 Posted on: 01/02/2008 02:15 PM Vista was badly managed, and not surprisingly vice presidents Jim Alchin and Mike Nash were among those escorted out the door after that. If you talk to insiders at Microsoft, you learn that they won't be missed. It's been a frustrating experience for developers to watch bad features scheduled for Vista, then yanked after a couple years, causing the project to practically restart. Like a lot of established companies, Microsoft suffers from too many executives who are too risk adverse. They also suffer from some structural problems caused by too many program managers with too much power. Traditionally, Microsoft has operated on a system of three-way checks and balances, with developers, testers and program managers working together and challanging one another. Program managers design UIs and advocated for the customer, but these days in some product groups the PMs carry too much power and have introduced unnecessary burocracy and interfered with QA by ordering testers to reduce their bug lists and automate all testing. Those are some of the things Microsoft needs to change before they complete Win 7.

2CPU.com » News » December 2007 » Analysts Predict a Better 2008 for Microsoft