No marketing campaign, no sales.

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Do a search on google with balmer and microsoft stock and you will see
plenty of evidence. The stock dropped 2.2% on Friday following Balmer's
assessment.

Word of mouth may not sell a product, but it will kill a poor product that
is foisted on the public. In this digital age, word of mouth can also
include the results of a search on google to see what problems others are
experiencing in installing and using a product. Vista and drm is a rather
shocking google search.

I legally downloaded and installed a later beta of Vista. I tried it on
my computer for several days. I was not impressed. I deleted it and used
the space for an open source alternative that was far superior and which I
am still using. I dual boot with Windows XP and have no major complaints
against that operating system. After using the Vista beta, I can only
wonder why anyone would want to pirate it. I also have to work with
customers who use Vista preinstalled on their computers and they are
UNHAPPY. These customers are mostly older folks, who use their computers
for a few games, email, and surfing the web. I am seeing one tonight who
was very upset that Vista did not find his new printer and all the
annoying popups that he has been receiving. He told me on the phone that
he wished that he would have gotten XP rather than Vista. I dread the day
when a customer's Vista installation fails and I have to reinstall it.

I was not impressed with your disdain for IPOD users who invested in the
device, used it without problems on XP, and then were unable to use it on
Vista. Whose fault is that? And why would you have such a low opinion of
them. It sounded like a certain French women's exclamation of "Let them
eat cake".
 
I dual boot with Windows XP and have no major complaints
against that operating system. After using the Vista beta, I can only
wonder why anyone would want to pirate it. I also have to work with
customers who use Vista preinstalled on their computers and they are
UNHAPPY. These customers are mostly older folks, who use their computers
for a few games, email, and surfing the web. I am seeing one tonight who
was very upset that Vista did not find his new printer and all the
annoying popups that he has been receiving. He told me on the phone that
he wished that he would have gotten XP rather than Vista. I dread the day
when a customer's Vista installation fails and I have to reinstall it.
Click to expand...

I teach computer skills to seniors, and I've already told my clients I cannot
support Vista "at this time", since a few of them have asked about
"upgrading" when they clearly have systems that can't support it and they
don't need it for their requirements.

I'll use it eventually myself, but not until most of the serious problems
have been eliminated (those that arise on legacy systems, although I know of
one client who bought a new "Vista-ready" Dell only to find she can't use her
QuickBooks... a serious problem for her: she's the treasurer of her co-op.)
 
I wasn't aware that Microsoft was under contract with Apple and was required
to make sure the ipod worked in Vista. Yes, it would have been nice. But
where has Apple been for the past ***FIVE*** years that they couldn't
prepare as other hardware manufacturers have been doing? Oh, I forgot,
they're under a rock with their toy operating system.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
I agree there's a lot of room for improvement in regards to Windows Vista but
they'll clean it up in some time. They released it and now they wait for the
complaints so that they can tick off one driver update at a time. When it's
all said and done Vista will have turned out to be a nice revamp of XP.

Well I've been hitting this board all day long and I'm ready to go home.
Hope to come back tomorrow morning to see what new posts have been made and
look forward to discussing Microsofts HORRIBLE JOB at marketing and while I
seriously doubt anyone from MSFT looks at this board I hope they do.
 
MS fanboys always blame anyone but their own company. It is part of the
FUD initiative. After seeing what their own company produced, they are
quick to find fault with others. Apple's toy operating system just works.
They are not perfect. They have crashes and equipment failures, but Vista
is the first MS operating system that has me seriously considering that
cute toy. Although I am happy with my dual boot XP and open source
(PCLINUXOS), I realize that I may need to give Apple a chance, if I want
to use the OS that MS hates. They must be good, if MS hates them so
profoundly. How can you hate incompetence? You only hate the THREAT.

Every monolithic organization eventually collapses. None of the
participants see the tiny crack in the foundation that slowly widens and
weakens the entire structure, until the day the wall comes down. DRM was
just one small crack, but it prevented the OS from functioning at maximum
potential. Nobody wanted it and Microsoft thought that they could pull a
fast one and nobody would notice. But we did notice when we couldnt
install the OS and when the OS was so bulky and cranky that we pulled our
hair out trying to get it to work. Yeah, we noticed.
 
Why can't you answer the main question? Where was Apple for the past
***FIVE*** that they could not design the ipud to be compatible with the
widest used operating system in the world. I guess they did not think that
their customers deserved the effort!

Answer please?

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Why can't you answer the main question? Where was Apple for the past
***FIVE*** that they could not design the ipud to be compatible with the
widest used operating system in the world.
Click to expand...

It *was* compatible with XP. What's your point?
The problem is with Vista, no? There are lots of problems with Vista.
What am I missing?
 
You're missing the fact that the manufacturer of ipud did not do their
homework in a timely fashion. They knew. They had access to the code. They
had everything they needed - except the will to assist the customers they
take money from. No one is going to change a base design of an operating
system to please a hardware manufacturer. The hardware people must conform
to the OS.

ipud doesn't and Crapple admits that fact.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Bill said:
Word of mouth is still the best advertising. If product z is easy to
install and has a host of new features that actually work and increase
productivity then people talk about it. However, if it is poorly written
and very hard to install and doesnt work very well, when it is installed,
then all the advertising in the world will not help it. When it is so
poor that no one will even pirate it, then it is probably not worth
having. I suspect that the poor pirates, who finally get this system
installed, will regret that they ever tried, when the cant get their video
or sound cards to work and the games that they had hoped to play just wont
work and their ipods just sit around and self-corrupt themselves. I talk
to people every day, and even the less savvy ones, say that they are
staying away from Vista. They have heard the bad news. This does not
bode well for the manufacturers, who had hoped that Vista would continue
to increase their sales. All the FUD in the world will not help MS. They
are already talking about their new Vienna OS, because they want people to
focus on the future and their next great OS.
Click to expand...
I think anyone who has shopped for a new PC or works on PCs has heard of
Vista.
I expect problems with Vista, just as I expect problems from any newly
released software. If you don't want problems, wait until it's been out at
least a year or two. It's not like MS is the only one to release products
with issues. Just search for automobile recalls.
I haven't heard of any great features that would convince me to run out and
buy Vista early on. I'll wait until they have the issues worked out. I
haven't even upgraded my home PC to XP yet. I hope to do that this year if
I can find the $100 in the budget. I hope to see significant improvement in
the next MS OS in a few years when more people have 64 bit machines.

Big ad campaigns help get the name out, then word of mouth can do the real
advertising. Once the target audience hears about the product, they do the
research and testing and let everyone else know if it's worth getting. I
think the big ad campaign sucks. I saw an ad for Vista on TV and hardly
knew what it was for. The ad had nothing to do with the product and they
only briefly mentioned the name of the product at the end. Once people
start using it though, and get a sense for the real hardware requirements
and features, they tell everyone else to use it or not use it. As they say,
one satisfied customer tells 3 other people how great their experience was,
while one dissatisfied customer tells 15 other people how bad their
experience was.

The sad part is that the big OS issue right now is security, which shouldn't
be an OS issue. It is only a huge issue because so many people are able to
access your PC if you are connected to the internet, because the internet
was poorly designed and is now too big for an easy redesign solution. There
are tech people as well as government people working to fix that problem but
it won't be fixed anytime soon. I like when the OS prompts you when an
application wants to run, or access the internet, but it needs to remember
that application and only ever ask once. They should also have a tool that
lets you see all the applications that it allows to run or access the
internet and add or remove from those lists.
 
Sure, if your investments include short term investments. Most people
invest for the long term, though.

Good luck!
 
I sold my stock yesterday since the shares continually slip. I've found that
if I wait any longer, I'd be risking a lot of money. I'm going to find
another company to invest in..
 
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