Microsoft "fudged" Vista for Intel?!?

[Nords]

Long URL of a Reuters article posted on Fidelity's website.

In the class action suit, filed in March 2007, plaintiffs claim they "paid for Vista capability but did not receive it." Plaintiffs claim they were misled by stickers placed on certain PCs in stores during 2006, advertising them as "Vista Capable."

"In the end, we lowered the [Vista hardware] requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded," Microsoft general manager John Kalkman wrote in a Feb. 2007 email, shortly after Vista's release to consumers. "On suggestions for corrections to ease the customer pain going forward... there really is nothing we can do in the short term."
Mike Nash, a Microsoft corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in a Feb. 2007 email that, "I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I personally [bought]."

I must express the sentiment that I'm shocked-- shocked, I say!-- over how Microsoft would do such a thing. You ER'd Intel workers must be gnashing your teeth with despair at how low some of your co-workers/protégés have sunk since your departures. Imagine looking to Microsoft for help making Intel sales numbers. After all, Microsoft could've just offered to buy [-]Yahoo![/-] Intel.

But maybe Intel's not at fault after all:

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said Friday that, "John Kalkman has zero visibility into Intel's financial results related to chip sets, motherboards or any other products... he is not qualified to comment on our quarterly forecasts."

A Microsoft spokesman said in a statement Friday that the 915 chipset was included in the Vista marketing program only after it had been tested successfully on early versions of the software.

 

[prgsdw]

It's interesting to read the comments from Jim Alchin, etc - and to see that Steve Balmer himself was in on a number of the emails in this chain. It was clear to a number of folks there that this labeling of 915 video chipset laptops as Vista capable was not in the best interests of customers....

Makes me all the more glad that I'm reading this via FireFox on my Thinkpad X61 running Ubuntu Linux 7.10. While I work in IT and must use Windows operating systems all day (to access UNIX systems primarily), I'm glad for choice in operating systems at home.

 

[al_bundy]

microsoft's biggest mistake was having 20 different versions of Vista. they should have had a home version and a business version at most.

i have Vista Business on my laptop and Ultimate on my home PC. Only difference is my home PC has HD DVD maker and the dreamscene thing where i can have a movie as my wallpaper.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Having been in executive meetings with the principals in both companies, it was pretty clear which was the dog and which was the tail.

I swapped some emails with Chuck Mulloy a little over a month ago although we didnt talk about this. A straighter shooter doesnt live on the face of the planet, particularly for a PR guy.

Intel 945 and 965 chipsets were available well before the vista launch, in fact I had a 965 based desktop a full six months ahead of the launch. Its a matter of product pricing; 915's went into cheap boxes. But even the buyers of cheap boxes are enticed by "knowing" their machine will run the next gen OS

Only one company could allow a "vista capable" or "vista ready" sticker to be put on the side of the box. Its that simple.

I guess the good news is that Intel doesnt give a hoot who gets the "blame". Wont affect their revenue streams one bit and I'm sure the execs there love microsoft for putting out one bloated operating system after another...

The other good news is that with all the latest patches, Vista doesnt suck as much as it did...

 

[Marquette]

A flash from the past....
PC World - No Vista, but 'Vista Capable' Stickers Instead

Remember, Vista Capable just meant the PC could run Vista Home Basic... which means no fancy Aero UI manager and some features might not work, but the basic OS would.

I'm totally shocked and amazed that Microsoft botched an OS rollout. Then again, I'm still running XP and happily stuck in the stone ages (I don't even have the Theme service running on mine, so it looks pretty craptastic)

 

[al_bundy]

one day i'm going to run a Microsoft OS with all the features they promised for Windows XP

 

[HFWR]

My experience with Vista Home has been, thus far, subpar...

What to blame? OS, computer, drivers, ad-ons? All of the above...

What a ficking mess..............

 

[Nords]

My experience with Vista Home has been, thus far, subpar...
What to blame? OS, computer, drivers, ad-ons? All of the above...
What a ficking mess..............

It's ringing endorsements like these that persuade me to use my PC as a backup hard drive for my Mac.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Mmm hmmm, because THOSE have never had problems with new operating system releases...

OSX 10.0 was a far worse product than XP or Vista at their respective launches, and both of those products became stable/usable products far faster. It wasnt until 10.2 that the dang thing worked for beans. That was about 17 months.

I found vista to be pretty useless for about 3 months. It worked, but the incompatibilities, hangs and crashes were pretty bad. As of the last 3 months I guess I'm not seeing much of a difference in stability between it and XP. SP1 is next month. Maybe that'll be a little bit better speedwise, or maybe it'll introduce new glitches...

The other tidbit of info is that a $25-30 add on video card for desktops pretty much solves the integrated video performance problem.

 

[al_bundy]

apple is becoming just as bad

at least with Wintel i have a choice as to the products to buy. with apple they did something where the backup server thing they have won't work unless you buy some expensive apple accessory.

and OS X has had a ton of bugs in pretty much every release

 

[prgsdw]

Well....With Wintel you can install windows or linux for example. On a Mac (which also now uses intel hardware) you can run Windows, OS X or linux, so it seems you have more choice on the Mac than on windows machines. That is also why when I go to developer conferences probably 1/2 the developers there with their own machines and not corporate issued ones are using Macs. This was NOT the case a few years ago.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah, but if you're gonna run something other than OSX on a box, why spend the 30-50% extra on a box with contents no different from a well built windows machine?

Theres a good reason why Apple isnt releasing OSX on hardware other than their own, even though it can be made to run without too much trouble.

 

[al_bundy]

Well....With Wintel you can install windows or linux for example. On a Mac (which also now uses intel hardware) you can run Windows, OS X or linux, so it seems you have more choice on the Mac than on windows machines. That is also why when I go to developer conferences probably 1/2 the developers there with their own machines and not corporate issued ones are using Macs. This was NOT the case a few years ago.

i'm probably going to the windows 2008/VS2008/SQL 2008 launch tomorrow and i don't think i'll see too many mac's there. all depends on which conferences you attend

 

[Andy R]

I switched from my old work horse Dell Laptop (that lasted me 3 wonderful years) to a MacBook last month. I transfered all the data and it crashed a couple weeks ago just 28 days after buying the thing. I know there is a small percentage of machines that have hardware failures and there is little a consumer can do to mitigate the risk of getting one of these lemons.

Since I am in Africa and my data is in Dallas, I was pretty miffed when I Googled "MacBook hard drive failure" and read so many reports of others with a similar experience. Seems they had some quality control issues, needles to say I was pissed to pay a premium for a product that was sub par IMO.

I must say that after bitching enough and creating enough bad kharma for anyone within 10Km of me, the Apple store said they would take back the computer even though it was after their 7 day return period. to my delight, the next day the repair shop phoned and said that they were able to retrieve my data but had to also replace the "logic board" (I think that is what they call the Motherboard here). So at least I got my computer back but I am not convinced the internals are any better then a less design oriented brand. The external design is nice and I have not had enough time to form a solid opinion on the OS, it's frozen and crashed plenty so far.

 

[Marquette]

My Microsoft friends tell me that the MacBook is the most requested laptop at corporate. They could be pulling my leg, but I doubt it. There are a lot of non-developer types running around there.

I've never had any problems with any MS OS... then again, I'm not exactly one to adopt a first release and I keep my installs pretty vanilla. For example, my laptop could probably run Vista just fine (dual core with 2gb of RAM) but I'll wait until I feel ready to jump to a 64-bit chip and will go to Vista then.

 

[ladelfina]

OSX 10.0 was a far worse product than XP or Vista at their respective launches

arg. That was eight, nine years ago. Why are you stuck on that? Instead, I look at what they were AIMING at, and am amazed at what they took on and succeeded with. Just the fact that it could RUN OSX and OS 9 simultaneously was (to this layperson and business end-user) nothing short of miraculous. Windows users have trouble running current programs on their current OS, nevermind being backwards-compatible. I am still happy with 10.4 since I can still run the occasional OS9 program when needed, and will hold off on whatever comes after Leopard to see if it is worth my while.

My DH's series of PCs and laptops in recent years have been nothing but painful money- and time-sinks. (And he IS a "developer-type".. This is a timely thread, as he was not 5 minutes ago calling for Bill Gates' assassination as a humanitarian gesture to save the world). Every new release of VB he finds features removed - great business plan! The hardware is cheaper, sure.. which means it frequently breaks. So he has a 'choice' between broken and broken, and has gone through 4 computers and 3 OS upgrades in the time I have, respectively, 1 and 1. There's no 'savings' in PC-land.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

The time frame is irrelevant. The implication was that one company makes great OS's and the other doesnt. The reality is that both stink at releasing major new products and they both take time to work out their problems.

I'm quite sure that the next major architectural release of Apples OS will have a good 6-12 months to work out its problems.

And no, there is no reason why the exactly same hardware wrapped in two different plastic shells will have different breakage rates. The innards of a Dell Vostro and a Macbook are virtually identical. Apples computers and most first tier windows pc makers machines are all made on the same assembly line by the same people using the same components.

The reliability ratings from neutral parties like CR suggest that mac's break more often than several el cheapo brand name windows PC manufacturers. Probably because of the lousy air circulation and trying to jam too much stuff into small places.

Wow, I had to read back through the thread to see how we got from there to here...any new major s/w product will have problems. Company management that deceives the buyers stinks. Whether its because the product wont run in an environment they said it'd run it, or they released an alpha/beta product and claimed it was production ready.

 

[al_bundy]

arg. That was eight, nine years ago. Why are you stuck on that? Instead, I look at what they were AIMING at, and am amazed at what they took on and succeeded with. Just the fact that it could RUN OSX and OS 9 simultaneously was (to this layperson and business end-user) nothing short of miraculous. Windows users have trouble running current programs on their current OS, nevermind being backwards-compatible. I am still happy with 10.4 since I can still run the occasional OS9 program when needed, and will hold off on whatever comes after Leopard to see if it is worth my while.

My DH's series of PCs and laptops in recent years have been nothing but painful money- and time-sinks. (And he IS a "developer-type".. This is a timely thread, as he was not 5 minutes ago calling for Bill Gates' assassination as a humanitarian gesture to save the world). Every new release of VB he finds features removed - great business plan! The hardware is cheaper, sure.. which means it frequently breaks. So he has a 'choice' between broken and broken, and has gone through 4 computers and 3 OS upgrades in the time I have, respectively, 1 and 1. There's no 'savings' in PC-land.

the most shocking part is that someone still uses VB

 

[myself]

arg. That was eight, nine years ago. Why are you stuck on that? Instead, I look at what they were AIMING at, and am amazed at what they took on and succeeded with. Just the fact that it could RUN OSX and OS 9 simultaneously was (to this layperson and business end-user) nothing short of miraculous. Windows users have trouble running current programs on their current OS, nevermind being backwards-compatible. I am still happy with 10.4 since I can still run the occasional OS9 program when needed, and will hold off on whatever comes after Leopard to see if it is worth my while.

My DH's series of PCs and laptops in recent years have been nothing but painful money- and time-sinks. (And he IS a "developer-type".. This is a timely thread, as he was not 5 minutes ago calling for Bill Gates' assassination as a humanitarian gesture to save the world). Every new release of VB he finds features removed - great business plan! The hardware is cheaper, sure.. which means it frequently breaks. So he has a 'choice' between broken and broken, and has gone through 4 computers and 3 OS upgrades in the time I have, respectively, 1 and 1. There's no 'savings' in PC-land.

'Tis true about OS X (well give/take a year).
I have a Win2000 Pro machine that has been powered up 24/7 for over 5 years. The only time it has gone down is because of power outages in our area, or because I installed certain patches.
We've been able to successfully run anything we need on our PCs (Win 98 SE - Win 2000 Pro), for the past 7+ years. And we just picked up a few laptops with Vista Home Premium pre-loaded on them, and haven't had a problem. Then again, they have at least 2GB of memory (one has 3 GB).

We also have a Mac laptop that is dual-bootable between OS-9 and OS-X, but rarely do we use it.

As for "developer types", that is my primary work. Supporting custom applications in Windows 2000+ (in some cases our very own ... but there are also cases of our supporting SAP on the servers, etc.).


I grant you that we don't buy "Joe's pizza/computer repair" computers. We've only bought Dell/HP/Sony.

 

[myself]

the most shocking part is that someone still uses VB

HEHEHE! I couldn't agree more!

 

[clifp]

Long URL of a Reuters article posted on Fidelity's website.




I must express the sentiment that I'm shocked-- shocked, I say!-- over how Microsoft would do such a thing. You ER'd Intel workers must be gnashing your teeth with despair at how low some of your co-workers/protégés have sunk since your departures. Imagine looking to Microsoft for help making Intel sales numbers. After all, Microsoft could've just offered to buy [-]Yahoo![/-] Intel.

But maybe Intel's not at fault after all:

This is a classic man bites dog story. For everytime Microsoft helped Intel, there is at least 10 times that BillG screamed at Intel execs to do XYZ, if you want to see software in your lifetime that takes advantage of a new chip feature. Intel was forced to cave most of the time as was revealed in the Microsoft antitrust case.

I was rather proud of BillG calling Andy Grove to kill one of my pet projects, although at the time pride wasn't the emotion I was feeling

 

[prgsdw]

Yeah, but if you're gonna run something other than OSX on a box, why spend the 30-50% extra on a box with contents no different from a well built windows machine?

Very true. It reminds me of a phone call recently. One of my brothers employees bought an Apple for his wife. She works on Windows PC's all day, but wanted the Mac because she didn't want to continue having problems with malware, adware, etc. So the idea for them was great - if they didn't like the Mac they could always install Windows on it and at least get back to what they were used to.

Not to mention if you buy a laptop of comparable quality, reliability and service ratings like a Thinkpad, the Mac isn't a 30-50% premium anymore.

 

[ladelfina]

sorry CFB.. you & others did get into the OS quality issue, tho', in my feeble defense!

As far as the OP goes, the business model that decouples hardware and OS creates that opening.. the "need" to defraud/deceive. I think CFB's defended that business model. If Apple stuff breaks, you can only blame Apple. Not a whole host of disparate players. Sad also were the multitudes of machine-specific crippled OSs distributed by various PC mfrs. In other areas diversity breeds improvements; here it seemed to breed frustration and chaos. The glitches that come up based on that are for the life of the computer, not just upon first release of a new OS.

Why Visual Studio? Who knows? He must have his reasons. I could, but won't, go into a long tangential discourse about jobs/politics/skillsets here. The h/w has been Acer, emachines, and now some not-cheap no-name box concocted by a local h/w seller. Not great experiences overall, anyway. I'm glad others have fared better.

 

[Marquette]

You said VB, not Visual Studio... I'd be curious what features have gone away. I haven't touched VB since I wrote a book on VB.NET 1.0 (and, truthfully, I only dusted off the VB-side of that enough to be able to write). I wasn't aware of any features of VS going away though...

As for machine choices, I've never had problems with Toshiba or Dell. I've never trusted Acer and know plenty of people that have had problems with e-machines. I'm guessing they've gone up in quality lately, though. I've had plenty of problems with custom-built boxes; it's been fun, but I just don't care any more. I get them pre-built from the manufacturer and call it good.

 

[maddythebeagle]

My experience with Vista Home has been, thus far, subpar...

What to blame? OS, computer, drivers, ad-ons? All of the above...

What a ficking mess..............

I bought a new computer last april with vista and would have looked a little harder for one with xp....funny thing is internet explorer hangs up on me while firefox works much better Other than that and having to wait a month for updates for my existing printer and scanner, it has been very stable...