backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 46 comment(s) - last by DkFFIV.. on Dec 3 at 3:18 AM
90% of new Windows consumer client installations to be Vista Home-based in 2007

Microsoft has lofty ambitions for its next generation Windows Vista operating system as witnessed by statements made by the company in early October. Today, IDC issued some new projections for Windows Vista including the notion that over 90 million units of the operating system will ship in 2007 worldwide. That figure far outpaces Microsoft's assessment of 67 million units in the first year of availability for Windows XP.

"After a long wait, the adoption of Windows Vista will take place almost immediately among consumers, while businesses will follow a decidedly more conservative adoption curve," says Al Gillen, research VP of System Software at IDC.

On the consumer side, Vista Home Basic is expected to garner 67% of Vista purchases while Vista Home Premium will account for 30%. The enthusiast-oriented Vista Ultimate will account for 2% of the product mix with just 1% of consumers choosing Vista Business for use in home deployments.

For businesses, Vista Business will account for 82% of Vista deployments while Vista Enterprise will capture the remaining 18%.

Overall, IDC projects that 90% of new Windows client installations for home users will be comprised of Vista Home Basic/Vista Home Premium during the first year. On the business side, Vista Business/Vista Enterprise will account for just 35% of new client installations during the first year – that number rises to 80% during the second year of availability.

But while consumers buying new PCs will pretty much be forced into using Windows Vista after the start of the year, businesses are likely to be a bit more discriminating. Businesses typically wait until at least the first service pack for a new Windows operating system is released before they do any large roll-outs throughout the company.

Gartner suggests that companies should spend as much as 18 months testing a new operating system before moving to large-scale deployments. With Vista being launched for businesses tomorrow, now is the time to begin the testing phase (if companies haven't already done so with earlier versions of Vista). "If companies do decide to upgrade the biggest barrier will be application compatibility - 80 per cent of your applications will work and 20 per cent won't work. The vast majority of customers we speak to are looking at 2008 to upgrade but they need to start planning now," said Frank Foxall of Windows migration specialist Camwood.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By Enoch2001 on 11/30/2006 11:00:43 AM , Rating: 2
I can't use Vista right now because it renders $600 in audio cards useless. There is no hardware support for anything yet, and even Creative - who has the majority of add-on soundcards in PC's - are using a band-aid approach to attempt to get their cards to work in Vista.

All of you X-Fi owners? Paperweights in Vista.

My m-audio Firewire 410? Useless. Even my old Audigy 2 Platinum is...meh...

Until that whole thing is sorted out (if it ever is), then I'll switch.




RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By KewlWhip on 11/30/2006 11:50:44 AM , Rating: 3
Vista does not release to the public until January. Many hardware manufactures are working with Microsoft to get thier certified before launch. Please keep in mind that Vista just went gold and that hardware certifications take some time.

Thanks


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By TomZ on 11/30/06, Rating: 0
By thecoolnessrune on 12/1/2006 9:09:50 PM , Rating: 2
Because we all know that beta and release candidate both means final product. Didn't the rest of you guys get the memo? O.o


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By Donkeyshins on 11/30/2006 3:30:00 PM , Rating: 2
If you are going to place blame, you need to direct it at the proper source - the hardware manufacturers who have not yet released Vista certified drivers. Case in point: I'm running Vista Enterprise RTM at work and it works fine with the onboard SoundMAX Integrated audio (machine is a Dell Optiplex GX620) as well as an add-in Philips Acoustic Edge sound card (PSC706).

Also, as KewlWhip stated, since Vista isn't available as an off-the-shelf install until January, there's time for Creative, m-Audio, etc. to fix their driver / software support for Vista. We saw the same thing when Windows XP shipped. Support should be there by the time you go to your local PC hut and purchase Vista.


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By TomZ on 11/30/2006 3:34:41 PM , Rating: 2
I agree - and hardware manufacturers have in the past been slow to release new drivers. But also remember that Microsoft is also in the loop, because Microsoft is certifying drivers before they are released. So it makes me wonder, especially based on the post by the MS employee above, if Microsoft is a bottleneck in this process or not. I don't think this is anything that has any real public visibility.


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By Laughing all the way 2220 on 11/30/2006 6:58:22 PM , Rating: 1
You know you can really tell the MS fanboys out there- but you can't tell them much- lol

Instead of providing DX10 as an update to XP I "HAVE" to buy Vista. Did you get that? I cannot play the latest and greatest DX10 games on my otherwise fat system with XP SP2!!! MS is MAKING me UPGRADE my OS just to play GAMES!
What an OUTRAGE!!! How can MS expect people to support lunacy? Just so they can make money? You know, that really makes me wanna go out there and buy my $200 copy of bloated, security hole ridden, all the advanced features stripped out, barely prettier than XP, copy of Windows Advanced- Premium-Home-Basic-Ultimate edition!

And what's worse is MS has already tested DX10 vs. DX9 and found it's way slower!


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By DkFFIV on 12/3/2006 3:18:17 AM , Rating: 2
Vista will have DirectX 9.0L which, from what I've read,will provide DirectX 9 API for Vista. This means studios will continue to produce DirectX 9 games until the majority of the PCs out there are running Vista (why isolate your market?). I am not too familiar with the differences between them (programming wise), so perhaps there will be DX10 versions of games and DX9 versions (much like how there were DVD limited editions of games while the majority were printed on CDs). Of course, if the programming is much different, I doubt studios would waste resources building DX10 games that couldn't easily be translated to DX9 (the more likely case would be that we'll see DX10 benchmarks).

From what I've read, DirectX 10 is offering a host of new features - of course they're not going to be blazingly fast off the bat. Developers need time to learn how to use it before it proves to be better. Just because on old technology works fine right now doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking toward the future.


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By msva124 on 11/30/2006 6:43:21 PM , Rating: 2
Um...Microsoft had the power to make Vista backwards compatible with 2000/XP drivers. Because they didn't (for security reasons, I guess), it's their prerogative to beg and plead with hardware manufacturers to write new ones.


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By Spivonious on 12/1/2006 2:45:28 PM , Rating: 4
Vista is not simply an upgraded version of XP.

The sound subsystem in Vista is completely brand new. Instantaneously every soundcard driver for XP broke. Sure Vista emulates XP's soundsystem, but only for basic playback. EAX does not, and will not work on Vista. Only soundsystems that completely bypass the Vista soundsystem (e.g. OpenAL) will continue to work properly.

Also, MS didn't make it compatible with XP/2000 because they decided to write a new OS for a change, rather than upgrading the old clunky NT kernel yet again.

Please, be informed before you post.


RE: Audio in Vista is SHITE!!!
By msva124 on 12/1/2006 7:47:26 PM , Rating: 2
My favorite putdown on the internet comes in the form of "<call someone out for being ignorant> <act ignorant>".

I don't think you've ever written a driver before in your life.


Meeting half way
By Outsider524 on 11/29/06, Rating: 0
RE: Meeting half way
By Rayz on 11/30/2006 3:40:58 AM , Rating: 5
I wouldn't label you as a fanboy, just uninformed. Unfortunately, a computer science minor and eighteen years as a Windows 'user' doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're talking about. Spending some time on Channel9 and listening to the arguments of people who really do know about Windows internals, would probably help out with this.

Your post is really just parroting what alot of other folk have been slashdotting for months. Congratulations, you've joined the biggest herd on the internet.

Windows has been secure since XP SP2; the problem has been that MS made it way too easy for their less experienced users to shoot themselves in the foot. A Firewall and a bit of common sense is all you need.

Hate to break it to those, but the PS3's 8 core CPU-that only uses 6 of them- is already outdate by Intel's latest offerings and Nvidia's new GPUs.

The fact that the PS3 doesn't use all the cores, has nothing to do with whether or not the Cell is better or worse than Intel/nVidia.

While I'm on the subject of Vista compared to OSX, I have to bring up the question as to why MS still even offers different premium prices for mildly altered versions of Vista? OSX has EVERYTHING in the same package, in fact the only different version of OSX is the OSX Server for obvious reasons. There's no Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, etc. Seriously Microsoft where's the sense in continuing that trend?

OSX runs on a woefully small range of machines with a minimum specification defined by Apple. Vista has to run on machines ranging from UMPCs (don't ask me why) up to massive server clusters. An almost unlimited number of configurations that Microsoft has not even seen, let alone tested against. And let's not forget the small but extremely vocal group of hobbyists who like to build their own machines. So the different configurations are needed to make sure that folk aren't crippled by a minimum spec requirement.
Contrary to what you think, there are huge differences across the Vista line, some of which need a high end box to run on.

So why not just have a single pack at one price?
That is actually a very good question.
Here's my take.

Because people aren't that bright.

If you give them a single Ultimate package, they will attempt to install the whole thing on machines that couldn't pull the skin off a custard. Then they will complain that Vista is bloated and slow and the internet will clog up with the terminally clueless bleating the same nonsense. That would be bad.

Now, if MS prices the packages differently and sells them at different prices, then that will give people a mental clue that if they're going to fork out $399, then they'd better fork out for a computer that can match it. If you spend that much on an OS that comes in a nice dangerously black coloured box, then you are less likely to install it on that machine you gave your gran fifteen years ago.

OSX has EVERYTHING in the same package,

Except the ability to run on my choice of machine.
Actually Vista has everything in the same package too, you just don't know it.


RE: Meeting half way
By sviola on 11/30/2006 6:46:12 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The fact that the PS3 doesn't use all the cores, has nothing to do with whether or not the Cell is better or worse than Intel/nVidia.


This is the only point worth disagreeing with you:

Both C2D and A64 are stronger processors than Cell, whose central unit is PowerMac.

The RSX is a 7900GTX modded chip and with the release of the 8800 family, you can say the PS3 graphics power is akin to the PC. This doesn't mean that the games on the PS3 will look worse than on a PC, as games are optimized for it's hardware, which in a PC they can't (although developers could release optimizing patches :) ). I think the PS3 will be successful in the long range, as the famous brands get released and the overall title quality improves.


RE: Meeting half way
By Clienthes on 11/30/2006 10:19:54 AM , Rating: 2
Your disagreement doesn't seem to have anything to do with what the previous poster said. He said that whether the cell used all the cores had no bearing on it's power relative to Intel/nVidia. This is a correct statement. Whether it uses one core or eight is related to, but not an indicator of, its performance relative to other processors.

Critical reading is a valuable skill.


RE: Meeting half way
By msva124 on 11/30/2006 6:54:45 PM , Rating: 2
You must not know about this thing in software called conditional statements.

if (machine is shitty)
{
install basic version
}
else if (machine is good}
{
install ultimate version
}


RE: Meeting half way
By msva124 on 11/30/2006 6:49:26 PM , Rating: 2
The pricing scheme is one of the many mistakes MS has made with Vista.


In Other News...
By ninjit on 11/29/2006 10:55:09 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Analysts from BS Solutions inc. say that 70% of all the analysis their industry does is just stating the obvious.
The remaining 30% being pulled out of their collective asses the night after a big press release, just so that they can get their 2 cents in


Seriously though, nothing I read above about Vista seems like news to me.

Are Analysts one of those jobs the world could really do without? Can someone explain the need for them to me? I honestly don't know.




RE: In Other News...
By Rayz on 11/30/2006 3:43:05 AM , Rating: 3
Quite.

Hard not to be a success when your product is the default installation on just about every PC sold.

... :-|


RE: In Other News...
By msva124 on 11/30/2006 7:15:25 PM , Rating: 2
Honestly I don't even think it is a real job. Otherwise it would be the only job in the world where you can be wrong all the time without being fired.

Analyst is probably just a generic term for anyone who wants to get their name in the news and has the slightest relation to the industry in question.