flatfish+++ wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 12:57:21 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> > Consumers in No Hurry for Vista Upgrade
> > http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200612/kt20061229158214111890.htm
>
> "In a survey of 4,144 members of Danawa.com, a price comparison site, only
> 14 percent of respondents said that they will immediately upgrade to the
> Vista platform when Microsoft releases it on January 30."
>
> Let's see, 14 percent are going to immediately upgrade to Vista?
Just think, that would be almost 140 million new copies of Vista sold
"immediately".
Assuming that 14% of all PC owners anywhere around the world were ready
for the immediate upgrade.
Keep in mind that Microsoft "shipped" 60 million copies of XP in the
first 30 days. This of course included the minimum commitments
accepted by OEMs, licenses linked to Windows support contracts, most of
which were not actually deployed to working and-user PCs until much
later, some almost 1 year later.
> And Linux's desktop usage hovers around 0.2 percent?
Care to provide the link that gives this figure, along with the link
that describes the survey techniques?
Yes, Microsoft claims that 99.8% of the PCs sold by the top 5 OEMs are
licensed to run Windows (it's actually more like 120%), but this has no
direct relationship to the number of users using Linux.
Linux is usually installed by end-users, not by OEMs.
Many Linux machines often also run Windows (dual-boot, virtualization).
Many Linux machines previously ran Windows (replaced by newer Windows
machine).
Many Linux users want Windows licenses for WINE or VNC access to
Windows.
As wierd as it may sound, about 80% of the machines running Linux, are
also licensed for Windows.
The figure above does not include "White Box" machines, which are
usually sold with no operating system - and usually optimized for
Linux. Microsoft has accused white-box sellers of piracy, but has yet
to substantiate any substantial "White box" piracy.
> So in one day, Microsoft has has sold more copies of Vista than the entire
> Linux desktop usage has grown to in the past 10 years.
Has sold? Is that what it said? I don't read chinese.
>From the summary, it looks like it was a survey of people who said they
were ready to upgrade to Vista immediately.
What has been interesting to me is the number of pundits, analysts, and
even rabid Microsoft supporters who aren't terribly excited by Vista.
They see Vista as "better eye candy" and "great for video games" but a
huge "memory pig". The terms in quotes are mine, but summarize the
observations being made by those who normally think that Bill Gates can
walk on water.
Microsoft may end up suffering at the hands of it's own hubris. Their
attempts to drive out competitors has united most competitors against
Microsoft. Sun is offering Looking Glass, Novel standardized XGL, and
Google had the desktop search engine for both Linux and Windows. Many
newer commercial applications are being written to support Linux as
well as Windows, using platform independent libraries such as Qt, or
platform independent Languages such as Perl, Python, and Java.
The Vista license terms may be the ultimate downfall of Vista.
Microsoft's newer and tighter restrictions may actually trigger a
boycott of Windows, a mass defection, or other forms of retaliation
which will impact not only Vista, but also may trigger other shifts
such as migrations from Microsoft Office to Open Office and other ODF
compatible Office suites.
> Sounds pretty good to me, at least for Microsoft.
If Microsoft did actually succeed in shipping 140 million copies of
Vista within the first 30 days, it would certainly be a huge coup. It
would be more shipments of Vista than Microsoft normally ships in an
entire year. On the other hand, a simple accounting shell game could
produce this number even though the "shipments" would actually be
deployed over 12-18 months. Microsoft would finance these commitments
as receivables or intrest free financing, or as service and support
contracts. Microsoft could then legally claim that they had "shipped"
these licenses, but could not actually claim that these licenses were
actually "sold" into the hands of end users.
> Pretty pathetic for Linux though.
The real number to watch will be the number of retail shipments of
Vista "Home Edition", especially in the Retail market. It's very
likely that "Linux Ready" machines will be sold by the OEMs with Vista
"Business" or Vista "Ultimate", which, in effect, telegraphs the
ability of these machines to run Linux as the primary operating system.
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