from Money Magazine:

quote:

The newest system to come out of Microsoft will have fewer alerts than Vista. In response to Google, the software maker is adding Web-friendly work options.

Last Updated: October 28, 2008: 4:14 PM ET


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The next version of Microsoft Windows, the software that defines the computing experience for most people, will nag users much less than its much-maligned predecessor, Vista. PC users will be able to begin testing the new edition early next year.

From Forbes.com:

quote:

Snow Leopard Endangers Vista
Brian Caulfield, 11.20.08, 06:00 AM EST

Apple's new OS X could force Microsoft to dump its beleaguered operating system.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and Steve Jobs feels fine. With the U.S. Federal Reserve now predicting a recession that will last well into next year--and others predicting much worse--sales of ammunition, spam and gold coins are surging.

Oh yeah, so are sales of the Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) chief's Macintosh computers.

Apple owned 9.5% of the U.S. PC market during the third quarter, according to tech tracker Gartner. Look at where beleaguered consumers are putting their dollars, however, and Apple's performance is even more impressive: The company grabbed 20.1% of the U.S. retail market in October, according to NPD Group. And Apple is on track to sell between 2.4 million and 2.7 million Macs for the quarter ending in December, up 13% from the year-ago period, according to Piper Jaffray (nyse: PJC - news - people ) analyst Gene Munster. story continues...

Nice work Chuck (Reti). Many people still don't understand what's happening. If Apple "goes after" enterprise business with Snow Leopard, and if Snow Leopard works, there will probably be a large migration away from Windows.

I would expect to see product shortages of all kinds very soon, since credit is increasingly "locked." International business is really starting to freeze - that's where 99% of our electronics originate.

It appears that Microsoft is giving up many of its core businesses. They are providing very little investment overall, and almost none in the "quality assurance department." Microsoft may need to stop "patching" Windows, and start with a completely new OS. A lot of people aren't going to be happy with that transition.

My fear is, as Windows users migrate to either Unix, Linux, or Mac, they'll bring malware with them.

Historically, Apple has not "gone after" Enterprise business; I don't expect they will this time either. As is frequently brought up in these discussions, most corporate IT departments, being MS-centric, are typically vehemently anti-Apple-anything, whether hardware, OS, or forbidding Quicktime on company machines. I'd see them hanging on to XP, as the article states, or going with UNIX or Linux solutions like those already being offered by non-Apple hardware vendors, if they contemplated any move away from Microsoft.

While the anti-Apple thing is true at some shops, another big problem is the unwillingness of Apple to provide roadmaps of where they're going with their hardware/software. Many shops have to plan purchases for several years out, and that's just not possible with Apple.

There's also the problem of all that legacy code. It's less of a problem with virtual machines, but there's also not a lot of incentive to switch over either when you have a log of legacy programs for Windows.

As for "clinging" to XP - it's more a matter of Vista providing little to no business case over XP. There's simply no reason for most businesses to go to Vista.

I've read where a couple businesses got into mid-stream with the XP->Vista transition, ran into a lot of problems, and turned back. Apparently Windows XP SP3 was also very bad. FoMoCo spends 18 months working intently with Microsoft to "sanitize" each and every Windows release. Their IT help lines would be overwhelmed with service calls otherwise.

That said, the initial Leopard release could've been smoother, but it was probably nothing like the initial releases of XP or Vista. I think Apple redirected a lot of resources to telephones and hardware before Leopard, and lost momentum on OS X. Apple spent a lot of resources tidying up code for Tiger, and it was pretty good. I hope Snow Leopard is as good as Tiger.

My reason for saying that Microsoft is giving up its core businesses (Vista and Office) is the poor quality both have exhibited with a 5 year development cycle. Microsoft Office Mac 2008 had a 4 year development cycle, and it appears to be a retrograde to me. It's so slow (and buggy), it must be running interpreted code. Where is Microsoft taking us now (to paraphrase an old advertisement)????

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck M:
...Where is Microsoft taking us now (to paraphrase an old advertisement)????

"Windows Mojave ??"