Microsoft considers discounts for Vista
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Microsoft Corp. is considering discounts or other promotions during the holidays to entice consumers to upgrade their PCs with Windows Vista, even though the new operating system isn't due to hit store shelves until January at the earliest.
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Microsoft officials are aware of InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition effort, which is asking the company to keep Windows XP for sale indefinitely rather than drop the popular OS from most sales outlets on June 30 as planned.A spokesperson noted that Microsoft had already delayed XP's demise by six months from its original Dec. 31, 2007, end-of-sales date, as software vendors, customers, and others complained that the deadline was too soon, coming less than a year after Windows Vista's release. "That's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially and what will continue to guide us," another spokesperson told Computerworld Australia.The first spokesperson told InfoWorld that Microsoft's rationale for the June 30 end-of-sales date has not changed since the delay it announced in September, though Microsoft officials continued to monitor customer feedback and had taken note of the petition effort, which has gathered more than 85,000 signatures as of the evening of Friday, Feb. 8. "We're aware of it but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs," the second spokesperson told Computerworld Australia.The first spokesperson expressed some surprise at the resistance some users have expressed to adopting Vista, recalling that many users were upset that Vista's original release had been delayed. She also noted that Microsoft has several options for people to install XP on new systems after June 30 and that the company planned on supporting XP for some time after it is no longer available for sale.
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Microsoft raised the possibility on   Thursday that it might delay the introduction of its new Vista   Windows operating system in Europe, saying it depended on the   European Commission's antitrust requirements.
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Microsoft on Friday made available to the public a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1. We want to know what you think.
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Microsoft announces steps it says will help business customers take advantage of a technology called virtualization, including a change in policy to allow all versions of Windows Vista to be virtualized.
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Although Windows Vista has been on sale for nearly nine months, Microsoft has yet to seriously market the operating system, letting a certain rival control public mind share on a number of fronts. That's all about to change, as the Redmond company attempts to make Vista more compelling to consumers.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft released details of a study it commissioned that found that total cost of ownership for Windows Vista on mobile PCs is $605 less annually than Windows XP. According to research conducted by Wipro and GCR Custom Research and released Wednesday, total cost of ownership for Windows XP is $4,407 annually, while Vista's cost is $3,802. The $4,407 figure was derived from costs of hardware, software, IT labor, and user costs. Mobile PCs were the focus because these units will outship desktop systems by 2010, said Hiroshi Sakakibara, product manager for Windows Product Management at Microsoft. Peculiarly, the study actually was based on XP usage and extrapolations based on Vista capabilities because there was not a substantial base of Vista clients in use yet when the study was done early in 2007. Now, the installed base of Vista is 60 million PCs, Microsoft said. GCR and Wipro calculated that the Vista upgrade itself saves $251 per year. These benefits include enhancements in security, desktop engineering, service desk requirements, user labor, and hardware and software benefits. Among the improvements noted were in such areas as network diagnostics, backup and restore, self-healing functions, and implementation of security policies. Deploying best practices through Microsoft's Infrastructure Optimization model adds another $236 in Vista savings, while utilizing the MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) saves $118 per PC. MDOP features Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization and the Microsoft Asset Inventory Service, while Infrastructure Optimization covers best practices, such as controlling PC configurations. MDOP is available as part of Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing program. Reducing vulnerabilities and utilizing security policies presents savings, noted Bill Barna, principal consultant at Wipro. Security savings alone were estimated at $55. "If you can reduce the number of core vulnerabilities, you can basically have the savings flow throughout the entire security model," Barna said. The survey featured 541 phones calls to users at 131 XP user organizations; one IT decision-maker and three end-users were polled at each user site. While Microsoft is promoting Vista upgrades, a Free Software Foundation project called "BadVista," is pushing free software as an alternative. "We describe it as a campaign definitely against Vista but chiefly to promote free software over Vista," said John Sullivan, a campaign manager at the foundation. Users should replace "proprietary" systems with a free system like GNU-Linux, Sullivan said.
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Priced at about US$36, the Starter Edition gives users limited options and features, compared to the standard Windows version. Microsoft hopes the low price will help it compete in Russia
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InfoWorld - Although Microsoft may not have the first service pack for Windows Vista ready at the end of this year as some expected, financial analysts say that a delay should not have a negative effect on enterprise adoption of the OS.
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Microsoft has reversed course and will now allow Vista users to run a virtual copy of the least expensive versions of the operating system, Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium.
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Configuring a PC around the minimum hardware requirements of an application or operating system may not be the best idea for users who hope to get the most out of Windows Vista.
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Microsoft now says its Vista Service Pack 1 will become available to some business users before the end of this month -- an about-face from the software giant's earlier announcement of a delay of up to six weeks to fix a performance issue.
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The first service pack for Windows Vista could be out as early as Feb. 15, according to sources close to Microsoft.
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Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc.   has started taking early orders for Microsoft Corp.'s   Windows Vista operating system at prices ranging from  $100 to $399.
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With Release Candidate 1 now out the door, Microsoft is putting what it calls the "fit-and-finish" on Windows Vista's user interface, and the company is looking for feedback from users testing out the beta release.
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Trust us Microsoft has offered little satisfaction to Windows Vista Ultimate users frustrated by the dearth of goodies used to justify the operating system's premium price.â¦
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By Benjamin J. Romano, The Seattle Times  Jan. 29--NEW YORK -- Microsoft is calling for the world's attention today  as it launches Windows Vista and Office 2007, new versions of the two products  used by millions and responsible for most of the company's profits.