Longhorn could be tough sell for Microsoft

[raskren]

hes not going to pirate it, someone else is.

and when you live in a country where buying a pirated copy is easier(not to mention cheaper) than buying it retail, then the only person you can blame for that is MS.

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Puhleez! A scarcity means you have the RIGHT to steal from others? How, on earth (or on whatever planet you're from) is that justifiable?

[L3thal Veteran]

People and their excuses for pirating Windows :no:

[g-n-t]

Puhleez!  A scarcity means you have the RIGHT to steal from others?  How, on earth (or on whatever planet you're from) is that justifiable?

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not justifiable, understandable.

and BTW, i own three legal windows xp's and use only opensource software.

[notuptome2004]

what is nice about longhonr is Avlon technolagy and what ti will bring to Longhorn. as i watched avideo /DCE/DWM about it they stated that longhorns new avlon layers goes beyond just the 3d relm but also to the 2d relm so when you suing windows word or any word app evan 2d will be better like just typeing text will be better quality due to the fact the 3d portion will be renderd through the avlon sub system witch in terms is rended through your DX9 graphics card pipeline so it will be that mutch better meaning almost no CPU usage will be notices evan in basic windows task,

[eminem213486]

of course it will be a widespread sale. i can see the ads now, *Intuitive, love longhorn* :p i cant wait.

btw, there are already themes for longhorn out, what makes you think there arnet going to be themes? the new theming engine is powerful and adapts pretty much the same engine xp uses with some extra stuff (like transparency and png support)

btw, the time bomb on the whole xp thing, thats what we in the IT world call *uninformed users* thats why your going to get a least privileged user account and not be allowed to use p2p anymore!

before anyone says anything, no i dont mean itll block p2p, just that the user account wont get installing rights. :rolleyes:

[notuptome2004]

XP uses GDI++ 2D like previouse windows Longhorn uses a complex 3d engine witch is called Avlon it uses many features of your DX9 graphics card 256meger ones. unlike Windows XPs GDI++ 2D system all effects are utalized soly by graphics card and not host procceser and all done in hardware that is why they call in Avlon technolagy and for the longhonr desktop DCE and DWM decreat compositing engine. longhorn is not just a new look buta new subsystem of graphcis and how it is all compsited avlon works througout your graphcis cards 3d pipeline system

[Express]

what is nice about longhonr? is? Avlon technolagy and what ti will bring to Longhorn. as i watched avideo /DCE/DWM about it they stated that?  longhorns? new?  avlon layers goes beyond just? the 3d relm? but also to the 2d relm? so when you suing windows? word or? any word app?  evan 2d will be better like just typeing text will be better quality due to the fact the 3d portion will be renderd? through the avlon sub system witch? in terms? is rended? through your? DX9 graphics? card pipeline so it will be that? mutch better? meaning almost no CPU usage will be notices? evan? in basic windows task,

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Wow! I had a hard:pime reading that. :p

But w(Y) you say is true. (Y)

Edited April 3, 2005 by Express

[Mannlich]

I don't know about you guys, but after half a year, Win98 would start giving me random BSODs. As for WinXP, I never get a BSOD, no matter what I do, unless I overclock past the safety threshold (which causes a BSOD following a reboot). My impression of Win98 is that it just wasn't very stable...after a long time.

About the profit, also note that MS makes money selling OEM copies of its software to major distributors like Dell.

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Looking at it from an economist's point of view, since microsoft is more or less a monopoly, it can set whatever price level it wants and people will buy it because there is know equal substitute. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, Microsoft will have some great marketing campaign that will convince people that they NEED longhorn for protection and security, and people will buy it. Remember that about 0.000000000004 % of the population is smart enough to know that WinFX and Avalon will be ported back to WinXP, thus they will associate it with Longhorn.

[g-n-t]

winfs is not included in longhorn.

people dont even know what a video card is, how the hell are you supposed to explain avalon to them?

there are three substitutes for longhorn. linux, windows xp, and piracy. This time, MS is going to have a tough time beating them, because all three are more advanced now than they were in 2001.

[raskren]

Linux is an alternative for who? My mother runs Windows just fine but I couldn't imagine her figuring out how to download iso images and installing them.

Linux is an alternative to Windows for nerds.

I'd say the two alternatives to Windows are: piracy, Mac OS X.

[Mannlich]

Alright, but im talking about the average consumer who doesn't know anything about linux, uses winxp but knows a new os exists, and doesn't know how to priate software. Sales and marketing people will be able to convince this market that they need to buy Longhorn, and sure enough people will.

[Express]

Looking at it from an economist's point of view, since microsoft is more or less a monopoly, it can set whatever price level it wants and people will buy it because there is know equal substitute.? As was mentioned earlier in the thread, Microsoft will have some great marketing campaign that will convince people that they NEED longhorn for protection and security, and people will buy it.? Remember that about 0.000000000004 % of the population is smart enough to know that WinFS and Avalon will be ported back to WinXP, thus they will associate it with Longhorn.

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That fact that Avalon & Indigo are backporteonly meansu> you can run applications which are developed for Longhorn.

Idoesn't meanu> you get all the other build-in goodness of Longhorn like for example Castles, LUA, compositing all windows using 3D primitives in XP etc.

Longhorn will still be phenomenal upgrade to Windows lineup.

[Mannlich]

That fact that Avalon & Indigo are backported only means you can run applications which are developed for Longhorn.

It doesn't mean you get all the other build-in goodness of Longhorn like for example Castles, LUA, compositing all windows using 3D primitives in XP etc.

Longhorn will still be phenomenal upgrade to Windows lineup.

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Oh, I completely agree. I think Longhorn will be a wonderful upgrade. I was just making an argument to the selling points of longhorn.

[g-n-t]

Linux is an alternative for who?  My mother runs Windows just fine but I couldn't imagine her figuring out how to download iso images and installing them.

Linux is an alternative to Windows for nerds.

I'd say the two alternatives to Windows are: piracy, Mac OS X.

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well youre not a very good son ;) you are supposed to install it for her.

@wolken

no, average people wont buy longhorn for two reasons

1)it costs money

2)they don't know how to install it

@express

people dont care about any of those things, they dont even know what they are.

[Mannlich]

well youre not a very good son  ;) you are supposed to install it for her.

@wolken

no, average people wont buy longhorn for two reasons

1)it costs money

2)they don't know how to install it

@express

people dont care about any of those things, they dont even know what they are.

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What?!? I can understand the money part of it, but that didn't stop people from buying windows xp. As for people not knowing how to install it, people figured out windows xp, and im sure the upgrade for this will be extremely easy. Also, the places where people would be most likely to buy from (CompUSA, Best Buy, Etc.) offer support for computer software through Geek Squad and their own customer service departments, so they would more than likely help out if someone just dropped a couple hundred on a new OS.

[PseudoRandomDragon]

This is how it's going to turn out.

OEMs are going to buy into LH no matter what, take that for granted.

Longhorn is going to suck when it first comes out. It wont be any good until SP1. It was pretty much the same thing with WinXP.

The only thing thats going to be iffy is this "trusted" computing crap. Is it going to be this extra annoying thing with longhorn or are hardware vendors going to buy into it as well?

[metro]

LH will sell, bottom line. Microsoft has contracts with OEM system builders and all newer machines will be released with it. That counts just as much of being a sale than someone buying a retail copy in a store, or from a chinese vendor in asia even tho the latter isn't legal :D

Sure, the minimum system requirements will increase but as time passes so does the advancement of technology. People have to accept that. It took me 3 years to finally build a new machine and if I could afford to, I would have a new machine every 12-18 months. Thing is, my older machine runs XP like a champ and there was speculation that only fast top end machines could run XP. I know people who run XP on a 800MHz Duron with 256MB of memory. It doesn't run extremely fast, but it runs. The same could be said with Windows 2000. I had it running on a P-II 300 and it ran perfectly fine, regardless of the rumors stating that it would suck.

Some people just have to have the latest and greatest. That profile alone will sell copies of LH when it is released. There is nothing stable enough to base a solid opinion on LH, and we all know opinions are like... well, you get the point. I can say that I will probably buy LH, but I will be trying to get into the beta program for it so I can see it mature and solidify before I make the final call. Maybe one of these days there will be a "try before you buy" thing for OS's other than the evaluation beta's that get leaked. I am thinking of a true final product with a timelock on it, but we all know that it would be cracked and thrown all over the internet...

[g-n-t]

What?!? I can understand the money part of it, but that didn't stop people from buying windows xp.  As for people not knowing how to install it, people figured out windows xp, and im sure the upgrade for this will be extremely easy.  Also, the places where people would be most likely to buy from (CompUSA, Best Buy, Etc.) offer support for computer software through Geek Squad and their own customer service departments, so they would more than likely help out if someone just dropped a couple hundred on a new OS.

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the money part is that people have better things to do with their 99(or whatever it costs) dollars than to go and buy an OS that they most likely will not need.

a VERY large majority of longhorn sales will be through OEM's

and upgrading xp to longhorn is a lot harder than youd expect when you think about it from a normal users POV.

[Mannlich]

and upgrading xp to longhorn is a lot harder than youd expect when you think about it from a normal users POV.

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Have you tried Longhorn at all yet? Build 4051 and up were a piece of cake to install and upgrade. You didn't have to enter anything other than your name and seial number, then you could leave it be.

[g-n-t]

yes. but thats not the point. the whole idea of installing a new operating system for people will scare them to death. most poeple dont know how to do anyhting oterh tthan check their email. and if they can check their email fine, then they will have no reason to go through the hassloe of installing longhorn.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

It isn't harder to upgrade from XP > LH. Basically it's the same thing. Pop in the CD/DVD, run the installation, enter your name and serial number, and edit your settings. That's about it. What's harder about that?

yes. but thats not the point. the whole idea of installing a new operating system for people will scare them to death. most poeple dont know how to do anyhting oterh tthan check their email. and if they can check their email fine, then they will have no reason to go through the hassloe of installing longhorn.

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C'mon, it's the year 2005. Even my 8 year old brother knows how to format a hard drive. No one told me how to install XP. I just put in the CD and followed the wizard. Easy as that. I'm sure it'll be the same for LH.

[Mannlich]

well i guess it is pointless to argue about. Like metro said, longhorn will sell bottom line, be it to consumers or OEM.

[Mannlich]

yes. but thats not the point. the whole idea of installing a new operating system for people will scare them to death. most poeple dont know how to do anyhting oterh tthan check their email. and if they can check their email fine, then they will have no reason to go through the hassloe of installing longhorn.

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I also think you underestimate what most people do on a computer. Most of the people that i know that use a computer use it for doing digital photos and stuff like that. These are older people too, like in their late 40s and early 50s, so they weren't raised on computers. I think some of the people in this position would be interested in getting a new OS, and might just have the cojones to install it on their own.

[Elliott]

I'm going to buy it mainly for the security enhancements. It'll probably run worse than Windows XP, but at least I'll have a more secure system. Interesting how each Mac OS X release gets faster on fairly modern hardware while each Windows release seems to get slower. I'd like the same trend that's happening in Mac OS X to happen in Windows.

[matt74441]

Currently I have no plans to buy Longhorn. From what I've seen and heard, there aren't going to be any revolutionary features in it. From what I've seen from screenshots, I'll be able to sort files in ways that I would never want to, so there is no incentive for me to buy it. Plus, to me the graphical enhancements serve no purpose.