Windows Vista

Can you believe this? Microsoft spent $500 million on the launch of Windows Vista?

Microsoft's $500m Windows Vista launch on Monday was the culmination of months of heavy sell intended to persuade the company, as much as everyone else, that not only is the operating systems is essential to users' computing needs, but also that it will translate into sales gold.

If bullishness were revenue, Microsoft is well on its way to a bumper fiscal 2007 and 2008. Windows Vista is supposed to out-ship Microsoft's last client - Windows XP. And Windows Vista will break all records bar Windows 95, by hitting 200 million PCs a mere 24 months after this month's launch, according to Microsoft.

In God's name, why? They're going to sell a copy on every new PC in the world anyway, aren't they? Anyway, me, I'm sticking with XP. Next time I change, I'm hoping that Linux will finally be user friendly.

 

Technorati tags: Windows, vista, XP, Microsoft, Linux

Death of the Floppy

As someone who started with computers using the 360 kb floppies (yes, before hard drives) this is slightly sad:

PC World’s marketing department declared the death of the floppy disk yesterday, generating a wave of publicity that even rivalled Bill Gates’ touting of Vista.

The chain said it would eject floppies once it has cleared existing stock. It reckons that by the summer, none of the laptops or PCs it sells will actually include floppy drives.

It's true that the last two conputers I bought did not have floppy drives.

It's also true that I once sold a few cases of 180 kg drives into the Soviet Union. Ah, those happy days when people would buy anything at all.

 

Technorati tags: PC, floppy, PC World, computers