MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Apr 08, 08 - 09:05 am Comment from: Big Al

The quality bar was set with Windows ME and it hasn't moved much since then.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:05 am Comment from: Anonymous©

Geez, Mary Jo is a bit of FUDster, isn't she?

Apr 08, 08 - 09:10 am Comment from: ron

Mary Jo wrote this on a big-ass desk.

"Yes, it is going to take us at least three years to release Windows Seven. Longer if it’s buggy and doesn’t hit the 'quality bar.'"


ROFL - I didnt even know actually had any sort of 'quality bar'.

If so, it has'nt been apparent for the last 20+ years!

Apr 08, 08 - 09:13 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

The more people Microsloth hires the slower their programming gets.

Which cat will Apple be on in 2011?

Will Microsloth have made Vista even passably useable before Windows 7 is released?

What will OS X's market share be on Windows 7 release day in 2011?

Apr 08, 08 - 09:14 am Comment from: Jay-Z

@MDN:

When they say 3 years, they are talking about 3 years from the Vista ship date, which would be January 2010.

Not that it matters. We all know it won't go out by then, but let's not give Microsoft an extra year of leeway.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:14 am Comment from: Connor MacBook

'11? By then Apple will have turned it up to XI!

Apr 08, 08 - 09:15 am Comment from: Connor MacBook

P.S. Maybe MS can do a cross-promotion with 7-Eleven...

The aliens must be laughing at us because as a species we've allowed Microsoft to become so big. We went to the moon, then Microsoft, now they must have written us off as a stupid race unworthy of their attention, who got lucky once. Thanks Gates, you've doomed the human race from gaining the enlightenment of the older races of the galaxy.

So is Bill even checking in at Redmond anymore?

MDN secret word 'here' as in "He don't come round here no more."

Apr 08, 08 - 09:16 am Comment from: HMCIV

I hit the Quality Bar with a couple MS engineers last night. I don't know about them, but my head is still spinning and my coworkers are talking way too loud.

But the guys from MS claim this is what they do to meet their release dates. I guess we all need a little fortification sometimes.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:16 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

And Bill Gates just promised Windows 7 it in 2009.

Quality Bar? WTF is that? High? Low? In the Middle? Who are they kidding? (besides users and shareholders)
DOS 6.0 was the last time Microsoft could make the claim of hitting a quality bar.

Microsoft aims high. If they EVER make it to the mere level of mediocrity, it'll be deemed a major success.

Wake me up in 2015.

So if you do the math, 3 years plus the quality thing were looking at 6 years plus or 2014!

By the time MS releases "7", Apple will probably release OS X in HD and 3-D. The Microsoft sandcastle will be washing out to sea.

The quality bar used to be painted on the floor. They've gotten smarter now, and currently use tape.

It used to be painted on the floor of the ground floor, but has moved lower on each new release. For Windows 7 it will be on the floor of the seventh circle of hell.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

note -- there are only 9 circles.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:25 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

This is certainly FANTASTIC news for Mac OS X!

It's BAD news for the legions of MS Shills and Apologists. Everyone knows, even MS-lovers, that it'll keep on slip-sliding away.

Mac sales will be UP!

Hmmm. My watch says half past 2016.

Will it be snappy?

Apr 08, 08 - 09:31 am Comment from: Ampar

Or they could just be honest and call it Windows Never, charge the saps a hefty annual subscription to keep Ballmer happy in his cage with a plate of ribs and a stack of jelly doughnuts and then occasionally throw the soiled masses a Service Pack bone to shut them up. It's not much different from their business plan today.

@M.X.N.T.4.1

Maybe it's good the aliens are not interested in us. If Apple was the one in lead instead of microsoft then we probably would have been probed and killed off years ago.

Um, did anyone notice this article was published on July 20th, 2007?

They can release Windows 7 any time they want to. They will just have chop it a bit. But I bet they are pushing it back because otherwise no one will buy Vista.

Just you wait, you, you ... DOUBTERS!
Boy, when Microsoft releases its NEWEST OS, it'll be so, it'll be better than ... ooooo, just you WAIT!

Because of the Vista debacle, Microsoft will make sure that Windows 7 is smaller, faster, and more efficient that Vista. (Not all that hard to do when you think about it.) It will also copy OS X even more than before. Windows 7 will be great! But who cares?

By that time, Apple will have an insurmountable consumer market share and will have made significant inroads into the enterprise. Microsoft will find itself playing catch-up.

(The US Army already uses Macs, and an Army web site is hosted on OS X.)

Apr 08, 08 - 09:39 am Comment from: Ampar

"Boy, when Microsoft releases its NEWEST OS, it'll be so, it'll be better than ... ooooo, just you WAIT!"

Because the packaging will be design on a Mac?

This may be a ground (grass roots) up new operating system with former Windows apps running in a "classic" mode. That rumor is bouncing around somewhere. If this is true then they may actually be able to create a modern OS.

OR they could try to write a newer and "better" Vista and as such keep slogging around in mud of legacy code. If so, they are doomed for sure.

Even if they attempt to write a fresh new OS, they are likely doomed. Writing an OS from the ground up is apparently a more-than-enormous undertaking. If they do this, they will be lucky to get the project out the door by 2012 or more. Even then, if they did a great job, it would still be in it's infancy like OS X 10.0. It would likely take future versions to be truly usable.

And even if is was the most fantastic OS out there, It would be tough to generate adoption for many years.

Furthermore, they would have to develop all the server software, and other enterprise utilities and apps plus a decent SDK.

So again, either way, they are doomed, truly and utterly.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:45 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

@ Ampar: "Windows Never" Heh. WINNER!

Windows 7 might be modular, in which case Bill Gates has just delivered the vaporware module.

They are drawing attention away from Vista to Windows 7 very early in the development schedule. This is a public admission that Vista is a train wreck.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:46 am Comment from: gzero

What never ceases to amaze me is that in the face of all of MS's blatant f*ck-up and never-ending displays of incompetency, Windows Sufferers will defend them to the death, as evidence of the feedback thread of the ZDNet story. And they honestly have the nerve to call Mac Users "fanboys"! Wow...

Right you are, Jason!

I think MDN have really messed up on this one.

"Um, did anyone notice this article was published on July 20th, 2007?"

Why, that would require more reading than foaming at the mouth...and that's just not typical for this crowd, generally speaking.

Do you all use Apple napkins to wipe the spittle from your lips?

Apr 08, 08 - 09:51 am Comment from: OZZ

@Connor Macbook

That's a really good one!!!!

Apr 08, 08 - 09:56 am Comment from: gzero

@Harvey,
"By that time, Apple will have an insurmountable consumer market share and will have made significant inroads into the enterprise. Microsoft will find itself playing catch-up."

Apple doesn't need to (and probably will never) have "more" marketshare for Microsoft to play catch up; the've been doing that for years.

Apr 08, 08 - 09:57 am Comment from: Zune Tang®

I can't wait!

Your potential. Our passion.™

My theory is that Vista is really a transitional operating system. Instead of having two operating systems overlap for a few years, like Apple did, they put out a version that could do things both the old way and the new way, but doesn't do either one very well. Imagine a hybrid OS 9 and OS X. That's what I think Vista is.

Windows 7 may be the operating system they were intending to transition to.

Microsoft began to end quirkiness about 2005. Many of its web sites now render correctly in browsers other than IE. They have to be standards-compliant to avoid sanctions and fines from the EU. (What a shame we don't have a consumer watchdog like that in the US.)

The longer the gap between Vista and Windows 7, the more credibility they lose with the enterprise. So they are under pressure to deliver it early to repair their image and to deliver it late to make sure it is right. (I'd hate to be a developer at Microsoft these days.)

By the time Windows 7 comes out, the damage to Microsoft's credibility in the enterprise will be irreversible.

I will tell you what i think. I think right now all the IT guys are looking at this and saying - yes we can hold off, we dont need to get vista - and MS is begining to bow to the pressure and is continuing to support XP as a platform. You will see that they will actually reverse course and continue to sell boxed versions of the OS even into 09 and 2010.

What does this mean? Well this just gave Apple another 3 years to convince more and more people, particularly in the enterprize realm that OSX is a viable alternative to moving into the next MS OS which is stated to be Windows 7.

By then Apple might have more support for enterprise solutions that will fit in with the corp. requirements. By then apple might actually license out is OS. A lot of development for enterprise solutions comes in the form of cross-platform at this point anyway.

Apr 08, 08 - 10:01 am Comment from: Metryq

@ Another IT Guy
You think that makes it better -- that MS was already talking about the next OS that soon after the release of Vista? Any spittle around here is from laughing so hard.

This is great news for Rush Limbaugh! Viagra for all the old white kiddy-diddlers!

@Zune Tang

Sorry, but you have to wait.

Our potential. Your passion.

Apr 08, 08 - 10:03 am Comment from: DLMeyer

Jason is right ... July 2007! So ... "at least three years" would mean - minimally - late 2010. As this precedes the Gates statement, the MDN headline is worse than incorrect, it is the reverse of the truth. Well, it would be if we believed anything Gates says. But ... that's not really the point, is it?
Tommy Boy, 10.6 should be entering its EOL about then. If Gates is correct, 10.6 will be squeaky-clean and snappy and anywhere from a few months to maybe a year old. Remember, the pressure is off Apple! Vista doesn't compare well to Tiger, never mind Leopard, so Apple can take it a bit easy as "there IS no competition". Now ... if Win7 DOES slip, we could be getting into 10.7 territory - or even 10.8, if Longhorn is any guide.

Apr 08, 08 - 10:03 am Comment from: Cubert

That quality bar is lower than a limbo contest winner's.

Ampar!

What have these Bozos done?
Where is Chrissy????

@DLMeyer

Taking it easy goes against Apple's corporate culture. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest..." and someone else will run off with all your business.

If Apple continues with cat names, what will they use? Will we have OS X 10.6 Ocelot? OS X 10.7 Tabby?

What will we call OS X 10.10.10? Oh ess ten, ten ten ten? What comes after OS X? OS XI? Or some new naming scheme?

Apr 08, 08 - 10:17 am Comment from: ken1w

Quality bar??? They must have forgotten that concept when Microsoft let Vista out the door.

By 2011, the next big cat will be on the prowl.

Apr 08, 08 - 10:17 am Comment from: 7over

This one is a little more up to date... http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1314

but the general idea of the article posted in '07 does not seem to have changed.... Windows 7 is slipping and there is no real date.

Further, the major change between Vista and Windows 7 is .... a new task bar! (not kidding)
from http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1136&tag=btxcsim
"One of my sources close to Microsoft weighed in recently with this observation: “Windows 7 is cleaning up some UI (user interface) and will feel more like a SP (service pack) than (Vista) SP1. In fact, it looks like the only changes will be around the Task Bar (’the tray’) and not much else. There is a big push to take more (out of) Windows,” not to cram more features into it."

Apr 08, 08 - 10:18 am Comment from: Cubert

Mary Jo Foley is either a FUDster or an idiot (or a little of both). She is the same one who wrote back in June that Apple "copied" the Vista desktop because the desktop picture (the blades of grass) that Steve had on the Mac was similar to a Microsucks grass "wallpaper" photo in Vista.

My sense is that she is more of a clueless idiot than anything else.

(Dripping with sarcasm)

I'm confused. Is this as bad as Leopard being postponed a couple of months (for good cause)?

@ Zung Tang

What's with the 3 word posts. You're letting us down, buddy. I was looking forward to long essay of how revolutionary this new version of Winblows will be. Maybe you just have anything to be inspired about, hence you lack of words to express yourself.

Windows 7. Yep that's about right. About two steps below Mac OS 9.

Apr 08, 08 - 10:32 am Comment from: derekcurrie

Considering how OLD the source article is (July 20, 2007, as in SEVEN), I don't see the point in MDN bothering with it.

We already know that Jo Foley is one of the few hold out Win-Droids in tech journalism. The days of 'Microsoft can do no wrong' are dead and gone, and yet she keeps right on track with the LUV and anti-Mac FUD. Talk about drinking the cool-aid.

Anyway, Gates clearly (despite blethering otherwise) said that Windows 7 will be out, at least as a beta, in 2009. What Jo Foley says is total bullshite on a good day, she is not an MS exec, and has no credibility. Her prediction is also OLD.

Therefore, when (not if) Windows 7 does not appear in some form in 2009, we have total permission to LAUGH AND LAUGH at Microsoft, especially since Big Brother Bill tossed out the date himself. Lucky for him he'll be out of the picture in July, so what does he care? He's a consummate liar. It's all about appearances for him. Dunderheads eat it up and pray to him. HAHAHAHAHAHA!