“General Motors may take a detour around Vista, the latest computer operating system from Microsoft. The automaker has encountered so many speed bumps getting Vista to work on its machines that it may just wait for the next version of Windows, due in 2010 or 2011. ‘We’re considering bypassing Vista and going straight to Windows 7,’ says GM’s Chief Systems & Technology Officer Fred Killeen,” Aaron Ricadela reports for BusinessWeek.
“Vista taxes all but the most modern PCs with hefty processing and memory requirements. Many of GM’s PCs can’t even run the system. “By the time we’d replace them, Windows 7 might be ready anyway,” Killeen says. Then there are compatibility problems with all the software that needs to run on Windows. GM’s software vendors still haven’t ensured all their programs will run on Vista trouble-free. So the company is sticking with Windows XP for now. Killeen figures GM could install Windows 7 in three or four years,” Ricadela reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, GM needs a new CTO. Windows is your father’s OS. No wonder GM is bleeding market share. New blood brings new ideas; try it sometime, GM. And enough with the fake chrome already. Sheesh.
Ricadela continues, “Many of Killeen’s counterparts across Corporate America are finding themselves similarly vexed by Vista. The resulting delay or rejection of Microsoft’s flagship product is stepping up pressure on the company to expand other areas of its business, including online software. Vista was first released in late 2006, but the dismay with it has come into sharper focus as slower-than-expected uptake affects Microsoft’s bottom line, Google spiffs up its own free versions of competing software, and corporate tech managers move to put more Apple Macs on employee desks.”
Full article here.
Anyone who’s waiting around for Microsoft’s latest pie-in-the-sky, vaporous promise redefines the word gullible.
Vista took Microsoft six years. What makes anyone believe they can do better in half the time? Did they get new management? Did they eliminate the stifling bureaucracy and their superfluous cube-dwelling daydreamers workforce which comprises approximately 40% of their total employees according to our rough estimate? Did they finally dump it all and start over from scratch with a UNIX-based kernel? (Answers: Delusional psychosis, no, no, and no.) People waiting for Windows 7 will be lucky to get a piss poor upside-down and backwards copy of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar which Apple released on August 23, 2002 – or eight to ten years prior to Window 7’s purported release.
If you bought Windows XP on release in Oct. 2001 (our condolences), then skipped the Vista fiasco, and, if Microsoft delivers Windows 7 as promised (sometime in 2010 and that’s a big if), you will have have waited nearly a decade to update your OS! All in the name of keeping your fargin’ scanner compatible (meanwhile, your scanner died two years ago anyway).
Stop the insanity! Get a Mac.
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“Vista, I’m glad I missed ya”
How many more companies are now NOT going to buy Visa?
How Apple is reacting to the situation? Seriously what is Apple doing to benefit from the Vista mess?
sigh…
‘Wow’…
just, ‘Wow’…
Vista… what a bunch of crap…
Glad you could manage to get in some domestic-bashing along with the usual MS hatred. Okay, we get it, you don’t like MS and you believe that OS X is the solution for every computing need.
GM has made huge strides in the last few years in delivering products that are actually selling without huge incentives. Much of their marketshare they’ve lost has been profit-damaging fleet sales.
Go drive a new Malibu, Enclave, CTS, G8, or Aura. You’ll be surprised that they’re not quite your father’s rental car anymore. And this is coming from someone that’s always driven German cars.
How appropriate, Microsoft & GM together. I wonder what the Soviet Government & GDR are planning to do about Vista?
The 7 years between XP and Vista was already an eternity in the technology realm. I’m amazed that people will actually continue using it. It baffles my mind. Keep yourself chained to Microsoft for all I care. You’re only hurting yourself.
I spent the last 10 years working at car dealerships, putting pictures and info on various websites. This meant getting in the vehicles, moving them around and being very familiar with what almost every make and model had to offer. To my eyes, GM is pretty weak. I doubt switching to Macs would do much to fix that…
CTO?
Bring back the GTO!
If only they could sell a combo pack, Vista and a free neutering for the idiot that bought it.
Then just wait 30 years for a lot less PC jerks.
It’s great to see Microsoft finally subject to their own F.U.D. campaign. According to Mr. Bill, Windows 7 is right around the corner (2009) and who doubts that it will be much, much better than VISTA.
Yea, that’s right Mr/Ms Businessperson, hold off on that purchase of VISTA and, at the same time, please hold your breath for a fast, elegant, modern OS from M$.
I’m always dismayed by Winblows users who say XP is good enough and they don’t mind sticking with it for a decade! They can’t even see the things they are missing out on.
“Killeen figures GM could install Windows 7 in three or four years”
lmao! it has to come out first! good luck!
“GM has made huge strides in the last few years in delivering products that are actually selling without huge incentives. Much of their marketshare they’ve lost has been profit-damaging fleet sales.”
yeah! like their great hybrid program!
oh…. wait…..
look, if GM made even one good model, i would care about your opinion. they don’t. they make giant gas guzzling crap and tiny underpowered crap. the fact that i can buy a car that gets better gas milage than their tiny junk cars and yet be roomier, more comfortable, and out accelerate their v64 giant “canyonero! 2 lanes wide, seats 35!” tells you everything you need to know about that useless company.
dear god even ford, home of the “we look back to our past, when we mattered” attitude has managed to get a hybrid to market.
….oh sure, they did it by buying toyotas “last year” tech, but hey, every good company needs a microsoft to their apple….
For GM, holding off on Vista also means saving money (and therefore achieve a better bottom line) by not having to upgrade their computers.
I just bought my first Toyota after mostly GM’s.
I hate the plastic faux-chrome. And it is being used on more expensive cars, too. A friend of mine bought an H2 a few years ago and I was amazed at the quantity of plastic trim on this “off road” vehicle – even the grill was plastic.
As far as OS’s go, Apple’s early releases of MacOS X had a lot of rough edges. Although consumers have been fairly ready to upgrade to the latest release of MacOS X, it is not clear to me that companies will move as quickly. Apple will have to be careful to minimize bugs and compatibility issues and facilitate OS transitions as it gains corporate market share, or it will face similar criticisms as M$.
Microsoft Windows
Your rut. Our revenue.
The next version of Windows, if it ever actually materializes, would be another attempt to deliver a software product that works adequately on hardware built by others.
Apple’s next cat will extend an already robust and proven system.
Mac+
Are you serious? Have you not been watching the news for the last couple years? How about listen to an Apple conference call?
Mac share is on the rise. They aren’t going to go from 5% to 50% overnight. In fact, Apple never had more than 15% market share at their peak. To get back to 15% would be HUGE. They will do it, and when they do, it will be HUGE.
I agree with Mac+. Apple is doing virtually nothing to woo enterprise customers in the wake of the Vista mess. This is a huge mistake in my opinion. Essentially they are depending on prostelytizing Apple-fan employees to make their pitch. That’s fine but there needs to be backup from Apple (sales teams, large scale purchase discounts, implementation teams to retrain employees, help with migration of proprietary software, etc.). Apple offers hand holding and one-on-one teaching for new Mac consumers at its Apple Stores. Why not the same for enterprise consumers?
“.. going straight to Windows 7”
That sounds like hopefulness personified.
What on earth makes them think that in another 4 years Microsoft can create anything better than Vista – which took 5 years?!?!
Sad sad sad.
The first time GM produced a compact Front-Wheel Drive car, called the X-Platform, the V-6 models had to have the engine mounts dropped partially out to change the oil. I’m not kidding.
General Malfunction spent enough money chasing it’s tail during the tenure of Roger Smith to have bought Toyota, Ford and Nissan combined at their then market value. GM has nothing to show for the money. Today, Toyota alone is worth more than the entire US car business.
General Malfunction and Microsoftopoly deserve each other.
Ted, ” Much of their marketshare they’ve lost has been profit-damaging fleet sales.”
No Ted, their market share has dropped because they have to charge a couple of grand extra for each car they sell because they’re stifled by union contracts and retiree pensions that they thought they could afford when they had the market to themselves.
And where do they go when Window 7 turns out to be worst then Vista.
I drive a 2003 Subaru WRX and my wife drives a 2004 Chevy Malibu. I like my car better for a lot of reasons, but the Malibu gets better gas mileage and still has plenty of power. It’s bigger and more comfortable too.
So, what I’m saying is that my IMPRESSION is that domestic car companies like GM, Ford and Dodge are currently just as good as foreign cards.
I’d also like to point out that when MDN (and others) whine about this company or that company sticking with Windows XP they just sound like babies who, through tear-stained eyes, crying out “Just get a MAAAAC!! WHY won’t you just get a MAAAAACCC?!?!?!”. Gawl, just grow up people. Mac vs. PC isn’t that big of a deal.
Well, MDN does wear the Mac World Conquest pin loudly and proudly, no doubt about it. If that gets under your skin, do what others do – go read elsewhere for a while, and when you are feeling rowdy again come back to MDN!
As for GM, Vista and Windows 7, I echo what others have said. The companies that say they will wait for MS to get it right with Windows 7 are making a VERY strong assumption that it will be markedly better than the standard fare of Windows junk. Our IT dept won’t touch Vista with a 10-foot stick. We, the Mac Minority here, are a fortunate bunch, to be sure.