What laptop does Microsoft’s CEO use for his presentations?

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Popular Mechanics – Mac vs. PC: The Ultimate Lab Test

“…Simply put, Vista proved to be a more sluggish operating system than Leopard. Our PCs installed some software faster, but in general they were slower in our time trials. Plus, both PCs showed weaker performance on third-party benchmarks than the Macs. Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac. That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway’s, purchase a copy of Vista to boot-and still save $100. Read the full review on Popular Mechanics

Microsoft loses ‘Vista Capable’ appeal; more insider e-mails could emerge.

Microsoft Corp.’s attempt to reverse a lower court’s ruling in the ongoing “Vista Capable” lawsuit was denied by an appeals court on Monday. The decision means the case can resume.

It also means that new insider e-mails subpoenaed from Microsoft and nearly 30 other companies could be made public.

In a brief order dated April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Microsoft’s request to overturn a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman in February that granted class-action status to a lawsuit that charges the company deceived consumers in 2006 with its Windows Vista Capable marketing program. Read the full story on ComputerWorld.Com

 

Why ‘No Macs’ is no longer a defensible IT strategy

Once confined to marketing departments and media companies, the Mac is spilling over into a wider array of business environments, thanks to the confluence of a number of computing trends, not the least among them a rising tide of end-user affinity for the Apple experience.

 

Luckily for IT, many of those same trends are making it easier for tech departments to say yes to the Mac by facilitating IT’s ability to provide enterprise-grade Mac management and support.

“We’re seeing more requests outside of creative services to switch to Macs from PCs,” notes David Plavin, operations manager for Mac systems engineering at the U.S. IT division of Publicis Groupe, a global advertising conglomerate. There are so many requests that Plavin now supports 2,500 Macs across the U.S. — nearly a quarter of all Publicis’ U.S. PCs.

And Plavin is less of an anomaly than you might think. Buoyed by increased interest in the consumer arena, Macs are cropping up in more and more organizations, in large part because end-users are pushing for them. Read the full article on InfoWorld.Com

 

From Win32 to Cocoa: A Windows developer’s conversion to Mac OS X

“A couple of Gartner analysts have recently claimed that Windows is “collapsing”; that it’s too big, too sprawling, and too old to allow rapid development and significant new features. Although organizations like Gartner depend on trolling to drum up business, I think this time they could be onto something. “Collapsing” is over-dramatic-gradual decline is a more likely outcome-but the essence of what they’re saying-and why they’re saying it-rings true.

Windows is dying, Windows applications suck, and Microsoft is too blinkered to fix any of it-that’s the argument. The truth is that Windows is hampered by 25-year old design decisions. These decisions mean that it’s clunky to use and absolutely horrible to write applications for. The applications that people do write are almost universally terrible. They’re ugly, they’re inconsistent, they’re disorganized; there’s no finesse, no care lavished on them. Microsoft-surely the company with the greatest interest in making Windows and Windows applications exude quality-is, in fact, one of the worst perpetrators.” Read the full article on ArsTechnica.Com

 

Ballmer: Vista is ‘a work in progress’

As PC users clamor for Microsoft to continue to support Windows XP, company CEO Steve Ballmer called the Vista OS “a work in progress” at an annual Seattle event on Thursday.

“It’s a very important piece of work. We did a lot of things right and have a lot of things we need to learn from. You never want to let five years go between releases,” he said.

While Microsoft recently extended the date when the XP software will be available for low-cost PCs, it doesn’t plan to listen to some other complaints, including that Vista is too big. “Vista is bigger than XP and it’s gonna stay bigger than XP,” Ballmer said. Read the full story on MacWorld.Com

IBM contemplating switching to Macs?

“IBM’s Research Information Services division is investigating the possibility of moving a significant number of employees to Apple’s Macintosh platform according to a report acquired by RoughlyDrafted.
“In line with IBM’s external strategy of offering a true ‘Open Client’ that may be Windows, Linux or a Mac,” the document noted, “[Research Information Services] is focusing on providing an IBM application stack on multiple Operating Systems, rather than be confined to one or the other.”
The first phase of the pilot program was conducted between October 2007 and January 2008. During this phase, 24 MacBook Pros were distributed to researchers and used as the primary notebook, with the employees’ existing ThinkPads acting as backups if needed.
Of the 22 of 24 who responded, 18 said that the Mac offered a “better or best experience” compared to their existing computer, one rated it “equal or good,” and three said the Mac offered a “worse experience.” Seven reported having no or marginal prior knowledge of using Macs, while 15 reported having moderate or expert knowledge of the platform.” Read the full story on RoughlyDrafted.Com found via MacRumors.Com

 

One Page Crash Course in Switching to the Mac

[Within] you’ll find the My First Mac guide on how to use your new Mac when all you know is Windows. Of course this topic can go deep and take months or even years of training, so we will stick to the top dozen or so issues that new Mac users run into that makes them want to throw their Mac through the window. Read the article on MyFirstMacCom

 

Vista Update Causes USB Problems

A recent Vista update is causing headaches for users with USB devices.
Microsoft last week re-released a software update intended to provide performance and reliability enhancements for Windows Vista -based and Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based systems. It was one of eight security bulletins and updates the company made available on April 8.

Users who installed the update, however, soon found their USB devices unresponsive, particularly mice and flash drives. Removing and re-installing the programs reportedly did not immediately solve the problem.

Microsoft confirmed the bug, but declined to provide further details. Read the full story at PCMag.Com found via Bink.Nu

 

Windows XP fans don’t want it to XPire

 

A petition to “Save Windows XP” has drawn more than 111,000 supporters — and continued shots across the Microsoft XP vs. Vista bow, a battle that began with Vista’s release last year.

The operating system succeeded XP, which came on the market in October 2001. Despite Vista’s much-improved security measures, it has met with criticism and some reluctance by consumers and businesses that don’t want to make the switch.

Among the concerns about Vista are the amount of computer memory and space it requires, its seemingly slower speed and frustration over the fact that third-party drivers for some printers and other devices are still not available from the companies that make those devices. Read the full story on… MSNBC (?!)

 

Psystar to sell Mac clones for $399

Update: This story has been proven questionable. Think long and hard before sending any money.

A company called Psystar has started advertising a $399 computer called “OpenMac” which claims to be a Leopard compatible Mac built from standard PC-parts. For $399, you get a tower computer with the following specs:

- 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 2GB of DDR2 667 memory
- Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics
- 20x DVD+/-R Drive
- 4 USB Ports
- 250GB 7200RPM Drive

Many of the components can be upgraded, however. For example, the graphics card can be updated to a GeForce 8600GT 512MB for $155 more. 

Psystar is marketing this as a cheaper and more expandable alternative to a true Apple Mac. Read the full story on MacRumors.Com

It’s likely Apple will be suing the heck out of Psystar before the week is through. Still it’s interesting and shows a demand for lower priced, higher spec Macs. Are you listening Apple?

Vista downgrading: What are your rights?

Talk about a catch 22. Did you know that in order to be allowed to downgrade Vista to XP on a new computer, Microsoft expects you to have one of the more expensive editions of Windows Vista that most OEMs don’t even put on their machines. It’s true. Have a look at this official Microsoft one-sheet explaining the intricacies of downgrading from Vista that’s come bundled with a new PC.

You’d have to add $180 to the price of a Dell Inspiron 530 in order to have the right to use XP instead of Vista.

See the one sheet on Microsoft.Com

Top Analysts: Windows collapsing under its own weight; Radical change needed

Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes.

That sobering outlook comes courtesy of Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald. Half of a full room of IT managers and executives raised their hands when asked whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows. Read the full story on ZDNet.Com

Former Mac hater reflects on his switch to Mac

“…While I am not a card carrying Mac fanboy (it does have issues like any piece of technology), I wanted to try and summarize why I like the Mac so much now that I’ve been using it heavily for the last two months.

I have been a Windows user and software developer since 1992, and a DOS user and developer since 1984. I used to hate Macs and as recently as 9 months ago my avatar on one of my forums was John Hodgman (the PC guy from the Mac ads).

Now I really enjoy using my Mac and am drifting away from Windows as a platform. Here’s why:

Read the full story on David Alison’s Blog found via SwitchingToMac.Com

Vista Capable plaintiffs subpoena PC titans.

Dell, Toshiba, Amazon.com, Costco and Fry’s Electronics are among the big PC makers and retailers that have been subpoenaed by the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit over Microsoft’s Windows Vista Capable marketing program, according to the latest filings in the case. Other notable names on the list include Intel and former Windows chief Jim Allchin. 

As a reminder, this is the case that resulted in the release of that big batch of behind-the-scenes Microsoft e-mails a few weeks ago. The plaintiffs are looking for more documents along the same lines. But it’s not clear if the process will go forward. Some companies that have received subpoenas have filed objections. Microsoft is also asking U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to put the case on hold while it asks an appeals court to review her decision certifying the suit as a class action. Read the full story on SeattlePI.Com found via Bink.Nu

Creative Labs shoots self in foot. Tries to stop the bleeding.

Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has promised their Sound Cards as being ‘Vista Ready’. Unfortunately, as many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers. Creative insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able to ‘fix’ many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and also fixing many bugs.

Creative decided to put a stop to this. They removed all links to his modified drivers, and banned several users who were posting links to the now banned drivers.”

The move backfired big time, generating a media firestorm and howls of protests from outraged users on technology forums across the web. Guess what, Creative has reinstated Daniel_K’s posts. Read the full story on TheRegister.Co.Uk found via SlashDot.Org

 

Bill Gates: Vista replacement “Sometime in 2009″

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday indicated that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows, could come within the next year, far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.

In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: “Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version.” Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: “I’m super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways.” Read the full story on C|Net News

Microsoft Succeeds in Making Vista Even Worse

Windows Vista is already perhaps the most frustrating product Microsoft has yet heaved onto the computing public. But now its Service Pack 1 update, which is supposed to FIX holes and squeaks in the Vista code, seems to be making things worse — so much worse that venerable publications like Computerworld are running stories about how to get SP1 off your machine. InfoWorld has a piece about how Vista users are blasting Microsoft on Microsoft’s own Vista blog. Read the full story on SeekingAlpha.Com