[Lvlug] Vista development cost, 10 Billion!

[voltaic at thcnet.net]

What the heck is "Vole"?


On Wed, December 6, 2006 2:12 pm, Douglas Phillipson wrote:
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36155
>
>
> Interesting...
>
>
> DSP
>
>
> Vista is the last of the dinosaurs
>
>
> They won't make them like that any more
>
>
> By Nick Farrell: Monday 04 December 2006, 16:28
> PUNDITS ARE starting to wonder if Microsoft will ever build another Vista.
>
>
> Business Week claims that it took nearly 10,000 people more than five
> years to make Vista. As the Seattle Times points out, since the average
> Microsoft salary is $200,000 that is $10bn that Vole shelled out for
> salaries alone
>
> CEO Steve 'sound of silence' Ballmer told the paper the final cost of
> developing Vista would be impossible to count. He was sure it was a lot,
> but he is a master of the understatement.
>
> Ballmer said the problem was that Microsoft tried to innovate too much
> and had to toss a fair amount of this development in the toilet and
> re-launch the project in the middle of 2004.
>
> But, while there is some innovation under Vista's bonnet, there is much
> that is the same. Windows XP users will not notice that much difference.
>
> We all know that Microsoft has a lot of cash, but it remains
> questionable if it will ever bother making such a dinosaur again.
>
> Since Vista was first stuck on the drawing board, the development of
> software has changed a lot. Linux has made a huge splash on the market and
> has changed the way that projects are managed even among proprietary
> software outfits.
>
> With the likes of Google starting to stick much of what Vole does for
> free on the Interweb, software is shifting away from the client and more to
> the web. While the technology is not there yet, that is where development
> will be, rather than where Vole is at with Vista, which is re-inventing
> the wheel.
>
> One of the few innovations we have seen in the market of late is how
> Apple turned a mediocre offering like iTunes, with its ordinary,
> graphically simplistic operating system OSX and made it a winner. This is
> mostly by making an Internet formula part of the financial package.
>
> Vista has showed the Vole that there is only so much you can put on an
> operating system without it getting unmanageable. Meanwhile the Open
> Sorcerers have been adding extra packages onto Linux so that punters can
> chose what they want the beast to do. This flexibility makes it incredibly
> useful in a business framework.
>
> Microsoft has been so focused on its monopoly role over the operating
> system it has missed the fact that punters want to see the software, they
> do not care about the technology it sits on.
>
> Some analysts tutted that the Vole was silly for delaying the consumer
> version of Vista until after Christmas, it proved only that they had fallen
> for the Microsoft belief that the operating system was important. No
> consumer would ever get excited about getting an operating system for
> Christmas any more than they do about nice woolly scarves.
>
>
> It is less likely that Vole will want to blow billions on another
> operating system ever again. If it has any sense it will be looking at ways
> to connect consumers to services while unlocking computer power for the
> likes of games. µ
>
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