Public Works Canada solicitation about FOSS

[Christopher Browne]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Alex Beamish <talexb-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I'm talking about people who want to buy new computers, installed with
> XP, not Vista -- those customers are the ones hearing that Microsoft
> isn't selling XP anymore. I don't get that part of the equation. I
> think it's agreed that Vista requires 2-3 times more powerful systems;
> why not sell XP as the older, slower, less featured product?

The trouble is, XP isn't slower than Vista, it seems (from a lack of
personally using either!) that the opposite is the case.

And I gather there may also be issues of Vista having a smaller set of
built-in "stuff on the side."  I heard (and this mightn't be entirely
true) that they were intending to drop a lot of the extras out because
managing releases for them was proving to be a headache.

As near as I can tell, the main "more featureful" aspect of Vista is
the presence of a whole lot more "chrome-y" things in the UI, which
pretty much explains it being bloated and slow, despite requiring
massively more hardware.  There will doubtless be hardware compatible
only with Vista, but that is a sword that cuts both ways in that
there's doubtless also plenty of XP-only hardware out there.

I'd be curious as to what *really* is a meaningful enhancement to the
user in getting Vista...

Note that Linux can suffer from the same.  The Compiz "ray tracing
windows on the sides of cube" thing that recent Fedora/Ubuntu releases
have trumpeted may be *cool*, but even though there's *some* utility
to being able to see what's going on on all the virtual consoles, it
strikes me as a hugely expensive feature that's not valuable enough to
warrant the bloat.

> I presume that the cost of providing security updates for XP is built
> into the cost of selling the OS in the first place. If there's still a
> solid revenue stream from people buying XP, that alone should pay for
> the security updates and minor bug fixes. The original development
> cost for XP must have been fully amortized by now. They don't need to
> advertise. What other costs are there?

Historically, Microsoft has factored the cost of updates into the cost
of selling *NEW* versions of their OSes.  Gates had a whole "there are
no important bugs in Windows" thing some years ago that nicely
expressed this attitude.

The cost of deploying this, for Microsoft, has gone *WAY* up, way
faster than sales, over the last number of years.  Consider that 10
years ago, Windows 98 was basically still a shell atop MS-DOS, and
essentially unsecurable, as a result,  The shift to having systems
where it's even worth *attempting* to secure them, let alone having
more-or-less regular security updates is a really big change.

I have to "call nonsense" on most of your presumptions, not because
you seem particularly wrong, or because they seem illogical, but
rather because there's indication of them being untrue.

1.  Microsoft was trying to turn the taps off on "XP, the old,
obsolete version."  If Vista hadn't been the evident disaster it has
been, XP would no longer be for sale.   They didn't intend there to be
any "solid revenue stream" - they intended for people to buy Vista to
replace it.

2.  I see nothing to quibble about surrounding amortization of sunk costs.

3.  I see plenty enough advertising from Microsoft that it seems that
THEY believe they need to advertise!

> I just don't understand a business that discontinues a product or
> service that's still making them money. That's the part I find weird.

Frequently odd, yes, but rationales can be found, and ones consistent
with the kinds of policies we see coming out of Microsoft.
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