Thoughts on Vista

Microsoft's that is. An interesting letter from a computer security expert in the United Kingdom was posted on Jerry Pournelle's site. To get to the original, simply click on the link and scroll down to the 'Subject: Microsoft Vista" section. I reproduce it in full as follows:

Subject: Microsoft Vista

I think they may have gone overboard on security. Their programmer productivity has reportedly dropped to a level that they won't be able to sell Vista at its price point. Mac OS X has been beating them on price for some time now, and this may make it worse.

-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information Systems Security, University of Sunderland. http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw
Weblog at: http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php

I have thought for some time that Microsoft is not doing a very good job on their new operating system. Vista is simply a repackaged and (probably) re-programmed version of the aptly-named 'Longhorn' (for the inordinately long time Microsoft has been promising it) and it is still not out. Longhorn itself was promised at least since 2003. Now I read that Microsoft has postponed the release of Vista yet again.

In the meantime, Apple Computer has managed to get OS X released, updated and made into a top-line OS. All for the price of US $129.00 on average for a single-user copy. On that thought, I agree with Dr. Erwin's analysis on the potential price point of Vista. Windows is already ridiculously expensive, and if the price goes up much more, I think more people will commence thinking of switching to a different operating system. The various flavors of UNIX/Linux are mostly free and OS X is not a budget-buster either at it's current pricing. Ergo, Microsoft had better get this new OS out and working in fairly short order, or they may find themselves in trouble, in my opinion. Even Windows users won't wait forever.

Courtesy of Jerry Pournelle.