Gates Launches Vista and Office 2007 In New York

"last big launch"

[engine]

Microsoft unleashed a marketing blitz across Manhattan and the world Monday to announce that its most important products are available to the masses starting today.

In a spacious hotel suite near Grand Central Station, Chairman Bill Gates seemed at ease, and he smiled frequently during an interview with The Seattle Times on Monday. For good reason. At long last, his company's two biggest products -- Windows Vista and Office 2007 -- are done and on the market. Time to party. And get the sales pitch on.

Gates Launches Vista and Office 2007 In New York [seattletimes.nwsource.com]

[bloke in a box]

I quite like Vista to be honest, (have a dev copy here at work) but I don't intend to upgrade any of my home machines for a good 6 months.

[adfree]

MS had ample time to study all OS X blogs to do what they have always done best: come up with a microsoftized version of something proven popular.

There is not a single blockbuster in their portfolio that they haven't copied from a preceding idea or product.

Does that bother me? Not a bit.

In comparison of DBase vs. Access, WPerfect vs. WWord, 1-2-3- vs. Excel, etc. - they have always shown how copying and improving can go hand in hand successfully.

Catching up with OS X though has never taken place and my guess is: it never will. Why?

Because you need a vision and a dream to please all senses of a customer and this, my friends, is something MS never did and never will.

[jgar]

adfree - that was funny! thanks!

[coldfused]

It's rediculous to care about who invented what. Vista versus OSX, Pepsi versus Coke. It's all the same thing and at the end of the day there is nothing that hasn't been done already.

What it boils down to is who promotes and distrubutes the the product the best. Now matter how much Mac heads moan and complain about what he (Gates) does, he will always do it more efficiently and to a larger audiance. He has most technical markets wrapped up and will always be more effecient at distributing his product (atleast when it comes to operting systems).

Using the Iphone as an example there is nothing there that we haven't seen yet, just not all in one place. Kudos to Apple for being the first to wrap it up nicely. Doesn't mean they are revolutinary by any means.

At the end of the day guys buy whats suits your needs, what you can afford, what you like. No need to waste energy on comparing this and that.

Go save the world or something with all of that energy. Patch the atmosphere already...

[WebDon]

Just a heads up:

Got our OEM version of Vista today. Upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Business.

Be wary of the upgrade folks. Be sure to follow all the obvious suggestions: back up entire system, check for program compatibility, etc. and have plenty of time.

The upgrade window says, 'Upgrade could take several hours'. We were at about 3 hours before it started asking questions.

If you have Norton Antivirus 2006 DON'T upgrade. NAV 2006 doesn't like Vista and the Symantec upgrade/patch isn't working.

I also got the notice from QuickBooks saying to use 2007 if you're going to use Vista.

I can't wait to see what happens to all my Adobe CS, Macromedia 8 Pro, FrontPage and others...