Acer Disappointed by Slow Vista Uptake

While Microsoft launched an early holiday push this week to encourage consumers to purchase Vista-enabled products from Dell, HP, Sony, and Toshiba, PCs from Acer are notably absent from the software giant's product promotions, likely due to Acer's president, Gianfranco Lanci, saying that the industry is disappointed with Vista.



The president of Acer told the Financial Times Deutschland this week that he thinks Microsoft 's newest operating system, Windows Vista, gives PC users little reason to upgrade.
"The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Gianfranco Lanci told the newspaper, while indicating that the new system's stability continues to be a worrisome problem. The president of the world's No. 4 PC-maker also suggested that Vista's current low adoption rates invite a discussion concerning possible alternatives.
"I do not really think that someone will buy a new PC right now because of Vista," Lanci said. "And that will not change in the second half of the year."
Style over Substance?
Microsoft launched an early holiday push this week to encourage consumers to purchase Vista-enabled products from Dell, HP, Sony, and Toshiba. By contrast, PCs from Acer are notably absent from the software giant's product promotions for this year's holiday season.
In particular, Microsoft applauded the aesthetics of PC products such as Dell's new Inspiron 1720 notebook PC, which features "personalized hues from midnight blue to crimson red, and pearl white to flamingo pink or spring green."
But in stressing style, is Microsoft drawing attention to Vista's apparent lack of a compelling killer app? "For home users, I'm not sure they know why they would want to upgrade," said Gartner Client Computing research vice president Michael Silver. "Either the benefits are not there or Microsoft has not clearly communicated what they are."
Silver said that, for enterprises, he does not see Microsoft's Vista push to be significantly different from the one the company went through to get to Windows 2000. "For both enterprises and consumers, the benefits now are a bit more questionable, simply because Windows XP is a very good OS, as compared to the predecessors to Windows 2000, which had many issues," Silver explained.
Slow Adoption Not Surprising
During the company's earnings conference call with financial analysts last week, Microsoft said its OEM licensing grew by 11 percent in the year's second quarter, driven by demand for Vista. Moreover, CFO Chris Liddell said he sees PC growth ranging from 9 percent to 11 percent in the fiscal year ahead, with the company's client division -- to which Vista sales are posted -- poised to match anticipated market growth, step for step.
Following the conference call, two Wall Street financial analysts released client notes stating that Vista's adoption had been lower than they had expected, given that PC shipments had grown by roughly 12 percent during the second quarter, according to both Gartner and IDC.

Safari 3 Public Beta

Apple makes its flagship browser available to Windows users for free
At its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco today, Apple demonstrated several features of its upcoming Leopard operating system which DailyTech covered previously. The biggest software announcement however comes in the form of Safari, OS X’s default web browser. Like iTunes, Apple is now making its Safari web browser fully compatible with Windows.
Safari 3 is available today via a public beta download. According to Apple, Safari is roughly twice as fast as Internet Explorer and is roughly 42-percent faster than Firefox in terms of HTML browsing performance.
Safari 3 for Windows comes with the following features :
♦ Pop-up blocking
♦ Tabbed browsing
♦ SnapBack
♦ Private browsing
New to Safari is the ability to drag tabs out of the main browsing window. Doing so will turn a tab into its own browser window. This feature is available on both Mac and Windows versions of Safari. Private browsing turns off caching features, allowing users to browse without worrying that Google searches and page histories are saved.
No word from Apple on when the final release of Safari 3 will come but it’s safe to say that when Leopard ships in October, Safari 3 will be finalized.

Windows Vista

Vista is a line of graphical windowsoperating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, Tablet PCs, and media centers. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn".Development was completed on November 8, 2006; over the following three months it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide to the general public, and was made available for purchase and downloading from Microsoft's web site. The release of Windows Vista comes more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between two releases of Microsoft Windows.Windows Vista contains hundreds of new features; some of the most significant include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices. For developers, Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with the traditional Windows API.Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide 'Trustworthy Computing initiative' which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion. Windows Vista has been the target of a number of negative assessments by various groups. Criticism of Windows Vista has included protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new Digital Rights Management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of other new features such as User Account Control.Contents[hide] Development New or improved features End-user features Core technologies Security-related technologiesBusiness technologiesDeveloper technologies Deprecated featuresEditions and pricing4 Visual styles Hardware requirementsService packs Service Pack 1Criticism See alsoNotes and referencesExternal links Microsoft Reviews and screenshots Criticism Security vulnerabilities//DevelopmentThe Windows Vista Codename (Longhorn) logoWindows Orb logo, also used as the "Start" button.Main article: Development of Windows VistaMicrosoft started work on their plans for Windows Vista ("Longhorn") in 2001,[6] prior to the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler") and "Blackcomb" (now known as Windows "Vienna"). Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for "Blackcomb", resulting in the release date being pushed back several times. Many of Microsoft's developers were also re-tasked with improving the security of Windows XP.[5] Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27, 2004 that it was making changes. The original "Longhorn", based on the Windows XP source code, was scrapped, and Vista development started anew, building on the Windows server 2003 codebase, and re-incorporating only the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. Some previously announced features such as WinFS were dropped or postponed, and a new software development methodology called the "Security Development Lifecycle" was incorporated in an effort to address concerns with the security of the Windows codebase.[7]After "Longhorn" was named Windows Vista, an unprecedented beta-test program was started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September 2005, Microsoft started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers. The first of these was distributed among 2005 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference attendees, and was subsequently released to Microsoft Beta testers and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The