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HP: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Vista

Posted by EddieCorreia on · 21 comments
DaniWeb; By Edward J. Correia 		Mail this story
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Hewlett-Packard is working on a simplified user interface for Windows Vista easier, and on its own Linux-based operating system. It's a resurgence of an anti-Windows movement that started in the 1990s but was crushed by the strong arm of Microsoft. Would Redmond dare such tactics today?

If your plan is to strong-arm customers into offering your products exclusively, you had better give them something people want to buy. With Microsoft and Windows Vista, such is not the case, and Hewlett-Packard isn't taking it lying down.

HP, the world's number one PC supplier in terms of volume sales, appears to be leading a new anti-Vista revolution, of a sort. In an interesting article yesterday in BusinessWeek, Aaron Ricadela reports about "HP's 'End Run' Around Windows," and what a team inside the company is doing to improve the appeal of Vista by making it easier to use.

Known inside HP as the "Customer Experience Group," the team is developing technology that will allow users to access their digital photos and movies, as well as other common features using a touch-sensitive screen. In the article, Ricadela quotes Phil McKinney, chief technology officer in HP's personal systems group: "Our customers are looking for insanely simple technology where they don't have to fight with the technology to get the task done." Could he mean that Vista isn't insanely simple to use? "For us, it's about innovating on top of Vista." So it would appear.

This would not be the first time HP sought to improve Microsoft's user interface. The company through the 1990s included software that ran on top of the Windows versions of the day and presented a super-simplified interface to which the user could launch their applications with buttons. The term "topware" comes to mind for this type of software; maybe someone could help me out with that.

And a Windows succession of sorts has been attempted before. Also back in the mid-1990s, when Linux started coming into wide prominence, companies like Dell and Gateway wanted to start offering a Linux option on their server-level systems. Microsoft balked, threatening to cut off the supply of Windows licenses to those companies if they didn't halt the practice. Unethical, yes. But effective. There's also news that Linux is at the heart of an new HP operating system strategy. Would Microsoft dare such a tactic today?

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Comments (21)

Anti Vista revolution?

jacog ·
I'm confused... how is this an anti-Vista revolution of any sort?

In FOSS, if you don't like a user interface, and you spend money to improve and enhance it... it's not a revolt, it's a contribution.
gus3 ·
Compare the licenses.

In FOSS, you're not only allowed, but encouraged to create and contribute improvements.

Under Macro$haft's EULA, you're threatened with legal action if you do so in a way they don't like. That last phrase isn't hyperbole; M$ will simply change the EULA during your next upgrade. You may, or may not, be aware of it when it happens.

By process of elimination, when we seek to change our "user experience" in Windows (or basically any Microsoft product) without someone grea$ing their palm$, it can be nothing but a revolt.
jacog ·
I still don't see it as a revolt. Their end goal is to propagate the product.

Unrelated-ish: What might be fun though, is to replace the entire Vista desktop with KDE4. Possible, in theory.
gus3 ·
A fully-loaded KDE4-based system (let's include OOo and the Mozilla-derived packages) will take less hard drive space than a basic, no-frills Windows Vista system.
rijelkentaurus ·
Include OOo and Mozilla, AND a build environment, web server, database(s), photo programs, 3D animation programs, 2D animation programs, a couple of 3D games and a couple of IDEs...you're still smaller than a basic Vistar install.

Rob Enderle does something silly...

hkwint ·
...by saying something that's both smart, makes sense and probably is also true.

Over here http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2008/tc200... last paragraph.
TxtEdMacs ·
I have seen variations on this story, however, a more cynical view might be that HP is trying to squeeze better pricing out of MS. It worked for others, why not have MS pay for the custom overlay HP is building for Vista? HP wins coming and going. MS loses some cash, but appreciates the extra measure of effort HP is expending to support their product line.

Apple, possible but the more direct route is bleeding MS. Another thought, Apple is a moving target and simply making a machine that is cheaper and runs as well as the Mac OS X may not suffice. Who knows what follows? If HP and Dell cannot reply on the same scale and time frame, they look like also rans.
bigg ·
Can you please use an informative headline? Here are some other poor choices of title: - The sun will rise in the east. - Gravity will make objects fall. - Hot air will rise.
Sander_Marechal ·
Quoting:... and probably is also true.


I have a broken watch that's right twice a day...
gus3 ·
Quoting:I have a broken watch that's right twice a day...
And it's still useless for its intended purpose, as a timepiece.
tuxchick ·
I think a more appropriate analogy is the infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite period of time.
number6x ·
Quoting:I think a more appropriate analogy is the infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite period of time.


You know what you get when you have an infinite number of monkeys typing away for infinity don't you?

Right, an infinite amount of monkey poo!
tuxchick ·
Quoting: Right, an infinite amount of monkey poo!


See, you get it!
rijelkentaurus ·
Quoting: Right, an infinite amount of monkey poo!


AKA, Vista.
hkwint ·
LOL!

But another question, is Rob Enderle "1 person"? At least his "Enderle Group" seems to be. Anyone knows?

tuxchick ·
The Enderle Group is Rob and and his wife. So that's about as accurate as anything else he says :). http://www.enderlegroup.com/profile.htm
jacog ·
Here's one for the conspiracy nuts::

Enderle's job is basically an analyst. He provides his clients with an interpretation of facts and opinions.

Facts and opinions can be found on forums such as this one.

So here's the strategy: Rob makes a public statement that's deliberately infuriatingly stupid. A forum like this one picks up on it and starts a volley of posts going on and on about how stupid old Rob E is, and so do other similar forums of varying bias, but that are not too full of stupid posters. And Rob simply analyses the forum posts and provides that to his clients.

So there's the theory. He does it on purpose. In order to provide market analysis, he has to analyse the market. We are it.

( yeah I don't really believe it myself, but it's an interesting theory, yes? )
Sander_Marechal ·
Interesting theory, but don't you think his clients would notice at some point that Rob's online articles are always anti FOSS/Linux but his "marketing analysis" reaped from forums are uniformly pro FOSS/Linux?

Rob usually get reamed by the FOSS crowd, not the Windows masochists. If he really did analyse us, he'd have a pro FOSS point :-)
jacog ·
Well I am thinking that he has no clue about FOSS, so he pans it and then picks up the consensus from the flames.
number6x ·
Rob Enderle.

He's the guy who thinks his red Ferrari laptop is so cool because it goes 'Vrooom' when it starts up.

He thinks that the other guys are sooooo jealous because they always give him dirty looks when his laptop starts up. http://www.fscklog.com/2004/week7/ http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Best-and-Wor...

How much would you pay for analysis done buy this guy?

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