[gui-talk] Just One More Release Before VISTA Goes Gold

[Reinhard Stebner]

Check out the Ranger's Station at 
http://therangerstation.blogspot.com/
 
It is a great resource for AT stuff as well as vista info.

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Charles Innes
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 4:07 AM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Just One More Release Before VISTA Goes Gold


O.k., enough slick sales talk, exactly how  much processor and RAM does
Microsoft recommend for the upcoming VISTA operating system?  Given  the
collective experience of consumers like us, as represented by  reviewers
like Kim Komando [http://www.komando.com]  who generally advise us to
'double the  manufacturer recommendation, how much  computing power will it
actually take to make the thing run at a reasonable rate of speed?

Charles Innes

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris McMillan 
  To: GUI Talk ; Rehab Talk ; NFB Talk 
  Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 9:35 AM
  Subject: [gui-talk] Just One More Release Before VISTA Goes Gold


  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2022621,00.asp  

  Just One More Release Before Windows Vista Goes Gold 
  By Peter Galli 
  September 29, 2006 

  Microsoft will release just one more build of Windows Vista for testing
before the code goes gold, said Brad Goldberg, the general manager for the
Windows client business group. 

  That build will be made available to a limited group of between 50,000 and
100,000 testers in October, and follows the interim Vista build that
Microsoft released on Sept. 22. 

  Goldberg declined to say if this final test build would be known as
Release Candidate 2, adding that the company is focused, from an engineering
perspective, on targeting the group of testers from whom it most wants one
last set of feedback. 

  Goldberg, who was on a cross-country tour in late September designed to
get the message out about the business value and benefits that Vista brings,
also said Vista is on track for availability to businesses via volume
licensing in November, with broad general availability to consumers set for
January 2007. 

  Microsoft said it expects 10 times more seats of Windows Vista to be
deployed at launch, with deployment within the first year being twice as
quick as that for any other version, and business customers deploying it
faster than for any other Windows operating system release, he said. 

  "We have differentiated how we are delivering the product for customers,
which is evident in the clear differentiation we have between the SKUs for
business and for consumers. Business will be a big focus for us for the
remainder of this year, and we will then start talking a lot more on the
consumer side next year," Goldberg said. 

  Windows Vista has been built for businesses, from the very beginning
onward, and is also providing the tools and services that businesses need to
help them adopt the operating system earlier than they have in the past, he
said. 

  "From the earliest stages of Windows Vista engineering development, we had
a core group of customers who would come up every few months and spend a few
days with the team, reviewing early builds and giving feedback. That was
then expanded to 500 TAP [Technology Adoption Program] customers to get
business requirements into the product," he said. 

  The number of TAP customers for Vista is 10 times larger than for previous
versions of Windows, he added. 

  Microsoft also looked at what it needed to do with tools, like the
application compatibility toolkit, which was historically developed after
the product was finished. In Vista these tools were developed in conjunction
with Vista, he said. 

  Microsoft has also learned some lessons from its experience with Windows
XP and the primary inhibitors to Windows XP, which included issues with
internal and third-party application compatibility, the perception that the
cost outweighed the perceived benefits to be gained, as well as the hardware
compatibility issues. 

  "This was all impactful for us, and we took that feedback and drove it
into the Vista development process in terms of how we thought about
engineering and working with customers to address the issues during the
development cycle," Goldberg said. 

  Vista is also designed to address the key changes taking place in the
overall business environment, which includes unprecedented volumes of data
available to users on their machines, the corporate Intranet as well as the
Internet, estimated at more than 170TB, he said. 

  But this volume of data often resulted in efficient searches, and IDC
research shows that the average information worker spends 3.5 hours a week
looking for information they never find. They also spent three hours a week
creating content that already exists, he said. 

  On the hardware front, there is a notable shift toward laptops in
countries like Japan and the United States, and most corporate data resides
on computer hard drives, he said, noting that the growing number of laptops
increases the risk for the loss of corporate data. 

  "Last year alone some 6,000 laptops were lost in the U.S., and research
shows that 80 percent of company data is stored on a user's PC," he said. 

  There has also been an increased focus on the regulatory environment and
the accompanying need for compliance, while security breaches are also on
the rise. 

  "Windows Vista and the value it brings is squarely aimed at all this,"
Goldberg said. 

  The new search capabilities in Vista will probably have the single biggest
impact on users in terms of how they use their PC, with the new search pane
allowing them to search and access the data in their documents, e-mails, and
files more quickly, recover deleted and overwritten files, as well as
simplify remote access to their applications. 

  Vista also brings a new default "sleep" state, where the computer moves in
and out of this mode in just a few seconds, while the length of time for
startup and shutdown has also been reduced, he said. 

  Asked about the concern that Vista would require new hardware to run,
Goldberg said that is not the case. 

  "Much of the experience will be available to those with older hardware,
even that which is not able to run the new Aero user interface," he said. 

  Analyst firm Gartner has said Vista will run on just about any PC
available today, but it will only show its true colors on about half of
them.  

  Businesses also tend to buy new hardware every year as a way to manage
their desktop refresh. 

  "I believe that most organizations will look at Windows Vista initially on
new machines, followed by upgrading existing machines and wipe and load,"
Goldberg said. 

  Vista also brings changes when a user transitions from offline to online. 

  Now, offline documents will be synchronized in the background and be less
visible to the user, he said, while IT will be better able to customize the
number of folders that can be set to be redirected. 

  Security had also been one of the top design points from the start, not
just in terms of reducing vulnerability to attack, but creating multiple
layers of security and including anti-phishing protection as well as the
work around BitLocker drive encryption. 

  For the IT professional, Vista brings significant changes in terms of
image management, and moves to a single image across language and form
factor and allows greater control with regard to custom group policies, such
as the level at which USB Flash drives can be blocked. 

  Vista also brings a new diagnostics platform that gives better warnings
and clear directions to users when things are not working the way they are
expected to. 

  "If you are in Internet Explorer and you get a message that you cannot
connect to a Web page, you can pull down a menu and diagnose your network
connections and see what the issue is. If your hard disk is about to fail,
you will get a message warning you of this and telling you what the steps
are you need to take," Goldberg said. 

  Asked about customer concerns about the cost, complexity, management and
implementation challenges that came with the release of not just a new
operating system, but also of Office 2007 as and Exchange 2007 around the
same time, Goldberg acknowledged that some customers are concerned and still
trying to determine what their migration path should be. 

  However, most customers like the idea of Vista and Office 2007 being
available at the same time, because that means they would only have to test
the desktop once and would result in their adopting them faster. 

  "There are also a lot of scenarios that overlap naturally between the two
products," he said. 

  With regard to the question of how Vista and Office 2007 will work with
previous versions, say Windows XP with Office 2007, Goldberg said that
Office XP would be compatible with and run on Windows Vista. 

  "We have tried to design the products so that those customers who want to
keep one product current and move to the new version of another will
definitely see a set of benefits in each case," he said. 

  The application compatibility toolkit had also, for the first time ever,
been developed in parallel with Vista and would be released alongside it. 

  With Windows XP, for example, it was released with the second service pack
some nine months later. 

  What is the real compatibility picture for Windows Vista?  

  Microsoft is also approaching the certification of applications
differently with Vista: There is the "works with" designation that indicates
the application will work with and run on Vista. 

  Internally, Microsoft has done internal testing on some 1,900 external
applications since the release of the first Vista beta. 

  The "certified for Windows Vista" designation, which has a higher bar, is
for those applications that exploit and take advantage of Vista in a unique
way, Goldberg said. 

  Asked whether Microsoft is pushing ahead with Vista outreach in Europe,
even though it has said the product could be delayed there unless the
European Commission gives it more guidance on whether Vista complies with
European competition law, Goldberg would only say that the company is fully
committed to providing a version of Vista that is fully compliant with
European law. 



  -- 
  Sincerely, 

  Christopher McMillan
  Rehabilitation Engineer
  chrismmcmillan at gmail.com       
  203 404 7275                             Work Number
  203 286 2156                             Fax Number
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