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Acer: PC industry 'disappointed' with Vista
Poor OS means poor sales, says Acer boss
By Matthew Broersma, Techworld | Techworld
Published: 14:09 GMT, 23 July 07
Acer president Gianfranco Lanci became the first major PC manufacturer to openly attack Microsoft over the Windows Vista operating system in the Financial Times Deutschland on Monday.
Lanci said the operating system was riddled with problems and gave users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC, according to the report. Taiwan-based Acer is the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer, after HP, Dell and Lenovo.
"The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Lanci said.
Despite the long wait between Windows XP and Vista, the latest operating system still lacks maturity, he said. "Stability is certainly a problem," he said.
Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in the history of PC manufacturing. He added the situation didn't look likely to change in the next six months.
Many business customers have specifically asked for Windows XP to be installed on their new machines, Lanci noted.
While industry pundits have detailed user problems with Vista over the past few months, including sluggishness, the expense of acquiring hardware powerful enough to run the OS and lack of support for many critical applications, PC makers have so far looked on the brighter side.
HP, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba have continued offering XP-equipped machines, but these are generally aimed at consumers or small businesses, not large corporate clients.
Microsoft itself says Vista has been a smashing successs, saying it had already sold 20 million Vista licences by March.
Last week the company said its quarterly income was $13.4 billion ($6.5 billion), up 13 percent from the same quarter last year, growth it said was partly due to strong Vista sales.
The company has said most Vista users are satisfied and that nearly all software and hardware is compatible.
On the other hand, the company recently told analysts it expects Windows XP to make up a significantly larger part of sales than it had previously expected, at Vista's expense.
Chief financial officer Chris Liddell has told analysts that he expects XP to make up 22 percent of sales in Microsoft's new fiscal year, up from the previous estimate of 15 percent. Vista would make up the remaining 78 percent of Windows sales. Windows XP sales will, in other words, be nearly 50 percent higher in the next 12 months than Microsoft had estimated earlier.
Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions at Microsoft, said part of the problem is that users prefer lower-cost machines that might not work well with Vista.
"Most of the machines I see pitched in catalogues are in the $700 range, certainly under $1,000," said Cherry. "Computers with that amount of hardware are a better fit for XP. With Vista's requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware."
It's possible, Cherry added, that Microsoft might find itself forced to recognise more reality in the future. "At some point, they might have to consider limiting the availability of XP," to push people to Vista.
The software developer has made at least one move in that direction already. In mid-April, it announced it would terminate sales of Windows XP to resellers and retail after January 2008. User reactions were almost unanimously negative.
Gregg Keizer of Computerworld contributed to this report.


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Add your commentComments
Just a nix user... | Published: 14:43 GMT, 16 September 2008
I've been using different windows os for my 10 years experience as an IT ... ME and Vista don't really make it work for me. I would prefer using win98 than using vista .. Vista uses a lot of HDD space .. almost 3-4 times higher than win xp. Its security is too much for home use... and annoying .. Now .. I am using win xp dual boot with linux .. and it works fine and I am satisfied.
max stirner | Published: 14:08 GMT, 10 June 2008
go linux!
Jay Swift | Published: 01:24 GMT, 08 May 2008
I find it funny that I have no real ploblems with Vista on desktop,an old 2.4ghz machine with only 500mhz of ram.Then on my laptop with a duo core and 3.0ghz of ram i fight all day with vista.I don't know if it's because I upgraded from XP Pro on my to Vista Ult. on my desktop and my laptop came with Vista Premium then I upgraded to it to Ultimate.I think what's missing from Vista's source code is still in my desktop because of the previously installed XP.
Linux... | Published: 06:04 GMT, 13 December 2007
Here I come!!! At the pace that things are being resolved and worked on FREELY (means anyone can do it)! I don't see why should waste time or money.
Paige | Published: 19:43 GMT, 12 September 2007
I agree with Steve. At work I am a network manager and tech support. When laptops are ordered with Vista, users come to me asking for XP to be installed. We have several licenses for Vista, I know 2 out of 350 users are using the new OS. It is a bloated operating system. Personally, I have installed Slackware or Fedora on my computers at home. Open source solutions are a good way to go.
tomj23 | Published: 18:49 GMT, 02 September 2007
I'm an IT guy with 6 servers and 90+ desktops and have been a loyal MS shop for years. After 2 weeks of trying to "get" Vista I've given up.... for now. There is no way it's going to run adequately on 50% of my workstations plus there are just too many changes, both from the user and netadmin standpoint. Nope I'll just continue to buy XP for now, perhaps the Mac/Intel is the way to go, we'll see.
corey | Published: 16:57 GMT, 30 August 2007
hmm i get a 5.3 base rating and i got 5.5 CPU, 5.8 on RAM, 5.9 on gfx, 5.8 on gaming gfx, and 5.3 for hdd. WHY DO I GET SO LOW FPS IN VISTA COMPAIRED TO XP!!!!! i got a 5.8 rating on gaming. on vista i get like 20 fps in FEAR. on xp i get like 130 fps without vsync on at 1440x900 resolution. i havent tested my brand new 1900x1200 monitor yet on fear since i re install windows like 2 times a week or it seems like it. so who can help me find out why this $400 operating system is such trash for gaming. it makes no sense at all.
Mr X | Published: 00:46 GMT, 22 August 2007
The MS fanboys have lost the plot. Notice how half say Vista runs on 3yo hardware,while others claim only tightwads don't buy new hardware to suit Vista's needs. Fact is Vista is a DOG. Take any hardware,remove Vista and replace with XP or Pclinuxos. Now that's what I call the Vista Ultimate Upgrade.
Mac | Published: 20:20 GMT, 20 August 2007
It is sad when a company that 'isn't a monopoly' can exert monopoly power like that. Seriously, when a company completely ignores the basic laws of supply and demand, they are a text book definition monopoly.
spamthis | Published: 20:00 GMT, 20 August 2007
To Imagine that: In the IT world, it is not "the customer is always right." It is "the customer has no idea what the future has in store, we do. So like it or not they've got to deal with it." Roll with the change or get run over baby. Vista is indicative of a few things. 1) Better graphics cards and new user interfaces are the wave of the future. 2) Since Vista is going to be used by 90% of the market, it needs to be more stable & less vulnerable to attacks (as much as possible). I run 2 Vista Ultimate machines at home and love it. Both run Core2Duo 1.86GHz & my desktop OCed to 3GHz. Both w/ 2GB of dual channel DDR2. Laptop has onboard graphics but the 2GB of memory seems to help compensate. Desktop has physx card & 8800GTX. Don't want to pony up for this kind of hardware? Then languish in XP (or Freetard) hell!