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Magical Vista Tour

Roll out for the Vista tour!
 - J Lemon, P MacArchie

September 2005 - December 2006?
It's begun: the psychological warfare predicted on these pages as those software engineering geniuses - and convicted monopolists - get closer to unleashing their next cataclysmic bomb on the planet.

This page will collect the best Magical Vista Tour blurbs. One thing's certain: taken together - like pigs from a gun - they're hilarious. Enjoy.

See Also

Background
Magical Vista Tour Theme
The Microsoft® Vista® Sound®
 Blue Jay Cache
Start It Up
Your Mother Should Know
 I Am the Virus
The Bill on the Hill

We certainly have the best pipeline of new innovation we've ever had in our history. We obviously can always improve. We've set high expectations for ourselves. But, man oh man, have we got an incredible pipeline of innovation coming in the next year.
 - Steve Ballmer

Windows Vista is the biggest release for Microsoft since Windows 95. With that release, Apple was tested - and they failed miserably.
 - Rob Enderle

I haven't seen good desktop design from Apple since the old Apple Cube.
 - Mary Enderle

Well, there's a ton of security capability that we are building in to Windows Vista. The whole thing about spyware, malware, phishing, a lot of things that support antivirus. The actual capability of getting updated signatures, that's something you need on an ongoing basis, so you need to ship that separately from the operating system itself and so we will have a way that people sign up from that separate from the operating system.
 - Mister Bill

Even in this early Beta 1 release, Windows Vista far outstrips the data file visualization and organizational features in Mac OS X Tiger. It will be interesting to see what Apple comes up with for Leopard, the next OS X release.
 - Paul Thurrott

What we're going to see in the marketplace is two major releases that are very synergistic, and so a whole wave of corporations saying, 'Let's get these new capabilities out onto our desktops.'
 - Bill Gates

Because Microsoft has had such a problem for so long, they're finally getting truly proactive; and that, as a consequence, you could foresee the day where Windows is more secure than the others.
 - Steve Gibson

We're beginning to see, you know, non-IE attacks on other browsers and non-Windows attacks on - I mean, and Linux, for example, non-Windows attacks on other OSes.
 - Steve Gibson

If the reaction of the PDC developers is any measure, this will be bigger than Windows 95 was, and if Apple and the Linux community can't make the hard decisions needed to address this competitive threat the negative impact on both of them will cover a broad range and will be unavoidable.
 - Rob Enderle

Right now we are getting the highest number of requests from people who are trying to migrate off of Apple.
 - Rob Enderle

One issue is the Unix roots in OS X, which is based on the BSD operating system. This Unix component is working against them.
 - Rob Enderle

The Linux Zealots generally hide behind phony names on the Internet often, in fact, names of male body parts. The Zealots are rude and crude, and the sentence 'two beers short of a six-pack' defines them well.
 - Rob Enderle

The Linux Zealots are similar to religious zealots and political extremists.
 - Rob Enderle

The Recycle Bin visually appears to fill up with little crumpled balls of paper as you throw items out.
 - Paul Thurrott

Even the fact that we are talking about Linux, which not only isn't a company, but isn't even an operating system, is a sham. There is no Linux product; not really, Linux only refers to the kernel which, by itself, doesn't actually do much of anything. It is more the core point of a concept that surrounds 'open source' which, in turn, is based on a false concept. This concept is that people actually want to look at source code.
 - Rob Enderle

We also know that IT buyers want the vendor to enjoy all of the product liability associated with an offering, but open source, at best, passes some of that liability to the customer, and, at worst, all of it.
 - Rob Enderle

The Wall Street Journal pundit Walt Mossberg got it all wrong when he wrote that switching to Macs can help users avoid hassle of viruses, because if we all did that, the Macintosh would become the target. Apple hasn't invested in security the way Microsoft has, so the situation would be even worse. And nothing about switching to the Mac helps us with our current applications, hardware investments, and years of experience on Windows. No, what we really need is for the industry to rally around the notion of securing Windows instead of wasting time with silly talk. If you think that the Mac is safer, go for it. But don't complain when you can't run the applications or games you want, the hardware is too expensive, or the performance isn't quite what you're used to. Sure, the grass is often greener on the other side of the fence, but remember, that statement is true from the other side as well.
 - Paul Thurrott

The developers at this year's PDC seemed more excited than I have seen in years.
 - Rob Enderle

Glass is the user interface enhancement that appears to improve on what Apple currently has with Tiger.
 - Rob Enderle

Instant On has been promised for years and this product provides a huge advancement when loaded on appropriate hardware. While this feature remains largely in stealth mode awaiting availability of compliant hardware, this provides a massive improvement in boot times and, when coupled with PreFetch, described below, a sharp improvement in perceived performance. This, coupled with the knowledge of the security improvements that won't work on currently shipping hardware, leads to a strong suggestion that folks moving to Vista might want to do so with new hardware.
 - Rob Enderle

Two GB of memory should result in a machine that loads applications in a fraction of the time they would typically take to load.
 - Rob Enderle

IE improvements are broad and easily eclipse those by Firefox and Netscape.
 - Rob Enderle

Web applications are now more effectively sand-boxed so they can't do damage and IE extends tabs to include full preview windows.
 - Rob Enderle

The real power in this platform has always been tied to the support of the developer community. When they get excited about changes the platform's potential is better realized. When they don't the market simply doesn't move. The developers at this year's PDC seemed more excited than I have seen in years and that bodes well for the success of this platform. However, unlike in 1995 when it was all about the desktop, and 2000 when .NET was only a future concept, this generation is backed up by a relatively mature and complete back end.
 - Rob Enderle

This finally suggests the emergence of the Uber-Platform that was envisioned five years ago.
 - Rob Enderle

For some time it really has been about the Web and there has been a clear separation between the client and server capabilities that limited what we could do. At this PDC they have showcased a much higher level of integration between the concepts into something that is much less client/server and much more like an integrated platform that more effectively, and often dynamically, blends the concepts from both platforms. This is something that neither Apple nor Linux proponents can yet fully address (even IBM who is the only real challenger here seems well behind because they remain server-centric).
 - Rob Enderle

For this round Vista in many ways is equal to or better than Tiger or more advanced, relatively speaking, than Windows 95 was during its beta period.
 - Rob Enderle

Historically staid companies like Gateway, HP, Acer, and even Dell are much more aggressive on design today, often surpassing Apple.
 - Rob Enderle

Given the strength at the back end, strength that Apple has never had, the exposure now goes well beyond Apple's available resources. This means Apple will have to partner to avoid what may be the most damaging competitive threat the company has ever faced. While possible, Apple's one prevailing weakness has been their inability to partner and unless that changes we should be able to call the outcome of this competition relatively easily - and it isn't positive for Apple.
 - Rob Enderle

While Vista is unlikely to displace massive amounts of in-place Linux platforms it should reduce Linux growth measurably.
 - Rob Enderle

The net is that users will like the changes they see that the developers are already excited about. Most users don't use Linux and the market moved from Apple PCs years ago. Better reliability, security, and a more appliance-like experience are all good things.
 - Rob Enderle

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