A little confused | The Coffeehouse

rjdohnert
You will never know success until you know failure

Ok, you guys are bring WPF/E to Windows 2000, great but what about the Live stuff. Instant Messenger is still only a Windows XP product, and what about the toolbar? Are Windows 2000 users just SOL or do you guys plan to make anything available for Windows 2000 under the Live brand?

BryanF

With all due respect, I don't see the point of confusion. WPF/E is completely separate from any of the Live properties, though I can certainly see it being used in, say, future releases of Live.com.

While I can certainly appreciate your affection for Windows 2000, I wouldn't hold your breath. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that reach goals of WPF/E are much broader. This looks well-positioned to compete with Adobe Flash, but in order to get any traction they need to support every feasible platform.

Windows Live services, by contrast, seem to be a way to add appeal and value to more current versions of Windows. While it's possible to install Firefox on Win98 to use Live.com, for instance, I don't anticipate there will be any great effort to push Live services further down-level.

rjdohnert
You will never know success until you know failure

So what Microsoft is telling the 48% of customers that still run Windows 2000 is that they dont want the business of those customers and that they would rather have them use competitors products rather than Microsofts?

BryanF wrote:
With all due respect, I don't see the point of confusion. WPF/E is completely separate from any of the Live properties, though I can certainly see it being used in, say, future releases of Live.com.

While I can certainly appreciate your affection for Windows 2000, I wouldn't hold your breath. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that reach goals of WPF/E are much broader. This looks well-positioned to compete with Adobe Flash, but in order to get any traction they need to support every feasible platform.

Windows Live services, by contrast, seem to be a way to add appeal and value to more current versions of Windows. While it's possible to install Firefox on Win98 to use Live.com, for instance, I don't anticipate there will be any great effort to push Live services further down-level.

AndyC

rjdohnert wrote:
So what Microsoft is telling the 48% of customers that still run Windows 2000 is that they dont want the business of those customers and that they would rather have them use competitors products rather than Microsofts?

But they are people who, by definition, are happy not having the latest version. They aren't driving the demand for it, they clearly don't want to pay for it, so why on Earth should they expect to get it?

die-Sel

AndyC wrote:
rjdohnert wrote:So what Microsoft is telling the 48% of customers that still run Windows 2000 is that they dont want the business of those customers and that they would rather have them use competitors products rather than Microsofts?

But they are people who, by definition, are happy not having the latest version. They aren't driving the demand for it, they clearly don't want to pay for it, so why on Earth should they expect to get it?

Good point Windows 2000 is now 6 years old at least. It still a stable and usable o/s as i use it at work but my company just doesn't want to fork out the cash to saty up to date, so why should MS punish itself by spending money on R&D on older products.

Linux doesn't spend time working on old products, Fedora Core for example, once after a new version is released 6-18months later they drop support for the old version. This is edvient on fedoraforums.

If a company doesn't want to spend the money on products they why should a business of any kind spend money on keeping them happy. For example, Ford Motor make 6 models of the Focus (UK Model) with different set of features per model. I want to buy a focus but i dont want to fork out the cash for the top model, Why should Ford drop the price just for me. they will lose money and other customers.

Microsoft is a business, there goal is to make a profit just like every other business. Why should they punish themselevs.