|
XPeeved
|
 |
September 27, 2001: 12:00 p.m. ET
Get used to the new Windows XP: stable, annoying, and inevitable
David Futrelle
|
NEW YORK (Money.com) - Until recently, Windows XP Microsoft's new, improved operating system that's slated to hit stores in late October was being touted as the last, best hope of the PC sector in this dismal year.
The new operating system promising a host of snazzy new features without the frequent
crashes endemic to earlier versions of Windows was expected to inspire a sudden rush of PC buying as users hungrily snapped up new machines fast enough to take advantage of Windows XP's magical powers.
Not so fast. While PC makers are already shipping XP preinstalled on new machines (although XP's official launch is still nearly a month away) industry analysts aren't expecting a rush of orders. Most computer users seem content to stick with their old machines for the time being; as Credit Suisse First Boston Analyst Kevin McCarthy put it in a recent research note, "the decision to buy a new PC is one that's easily deferred given current world events."
That's putting it mildly. CSFB now expects PC sales in 2001 to come in some 14 percent lower than last year, even lower than earlier estimates of a 6 percent drop.
Ironically, while Windows XP seems to be inspiring little excitement among consumers, it's getting rave reviews from computer critics or at least as close to rave reviews as any Microsoft product could expect from anyone other than CEO Steve "Dancemonkeyboy" Ballmer. Microsoft has a long history of hyping bloated, mediocre software as the "next big thing." But this version of Windows seems to have convinced many of those who've tested out the new OS that it actually comes close to deserving the hype.
In the Wall Street Journal, tech maven Walt Mossberg compares the experience of using the new OS to driving a "sleek reliable new car after owning a series of lemons." ZDNet reviewers declare the OS to be "simply the best OS that the company has come up with to date"; New York Times columnist David Pogue declares it "the best version of Windows yet." My colleague Brian L. Clark here at Money (himself, like me, a dedicated Mac user) describes XP as "cleaner, with less clutter, than any version of Windows you've seen." In Fortune, tech columnist Peter Lewis declares Windows XP to be "surprisingly good news for consumers ... not just less annoying [than older versions of Windows] but even almost fun to use." The Washington Post hails XP as "stable but often annoying."
Left out of most of those quotes (except the Post's) is the undercurrent of frustration in the otherwise glowing reviews. Indeed, even those most wowed by XP's technical prowess most notably its most un-Microsoftian stability have found themselves more than a little peeved by Microsoft's cumbersome anti-piracy measures and pushy self-promotion "features" designed to lure users to Microsoft Web services, and only Microsoft services. (For example, a Windows Media Player that won't let you encode files in anything but the Windows Media format.)
Reviewers aren't only ones miffed about Microsoft's tactics; on Wednesday four leading consumer groups accused Microsoft of using XP to "advance the company's illegal anti-competitive practices."
Meanwhile, all this unnecessary software Microsoft has seen fit to bundle into its OS offering make it an Extra Pudgy one, filling up roughly 1.5 gigs of hard drive space.
Of course, the reviewers' cheers and jeers are, for the most part, beside the point: Microsoft essentially owns the PC desktop, meaning that most PC users (aside from Mac fans and Linux devotees and a few other nonconformist types) will ultimately move on up to Windows XP, if not now, then at some point in the not-too-distant future. Annoyed or not, they'll move.
Windows XP: Stable. Annoying. Inevitable.
Sounds like an ad campaign to me. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
