From CNET|News: “Fewer than 300,000 boxed copies of the new operating system were sold in the first several days of its availability, according to preliminary figures from NPD Intelect, which has polled roughly 80 percent of its retailers and mail-order clients about XP. Although some poll respondents indicated that demand was “healthy,” NPD asserts that the final tally of first-week sales will likely be 20 percent to 25 percent lower than what Microsoft saw with Windows 98.”
Early XP Sales Less Than Stellar
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If i understand it correctly ppl don’t want to buy xp
D
I’m so happy
)
Maybe ppl aren’t as blind as i thought ;]
save money and download the 4.4 FreeBSD. . . you don’t need more.
it’s been out for like…1 week, right?
Uhm, I dunno if anyone knows this, but 99% of people buy a new OS with their new computer. Very few buy retail copies and install themselves. XP will be a smashing success, whether early figures indicate that or not. That is simply the reality of it. Every single time MS releases a new OS, they compare the sales to previous versions and they always fall short. 95->98, 98->win2k, 98->ME.
It has a nice gui that Joe User will love. Joe User is a casual user, and rarely, if ever, hangs around long enough on the machine to notice a “stable” OS, and doesn’t even have a reference point for “stability” to even compare. Th GUI is the big difference to him right there, and he will buy a new PC with XP on there, just give it some time.
I agree with OpinionBoy.
And if anybody is thinking of buying it..DO IT! Its a quality OS that has made my life personally much easier, a much more solid development environment, and it looks more perty too!
I have to say that XP is awesome
. People might think that it is Resource Hungary and Buggy, and it is, but it is also the OS of my choice for beginners 
. I mean come on customization is a key factor, and with XP everything that you can customize is customizable. Also I agree with Shark. He says “Save your money and download FreeBSD 4.4” I think for geeks like us, that is a great idea, but a person who is not “Tech Savy” needs something like “XP”.
The release of Mac OS 8 in 1997 became the most successful OS and best selling software release to date selling more than 1.25 million copies in less than 2 weeks… I guess with the huge gap between Mac OS 7 (or ‘System 7’ as they called it) called for such sales?!
If you have to pick a Windows OS, I would recommend Windows2000. Has all the stability and media stuff that you need, and it won’t have those “convienent” snooping mechanisms that Microsoft graciously added to XP to make our lives “easier”. Otherwise, switch to OS X!
I agree that Micro$oft put snooping mechanisms into XP, but like I say to the average user what do they care? The most an average user will do is:
1. Surf the Internet
2. Email Friends and family
3. Scan in some photos and edit them
4. Play a couple of games //mostly younger users
So really what do they have to worry about?
#1 I would guess that most readers here are not your average user. Most of us are power users, and had no problems doing all of the above long before W2K came about, much less XP. We therefore can be judicious about these kinds of issues.
#2 There are plenty of things to worry about. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is a dangerous way to operate. At what level will the invisible intrusion end? What right does microsoft or anyone else have to continually track your actions online, or worse on your own machine, without your knowledge? Besides people like us, no one knows that everything they are doing on their XP machines is being carefully logged and analysed by Microsoft or people who will buy the data from Microsoft. I find this to be a gross invasion of my privacy, and I will never upgrade beyond Windows2000 on any of my machines. Nor will I adopt the .net strategy, outside of my hotmail e-mail account which I use for e-mails to message boards and the like. On that note, perhaps I’ll drop hotmail as well, why feed fuel to the fire.
If a company wants to come right out and say, “Hey, we’ll give these services, be we are going to track every move you make on your computer for statistical purposes” I would be less inclined to be so reactionary. As it is, these invisible snooping programs are the beginning of a slippery slope into anyone knowing how many times a day you use the bathroom, or what type of ice cream you like. Without better security measures, and laws, to protect people we shouldn’t pursue this path any further.
yes most windows are sold on new PCs but because PC sales are low that will realy hinder MS’s ability to push the new OS…they were realy looking for a huge win 95 type hit where people lined up for the new OS.
If you want gui you can chose linux/BSD + KDE or GNOME or wm or E or … (lots choices)
if you have to buy a computer and want a nice gui MAcOSX on a g4 is the best
If you are still thinking about a win32 OS win2k is tested enough now to make your life with less surprises…
And if you want the thrill of something strange qnx and AmigaXL are perfect
so
no deed to pay much more for XP
sorry for the harshness, but realy you saying that, “everything that you can customise is customisable” is about as insightful and true as, “you can get anything you want if let you have it.” let me ask, can you customise your window manager? can you use a diffrent desktop environment? can you create your own mime types? can you choose to integrate Mozilla as and replce IE for file and web browsing?can you replace the passport authentication ssytem with sun one? can you integrate quicktime into the OS to replce Windows mediaplayer? how about windows mesenger? and when I say replce, I mean not just install and use but actualy remove all instances of the former application and place your new application in its place with out any loss in the use experience?
the answer is ….No.
Jeremy… I think you should do some more research before saying things like that… all the above are possible on various OSes, some are better than others!!!
>>can you choose to integrate Mozilla as and replce IE for file and web browsing?<<
Maybe not Mozilla, but you sure can do that with Konquerer… the Software Engineer I work with does it all the time!
>>can you integrate quicktime into the OS to replce Windows mediaplayer?<<
I am a Mac user, Quicktime pretty much does everything you need Mac, I could care less about Windows!!!
>>how about windows mesenger?<<
I guess you must be talking about MSN Messenger, I still think AOL has the best IM to offer and all my friends are using it except for one and he’s using Yahoo Instant Messenger! AOL IM is integrated into the Netscape/Mozilla Web Browser which I really like and use daily!!
You need to come up with some better arguments than that, those above just wont do!!!
Hmm, I wonder why XP isn’t selling well… well, I’ll let you guys try and figure that out for yourselves.
DUDE I was talking about WinXP. I am not defending XPs integration, I am putting up examples of why he is wrong about XP being customisable. RTFP fool.
I use Linux and LOVE IT. I use Konq AND LOVE IT, I use Kit AND LOVE IT.
Read the f***ing Post man.
First and foremost, chill out we are a bunch of geeks just doing are thing and profane language doesn’t have to be used. Even it a letter, two letters, or three letters are starred out.
Second, When I was referring to when I was talking about customizable, I was talking about how skinnable it is. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. Anyway, customizable to geeks isn’t the same as customizable to non geeks. Non geeks don’t care about changing Window Managers or IE’s Intergration or even Micro$oft’s Attitude towards other computer OSes. To them it is a utility to have fun and get things done on. That is it. To us it is, well it is basically our lives. We live for complex algorithims and new OSes. We love the challenge. To them they love the to get things done, and to have fun with games. That is the difference between a geek and a user.
Third, I agree with you that *nix is the best OS overall(right now), but that wasn’t my point. My point was that “Non Geeks” can’t use *nix, and even if they could, would they? I am sorry, but I don’t think so. Even though we don’t like it, this world(right now) is a Micro$oft world.
Fourth, Check out AtheOS. You can go to http://www.atheos.cx It is my favorite OS, and check out my “Archiver” for AtheOS at http://geekgod_1.tripod.com. It is also being ported to BeOS for use with BlueOS. Sorry for the plug, but I thought why not
.
Do any of you who say that XP tracks your every move have any sort of PROOF that it is actually doing this? I’m not the biggest fan of XP, but come on!
Where’s the evidence that says if I use Windows XP, that Microsoft “is tracking every move I make online.” And even if they are doing this, why do I care? What are they gonna do, call me up and harass me about all the porn sites I’ve been to lately?
>DUDE I was talking about WinXP. I am not defending XPs integration, I >am putting up examples of why he is wrong about XP bei >customisable. RTFP fool.
>I use Linux and LOVE IT. I use Konq AND LOVE IT, I use Kit AND LOVE >IT.
>Read the f***ing Post man.
Well you need to better explain yourself, from your post sounded like Windows was the best thing since sliced bread!!!
And even if they are doing this, why do I care?
———
You may not care, others might. The more information any company has about you, the more they can target you, find your weaknesses, know your demographics, know your health history, know your likes and dislikes, and exploit you for the almighty dollar. Not only that, your details and private information is already routinely bought and sold to other marketers to exploit you.
I bet if people knew this, there’d be less people willing to give out their private information. So, the type of tracking & user databases must be, but really never really are, made public. Cookies and referrers when browsing are two common examples. The laws are far behind on this already, and enforcement is next to impossible, when it comes down to it. The public’s education on these matters is probably two steps behind the laws, I reckon..
OpinionBoy, I already know all of what you’re saying. And if they profile my surfing habits to serve me ‘targeted advertising’, it doesn’t matter because my Proxy filters it all out anyway
As for private information, I don’t give it out. The only way they could snuff out my private information is to siphen all of my Word documents back to headquaters, and I *seriously* don’t think they’re stupid enough to do that. The only place I know they do this is when an app crashes and they tell you on the screen that some of your personal info may be sent as part of the debug info. So if you send them that, then it’s your own fault.
Many people accuse MS of doing such evil deeds such secretly gathering all the information from your computer and keeping it in a database, but nobody is offering any credible evidence that this is actually being done.
Things such as Passport (which I personally think is a bad idea) is willingly given up by the user and doesn’t count.
I doubt talour made adds would make me buy things I don’t want to buy already. Anyway most net adds don’t work. How many times have you clicked on a banner?Half the time I don’t even notice them, their just extra inforamtion which is filtered out by my brain. Pop ups I close out of habit, it’s a reflex I don’t even have to think about it.