Microsoft releases Windows Vista Business

They're billing it as the "most significant product launch in Microsoft's history," so why not let them have their fun? Microsoft busted out Windows Vista Business today, along with Office Professional 2007, and a slew of other business, server and enterprise-related products. The day's festivities took place at NASDAQ, where Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Christopher Liddell rang the opening bell this morning, followed by a day of hyping up the offerings to prospective volume-licensees. Microsoft expects over 200 million people will be using at least one of the products offered today by the end of 2007, and no matter what your stance on Microsoft and Windows, it's hard to argue with the impact of these softwares. So yeah, we could dwell on the considerable delays Microsoft experienced leading up to this release, or conjecture how long it'll take for 0-day vulnerabilities to emerge in this shiny new OS, but instead we'd just like to wish Steve Ballmer and co. the best of luck with Vista, Office and all the trimmings. There, now that we've gotten that out of our system, let the bug-finding begin!

[Jonathan Allen @ Nov 30th 2006 7:03PM]

Bug finding is right!

[jabbathehutt @ Nov 30th 2006 7:04PM]

C'mon fellas, no need to be so sardonic. Atleast, you'll pay once for a version that'll be good for five years instead of shelling out $600+ for Apple's OS over that same time-frame. And ofcourse, if you're Linuxphiles then spend that money on a PS3/Wii/.

[nivz @ Dec 1st 2006 5:20PM]

By no means I'm a Mac or Linux fan boy, but trust me, paying $600 for MacOS in 5 yrs or whateva is so much more worth than paying $300 and having to buy another $200 or so worth of other stuff to protect your system for 5 yrs and dealing with all the bugs and vulnerabilities and patches and stuff.. I've only been using Mac for a couple of months, and I already prefer it over windows. (been using windows since i was born).. I do admit that windows is irreplaceable, no matter how much you like Mac or Linux, you will need windows someday..
Having said that, I tried the Vista Beta on a not too old PC (3.2Ghz P4, 1GB Ram, 200GB HDD, Radeon 9700) and It was just waaaay too slow, my graphics card got a performance index of 1 and non of the fancy stuff were working either. (R9700 still plays most games @ pretty decent Framerates with medium-high settings)
So I just dont think vista will be successful just now, cuz it wont run as it's supposed to on most people's PCs. I don't think too many ppl would buy a new PC just cuz MS released a new OS. In a couple of years time, when most ppl have got new vista capable PCs (upgraded due to different reasons than running vista) then it might start doing well.. until then... nope, aint paying �250 or something for a new OS which is a little more unnecessarily complicated than it's predecessor which does the same thing...

[asher @ Nov 30th 2006 7:14PM]

Is it me, or does Ballmer look more like Frankenstein's Monster (via Young Frankenstein) every time we see him?

[Jypson @ Nov 30th 2006 7:19PM]

Look how happy they look. Like kids awaiting a shower of candy at a parade.

[aural @ Nov 30th 2006 7:19PM]

I still remember the terrible hardware and software support that was available at launch for XP... and for that reason I wont be moving to Vista any time soon.

[Limezor @ Nov 30th 2006 7:19PM]

I used Vista, it is really great to use. Also, it has more "eye candy" then Apple's OS's.

~Limezor

[intel @ Nov 30th 2006 7:20PM]

Good for Microsoft. At least this is one megacorp who's main man has a passion for helping charities. And no Im not a trawler bot or whatever theyre called - I just dont hate MS as much as other megacorps like Nike or Apple.... and i own a Macbook ..before you Apple fanboys start whining. bleh

[jay.viz @ Nov 30th 2006 7:23PM]

@asher
Aging is -never- pretty.
50 isn't fun.

[lgc90 @ Nov 30th 2006 7:33PM]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/press/2006/11-30NewDay01_highres.jpg

(and if the link gets broken):
http://tinyurl.com/y6q58q

[WindowsNow @ Nov 30th 2006 7:42PM]

What's the point in finding bugs AFTER it's released? Microsoft just closed one of the largets Windows betas in history. Maybe you guys should have been helping find bugs BEFORE it was released... then people woudn't hate it so much. But that would subvert the whole open-source movement, wouldn't it?

[greg @ Nov 30th 2006 8:45PM]

Don't be ignorant. Microsoft tried to find as many bugs as possible before release but finding all bugs for such a large os is impossible. When you fix some bugs more are found. And thats why they have beta to help find bugs and microsoft has hundreds mabye thousands of machine running vista to find all different sorts of bugs.

and when engadget said"let the bug-finding begin!" it means for everyone since now vista is released.

[Dorsey Coe @ Nov 30th 2006 7:42PM]

First you want to zune me, then you want to vista me?

Blow.

[Almus @ Nov 30th 2006 7:49PM]

Writing this now on a Thinkpad running Vista Business (we got our official version from MS last week) So far it is stable and the bling is not just pretty alot of it is functional. MS did good this time around, all my software runs and all the drivers are avaiable (except for one old HP printer)

[Elliot @ Nov 30th 2006 7:58PM]

Awesome. I spent my morning slogging through terrible Excel help documentation trying to figure out how to perform a simple operation. Turns out VLOOKUP is the kind of function title that Microsoft thinks people will think of right off the bat.

While I have to hand it to Microsoft for moving their lumbering dinosaur of a company down the field to releasing software at all, I still hold that the fewer Microsoft products we get stuck using, the better. Too many workplaces make their employees use Office, and unfortunately there aren't many better alternatives out there.

[guitarboy @ Nov 30th 2006 8:24PM]

FIRE BAAAAD!!!!

[gman @ Dec 1st 2006 2:03AM]

Guitarboy, thanks I laughed hard.

[Ayle @ Nov 30th 2006 8:34PM]

Ahaha MSDN Academic Alliance Here I come!

[Dimitri @ Nov 30th 2006 8:35PM]

"...it's hard to argue with the impact of these softwares."

The plural form of software is still software.

[Javaflash @ Nov 30th 2006 8:46PM]

The worst sin any business could commit is to think that your customers must buy your product, then executed a plan based on such thinking.

Let's see how Redmond can defy the conventional wisdom.

[Ende @ Nov 30th 2006 9:36PM]

@Javaflash
Oh I expect they'll defy it all right.

[PJ @ Nov 30th 2006 9:07PM]

Awesome, so this means that I should receive my copy in 6 to 8 weeks (from that site that was posted 2 days ago giving away Vista and Office)

[LJKelley @ Nov 30th 2006 9:12PM]

YAY!!! Its out... hopefully I'll get my PID this week. I was proud to be a part of the Beta Community, but when you have billions of lines of codes and thousands of different computer setups (unlike Apple), Its much harder to find all the bugs. Truth be known, Microsoft will never find all the bugs (and some bugs are the fault of 3rd party software or hardware) and the next OS will be released without all the bugs being found, that is the nature of software. However, the Beta community was about feedback and find the major bugs and I'm sure the was accomplished. From my experience this will be the most stable and least prone to crashing OS that Microsoft has put on the table, and my laptop with XP has never crashed!

[Danny_Boy @ Nov 30th 2006 9:47PM]

I just pray to GOD vista is better than XP

[acidreflux @ Nov 30th 2006 10:33PM]

@jabathehutt

You will spend less than money on Apple OS's based on features and innovation than you will with MS over 5 years. It is sad that a predominately hardware company is a good generation ahead, if not more, of the largest software company in the world. It is no wonder that Apple is touting Leopard as Vista 2.0.

@WindowsNow

I am not sure what thwarting the open source movement has to do with a standard software engineering process employed by all companies/non-companies. Actually, what would subvert the whole open source movement, would for MS to find more bugs before release, once they find a bug they fix it quicker than they usually do, or faster than the open source software community, that they had less bugs to begin with, they had less severe security vulnerabilities, and they nearly gave away their software for free. That my friend, would be true subversion to OSS.


Then again, you all can enjoy your monolithic Vista OS to your hearts content. Welcome to America.

[Mrfreezie @ Nov 30th 2006 10:55PM]

First Windows launch that I haven't been really looking forward to.. I do hope it does well though.

[Henry Jones @ Dec 1st 2006 6:35AM]

'Let's wish them luck.' - Yeah luck wishing is something I do everytime I have to use the over-bloated WinXP. I find myself luck wishing it doesn't get hacked or crash. And now I can try my luck with the even more bloated Vista, not thanks, still waiting for them to fix their other junk. The only thing I wish is that people would stop buying this rubbish software and perpetuating this monopolistic dinosaur.

[MarkZ @ Dec 2nd 2006 11:43PM]

What the HELL does "over-bloated" mean in reference to an operating system?

I swear you people have begun some kind of "Coalition for Guys Who Use the Word 'Over-Bloated' in Reference to Windows" initiative, because outside of Engadget posts about Vista or XP I have never heard that used before in regular dialogue.

"Over-bloated" with what? Drivers? A GUI?

[FrankTheCrank @ Dec 1st 2006 8:31AM]

Live it up fatboy!

Money can get you a room full of hookers and mountain of coke...but if can't buy you looks. Eeeek!

[Rick @ Dec 1st 2006 8:45AM]

last time I donated to the Miscrosoft corp was for MSDOS 6.0 upgrade, but even that was a ripoff. Never another penny from me.

[jSn @ Dec 1st 2006 8:49AM]

Installed Vista Ultimate last night. The install went fast and it runs fine. The new UI is a nice change and intuitive. Reminds me a lot of Mac on the outside. Some of the new security features will take some getting used to.

On a side note, You would have to be a grade A retard to have had problems with XP on the level that some of you pretend you've had. Considering Apple's ineptness at fixing their ever growing list of security holes and the futility of Linux on the desktop, Vista will increase Microsoft market share rather easily.

[rj @ Dec 1st 2006 9:05AM]

wow hey.. there's someone here with some common sense for a change.

[Borre @ Dec 1st 2006 12:42PM]

The race for the crack is on!

[cmspaz @ Dec 2nd 2006 11:07AM]

"Ahaha MSDN Academic Alliance Here I come!"

It's not up on MSDNAA yet.

And it's quite a shame, too. My laptop is in dire need of a reformat, and I figured I'd wait until Vista launched.

[Tom @ Dec 5th 2006 12:44AM]

over-bloated with crapola. duh