Windows 7 RC builds leaks: Nothing to see here

"Sadly, there's nothing new to see in this build." Well, that sucks. "There is more coming." If there is nothing new in the RC then I'm left to assume that the "more coming" must be in the post-RC builds or in the RTM. If Microsoft is waiting until the RTM to introduce something dramatic then that could either turn out really good or really, really bad.

The flashy, UI-stuff is nice, but I think MS learned it's lesson the hard way: If the underpinnings aren't more than solid, than the rest is merely fluff. As my H.S. algebra teacher taught me, triple checking is never a bad thing. On the other hand - they've got to get this thing out and out soon....

As for those who think Microsoft *must* include surprise features in RC so they can be fully fleshed out in *public* Windows 7 testing. Why *pubic*? They could just as well have created a private Windows 7 test group for this. And who knows that could have been going on for months already. I think this *new stuff*, perhaps touchscreen UI is likely an additive feature. There is no way they would throw away all the usability data they got since Windows 7 Beta. Perhaps its something along the lines of Orgami or HP's Touchsmart. I think touchscreen users, especially in certain environments ie kitchen, would appreciate a simplified dashboard. That said, if this what they want to deliver..shouldn't this be done via Media Center? I think so.

A nice surprise would be Aquarium screen saver. Well, it's early Friday afternoon EDT and still no RC on Technet. I was wondering if I'd be installing it this afternoon and weekend. In Redmond it is still early in the day so it might show up yet. if not, probably Monday or Tuesday. I don't do the torrent thing so I will have to wait .. .. I'm waiting .. lol

why can't I get a snarky paul report on Microsoft's revenue drop? he was all over apple's. Apple may have 2% of the US market but they had 60% of Microsoft's revenue for the quarter! I know, I know, it's the one guy somewhere that bought mobileme subscriptions for secret santa parties.

..and the economic downturn slowing PC sales too.

windowsitpro.com/.../microsoft-earnings-stumble-sales-fall-for-first-time-in-23-years.html Microsoft has peaked. They are like IBM all those years ago, to big, to fat to know what is wrong. They need to plan the lowering of their market share in a way that is not climatic for them. I can see them 10 years from now being like the new IBM, smaller player focused on a specific market segment, after the stumble some more and look bad for a while. Some serious cutting of stuff not making money needs to happen say like Zune/360 for starters. How much have they poured into these 2 only to come away this quarter with a 31milllion dollar loss.

BladRnr: You're right that the article regarding Microsoft's earnings was mostly just a recitation of the numbers but that's pretty much what his Apple earnings post was too, with maybe a couple of non-newsie comments. http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/22/mac-mark... I'm really just at a loss in understanding what you're expecting. He said Microsoft's earnings were down for the first time in decades and gave a couple of reasons why. What else do you expect him to say and do you expect that whenever he has a comment about anything that he must publish it in every possible place just so you don't miss it?? Come on, you're really picking nits here.

The Media Streaming stuff looks interesting. I kind of wonder where the internet media streaming fits in with a Windows Home Server though. How does that work with multiple computers in a network that are all set up as media servers? Are we expecting more UPnP phun to get this to work?

Remember how I was mentioning the Gigabyte T1028? Here's the reason why I want one: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/23/ink-input-and-tablet.aspx (with videos!)

I understand why our useless main stream media doesn't get why MSFT had a slow qt. But people who read this blog and others like it aren't surprised are they. I'm building a new machine this year, guess what I'm waiting for Win 7, I'll probably upgrade at least 2 other machines as well, I expect Q4 (calender) will be huge for MS.

Perhaps the 360 and Zune should go if they are perpetual big revenue losers. I certainly don't see a halo effect from the 360. After all, it is a PC gamer replacement. Does MS actually sell games? If so, is there a profit?

"Or is there a perception to belittle everything Apple does, right or wrong, while giving a pass to MSFT?" Ask Leo Laporte the opposite the next time he laughs at anything Microsoft on MacBreak Weekly.

Time to begin deciding if I should upgrade my English Lab again.

BladRnr: "So you see no problem in Paul dissing Apple's numbers." What follows is the full text of Paul's post about Apple's numbers. To a non Apple fanboy, I think it sounds like Paul is very impressed by Apple's performance and calls them recession-resilient. I think your idea of "dissing" is far different than mine. ================================ Mac market share in Q1 2009 = 3.36 percent, Apple earnings strong Apple has announced its earnings for the first calendar quarter of 2009, and while no company is likely recession proof, Apple is certainly recession-resilient. The company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, which is huge. Mac sales were a much better than expected 2.22 million units, and though that's down a pretty meaningless 3 percent, year over year, it's enough for 3.36 percent worldwide market share. (In the year ago quarter, the Mac accounted for just 3.26 of all PC sales worldwide.) US market share, of course, is harder to gauge since Apple doesn't break out US numbers explicitly. Looking at IDC (1130 units) and Gartner's (1135) estimated sales figures for the US, Apple's Mac has about 7.49 percent market share in the US. That's a bit more vague of an estimate, of course, but it seems reasonable. Either way, the Mac's in great shape, despite the economy. More impressive, perhaps, is the iPhone. Sales of the iPhone more than doubled year over year, with Apple selling 3.79 million units (according to AT&T, 1.6 million of them in the US). iPod sales were up an inconsequential 3 percent, suggesting that the new iPod shuffle hasn't been a fast seller. It's rare for Apple to completely replace an iPod model in the first quarter (they usually go after the full lineup each September) but it doesn't look like it made much of a difference. Maybe the next shuffle could be bigger and have a real UI.

Tayme- I have no issue if any company gets taken to task by anyone, the funny thing is that there is to separate standards as to how this is done (and I'm not just talking about Paul). Apple gets grilled for what is by all accounts a outstanding quarter and MS having their worst one (or one of their worst) in 22 years and there is nothing pointing that out. My point is that if anyone is going to use one set of standards and grill a company for having a pretty darn good quarter (apple) and then cherry pick the things one doesn't like to bolster the argument... But when another company (MS) has one of their worst and there is no mention about it. This is no different then trumpeting the UK MS ads as "unassailable" when in the past school trips to the Apple Store are "despicable". Like what you want (that's anyone), dislike what you don't, my issue is with consistency (or lack thereof). In reading your responses over the years, your viewpoint and mine are a lot closer then I would have ever guessed. And the ones that we aren't on the same page... I at least respect your logic, not all here I would say that about.

I thought Paul's item on the Apple quarterly results was straightforward and refreshingly free of snark. He gave credit where credit's due, and more power to him. Some of the commenters, not so much. But that's hardly unsurprising, is it? It doesn't bother me that he didn't comment on the Microsoft results here. It's his blog and he can write about what he wants, I reckon.

@BladRnr: Leo was on MacBreak and TWiT Weekly trying to dismiss the whole Mac botnet thing as heresay. Of course, I could do the same thing about Conficker. April 1st came and went and the only fools were the ones that thought that Conficker was serious enough to worry about on that day (or the ones that left their systems insecure and got infected). Repeatedly, Leo has said "I like Vista" on Windows Weekly, but on MacBreak, the Mac cronies put down everything Microsoft and Leo is cracking jokes about it all too. How's that for a double standard?

Actually, Thanks to "IBM clones" there were alternatives, so not many actually needed IBM. However, many companies cannot live without Microsoft [sort of locked-in, but by third party apps]. That's why I don't think that they will follow the same path.

"I expect him to fair with MSFT's numbers if he wants to talk about Apple's in a blog. Where did he discuss them on his BLOG? He didn't. In fact, no one here is talking about them. How coincidental for Windows Super SIte! Give MSFT a pass." It's his decision what he talks about. "Worst quarter in 23 years. Oh well." So what? Anyway, I doubt this is the worst quarter in 23 years. It's the first time revenues have fallen, but this is far from being the worst quarter in 23 years. "No one is going to belittle you because you have something negative to say in regards to MSFT. " I guess you don't read this blog that often, in that case. Maybe you only read the articles where he is critical of Apple.

"The fat lady is singing!!!!!" OK, robertsjoe. This is the end of Microsoft, if that makes you happy?

@BladRnr: Why no mention of Apple's 1600 job cuts so that they saved money on salaries? @hammy: Wait for the i5's. They'll be good. They will have HyperThreading too, so that quad-core will look like an 8-core to Windows (Windows can't really tell the difference between HT and multi-core - the CPU does the work of balancing the load). I personally built another i7 system today. <$1500(CDN) for a quality tower with enterprise-grade WD RAID Edition 3 drives, an EVGA X58 board, single EVGA GTS 260 "Super-Superclocked" 896MB card, and 6GB of DDR3-1333MHz RAM, backed by a 3-year parts and labour warranty.

@shark "I'm glad that the economic recession is making some people happy. I guess there's some people that don't care if they lose their jobs as long as Microsoft does badly." Ballmer is happy about the recession, ""The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." Helpful. The trouble is, he's wrong. The helpful economy is driving all the WIndows vendors the bottom end machines where Microsoft makes almost no money. Apple of course, is not in that trap.

@BladRnr: Why no mention of Apple's 1600 job cuts so that they saved money on salaries? Because they didn't do it, despite the breathless "blog" pronouncements http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/20915/ "Isn't strange that one can think that a company making almost 3 billion dollars in profit, had a bad year? What have we done to ourselves! I'm actually being serious." That's true, but as people have pointed out, a quarter isn't a trend. However, the long term trend is ominous for Microsoft: " MSFT's market cap used to be $586B! It's now ~$180B. Apple's used to be $17B. It's now $112B." Apple is now 2/3 the size of Microsoft, where it used to be 3% of Microsoft's size. I think we at last have an answer to Paul's paranoia and how Apple can be both a trivial annoyance and a looming threat. Come to think of it, it isn't paranoia at all. Funny how you can have 3% marketshare and 67% of Microsoft's market cap.

Regardless of Apple vs MS, my point was that in today's economy, many business have gone bankrupt, yet some people are not impressed with 3 billion dollars in profit during today's economy. remember Circuit City or CompUSA? They're gone! Kudos to Apple for success.