Who Controls the PC Ecosystem?
There have been various attempts over the years to control the PC hardware ecosystem. I mentioned IBM’s attempt, above, with Microchannel. Intel has also tried, with more success, but that’s because the company never tried to actually take over the PC hardware landscape. Take USB, for example. USB was Intel’s successful refutation of FireWire. Prior to USB, it looked like FireWire (IEEE 1394 for standards purists) would become the external connector of choice, taking over from RS-232 and parallel port connections that had dominated external connectivity.
The story goes that Intel was somewhat miffed that Apple insisted on charging a royalty per connection for FireWire, so the world’s largest CPU company developed its own standard. In a twist, though, it then opened up USB to the rest of the world. It took few years, but USB has pretty much marginalized FireWire.
Since then, Intel went on to either create or help create other open platform standards, such as PCI and PCI Express. It’s carefully navigated the landscape, keeping proprietary technologies that directly affect the CPU – sockets and CPU links (example: DMI), but opening up generic platform standards.
Ultimately, though, the PC platform remains an open hardware standard. Hardware and software manufacturers are encouraged by Microsoft to continue to develop products for the PC platform that serve markets, small and large.
Because the underlying hardware platform is relatively open, though, Microsoft doesn’t control it. Linux runs just fine on PC hardware (as well as many other platforms), and open source developers have developed drivers and applications as needed to serve that market.
In the end, even Apple had to give in, moving away from the PowerPC processor and adopt the PC hardware architecture. On the other hand, while Apple can’t control the platform, it can control what products it offers. So there continues to be no midrange or entry level Mac equivalent to the average Dell Studio XPS system.
So if you do run into problems when installing or running Windows 7, just remember: sometimes the price for the incredible flexibility and variety of hardware available for PCs are a few headaches. That’s certainly a tradeoff I’m willing to accept.
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Brandon Champion says:
October 22, 2009 at 4:05 pm (UTC -7 )
When non-techy people say something bad about Vista, I take a moment to ask them what exactly they don’t like about it. Most of them don’t actually use Vista, they’re just mimicking the negativity of others.
In the last few years, the only “valid” anti-Vista complaints I’ve heard have to do with UAC dialogs taking longer than they should to appear and a bug (or feature?) of Windows Photo Gallery that applies a sepia-like effect to the screen when viewing images.
Since I’m more capable than the average user of identifying when a problem is caused by a 3rd party driver (I’m looking at you, nVidia), I think Vista was very solid. For me, it was the best Windows ever… until 7.
Now, Amazon, please explain to me why my pre-order from June won’t be shipped until Oct 26th?
trip1ex says:
October 22, 2009 at 6:24 pm (UTC -7 )
From what I read Apple moved to Intel because PowerPC wasn’t as efficient (power/watt.) Also I would bet the move to Intel was to get Windows users to switch. It worked on me. That lifeline got me to switch 3 years ago.
I would argue the tower form factor is less relevant than ever. There’s less of a reason to upgrade your pc than ever.
Back in the 90s, upgrading your system paid dividends system-wide. Everything was sped up and noticeably so. Computers were also alot more money. $2k bought you a middle of the road computer. Thus the ability to upgrade was extremely useful to nearly everyone. Not to mention that features like sound, ethernet, modem etc were often on iga/pci/etc cards.
Nowadays? What am I speeding up? Video encoding? GAming at 3000×1800 resolution? Most computing tasks aren’t sped up to any noticeable degree by getting a faster cpu. Pcgaming isn’t what it once was either. IT’s lost ground to the consoles and so less need to upgrade to play the newest games any more. Most are console ports too nowadays. The resolutions to play the game nowadays are overkill. Motherboards now have all the features built into them that you need. The computer industry has kind of hit a wall there. The low hanging fruit has been picked.
Further proof of the lack of need to upgrade is found by looking at sales of laptops vs desktops. Laptops now outsell desktops from what I read. And this trend is likely to continue and to widen.
Intel is in business to protect their monopoly. Hence they open up the mentioned technologies to “support” that monopoly.
It is too bad Apple decided to charge for FW. It was a better although more expensive standard than USB.
I used Vista some on my Dad’s laptop when he was in town. Those constant security prompts were absolutely annoying and MS should have been embarrased. Compatibility issues also drove folks nuts. And the fact Vista was put on cheap laptops that couldn’t run it did not help matters either. I’m sure after a few years many of those things were resolved, but that wasn’t the customer’s problem.
Brandon Champion says:
October 23, 2009 at 6:14 am (UTC -7 )
@triplex
I’m happy that iMac-like all-in-one PCs will be more readily available and affordable for normal home users because I do believe there’s value in their simplicity. I don’t agree at all, however, with your view on gaming. Suck it, consoles!
Brandon Champion says:
October 23, 2009 at 6:25 am (UTC -7 )
@triplex
“Compatibility issues also drove folks nuts. And the fact Vista was put on cheap laptops that couldn’t run it did not help matters either. I’m sure after a few years many of those things were resolved, but that wasn’t the customer’s problem.”
UAC was annoying in Vista and, in my opinion, taught every single user that dialog boxes aren’t worth reading and that they are to be immediately clicked on the most positive-sounding option so life may continue. They tried to increase security, but effectively taught users one of the most unsafe habits in security-land.
As for the incompatibility issues and being installed on less-than-capable computers, the blame lies with 3rd parties. Microsoft made quite an effort to get 3rd party device makers to support Vista, but many of them quietly sat on their hands, knowing Microsoft would bear the blame, while they would reap the profits from all the people who had to go out and buy the newest, Vista-compatible hardware. Microsoft took a completely undeserved kick in the nuts.
tlmck says:
October 23, 2009 at 12:26 pm (UTC -7 )
I agree with you Loyd about OSes having issues. However I think with Win 7 those may be fewer than anticipated. MS seems to have got this one right, except for netbooks. That is unless they were trying to kill netbooks, in which case they may have succeeded.
I also mostly agree with triplex. PC gaming is slowly on it’s way out. The economic downturn has helped some people realize that forever chasing the next upgrade is just not all it’s cracked up to be. The market will eventually get so small, that major developers will simply ignore it.
I must disagree with Brandon Champion that Microsoft’s punishment was undeserved. They knew the drivers were not ready and they released Vista anyway. They may have made their quarterly number projections upon release of Vista, but it cost them dearly.
On the plus side, Win 7 does seem to be a winner. I have only used the RC Build 7100 so far, but have had zero problems with it. It is not a great deal faster than Vista, but certain features such as Aero actually work on lower end hardware as was promised in Vista. My cheap Emachines D620 laptop($270 Acer in disguise) came loaded with Vista Home Basic x32, and to say it ran abysmally would be kind. With Win 7 x64 RC, and an upgrade to 4gb ram, it is actually quite a nice machine. I had originally planned to run Linux, but could not find a distro that ran on it’s odd video and Wifi hardware very well. When the RC license runs out next March, I will probably just get an OEM disk of Win 7 x64. I can always run PCLOS in Virtual Box as I do now.
Brandon Champion says:
October 23, 2009 at 12:46 pm (UTC -7 )
@tlmck
“They knew the drivers were not ready and they released Vista anyway.”
Is it Microsoft’s responsibility to make drivers for someone else’s hardware? If so, what’s the limit of their responsibility? Is it to support every device that has ever been created for a Windows PC? I believe the drivers are primarily the responsibility of the hardware manufacturers. Microsoft stepped up where those 3rd parties left off and filled in the holes, but it’s unrealistic to expect them to bear that burden completely and postpone the OS. This same thing happened with XP, but I don’t remember a lot of people back then blaming Microsoft for their printer drivers not working.
tlmck says:
October 23, 2009 at 3:58 pm (UTC -7 )
It is absolutely not MS responsibility to release drivers. However, it is their responsibility to release a product that is either fully functional, or put a disclaimer on the side of the box. Besides, the drivers were only a small part of the problem. The main trouble they had was overly ambitious minimum specs. This was especially true with laptops, hence all the “Vista compatible” lawsuits. There were a myriad of other well documented flaws that had nothing to do with drivers either.
The impression I got is that someone was pressured to release Vista by a certain deadline instead of when it was ready. I also found it interesting that the top members of the Vista team abandoned ship almost immediately after launch. I used to have a link to the article, but it got lost somewhere along the way. The bottom line is that Vista was not ready when released, and even in its current form it is a marginal OS at best. In my opinion, it would tie as the worst MS OS along side DOS 5.1, Windows 1.0, and Windows 3.0.
Vista is somewhat of a moot point now any way. Once the economy recovers a bit more, and people discover Win 7, Vista will be just a bad memory.
Just a side, and somewhat related note. I have been using Microsoft Security Essentials for about a month now, and highly recommend it. I am no security expert, but by all reports it does a good job, and it runs almost invisibly. Even scans are not very taxing on the hardware. Much better than anything else I have tried so far.
Craig says:
October 24, 2009 at 7:09 am (UTC -7 )
Hi Loyd,
I have Windows 7 up and running now. I was running XP and was very happy with how smooth the process was. A lot was made of the fact that there wasn’t an easy path for people running XP to upgrade their systems, but that wasn’t my experience at all. I backed up all the files that I wanted to save to CDs and DVDs and then did the custom install. During the install I noticed that WIn7 backed up my documents and a bunch of other stuff to a folder called windows.old. After the install I checked and in that file I found all of my files that were in my XP MY DOCUMENTS folder had been saved for me. All I had to do was copy and paste them where I wanted. I also found in the windows.old folder a lot of programs that where still functional including my copy of WOW, which truly amazed me, as I was NOT looking forward to reinstalling that behemoth and all it’s updates. I don’t pretend to understand how the programs survived intact, but it seems like any thing you have in your MY DOCUMENTS folder will survive and thus save you from having to reinstall all of that stuff at least.
Yes, all my settings for folders and views were gone and stuff like that needed to be redone, but I looked at it this way-its a new OS-time to have fun and go exploring, see whats out there, and maybe find that there is a better way. After all you really didn’t want everything to look the same, right?
The only real issue I had was Win7 didn’t have a compatible driver for my Linksys USB wireless adapter, but all I had to do was install the one from my cd and all was good.
Have Fun and you doing a great job!
Craig says:
October 24, 2009 at 7:33 am (UTC -7 )
@tlmck
“MS seems to have got this one right, except for netbooks. That is unless they were trying to kill netbooks, in which case they may have succeeded.”
Not necessarily, I have read alot of articles in which people have Win7 up and running with no problems on netbooks. I’m not sure but Loyd may have written one about this all ready on another site.
tlmck says:
October 24, 2009 at 2:00 pm (UTC -7 )
Craig,
I was referring to my own experience of testing new model netbooks at the local Fry’s and Microcenter stores. These were from Acer and ASUS. All but one contained Atom N270 processors, 1gb ram, and Win 7 Starter. Performance of everything from launching a program to viewing a DVD via external drive was abysmal. Even the simple flash based games included as extras exhibited jerky performance.
The one exception was a 11.6″ Acer which had a dual core mobile Celeron, 2gb ram, and Win 7 x64 Home Premium. It was no speed demon either, but was noticeably faster than the others.
Now one could blame the Atom processor or 1gb ram, but Microsoft is the one who said that Win 7 would run fine on netbooks with these specs. I did test these against older models of the same machines running Win XP and there was no contest. We are talking 3-4 seconds to launch a program in XP vs. 12-15 seconds for Win 7. Also a similar difference in creating and saving a file in MS Works. The machines were not connected to the internet, so I could not test things like YouTube video, etc…
All I can say is that Microsoft has much lower standards than I do, and the netbook makers are hamstrung by licensing agreements. One can only hope that Google does a great job on Chrome OS, or somebody else comes up with something. Needless to say, I was all fired up about getting a netbook with Win 7. Now, not so much.
Craig says:
October 24, 2009 at 2:20 pm (UTC -7 )
Update on the linksys driver issue – It appears that linksys has really dropped the ball on this one. They have no drivers available for WIn7 at all. How is this possible?! Its not as if they were caught off guard by the release of Win7. For cryin’ out loud everyone and their brother knew when Win7 was going live! Truly shameful. Cisco should be embarassed. That one of the top networking companies would do this is unbelievable.
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