Microsoft Unveils Windows 7, RIP Vista: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer October 29, 2008

Microsoft introduced Windows 7, officially ending the poor Vista years. The seventh incarnation of Windows is expected to be a slimmer, more responsive operating system. The folks at Redmond have not announced when Windows 7 will hit the market.

CW and CBS Paramount Network TV may revive Melrose Place. A revival of the famed Aaron Spelling drama from the 1990's, which enjoyed success alongside 90210, is currently in the early stages of development. Studio execs are hoping that an updated Melrose Place will score big opening numbers, much like the revived 90210 did in September.

Google reached an agreement with publishers and authors which will allow it to move forward with its book-scanning effort. Google will pay $125 million to settle two copyright lawsuits and will now be able to make money off of making out-of-print books available online. Google will share a portion of ad rev, book sales and other fees with authors and publishers.

WideOrbit, the leader in revenue management systems for the global media industry received $10 million in growth financing. The series was led by Mayfield Fund, and also included Khosla Ventures, Greycroft Partners and the Hearst Corporation. WideOrbit will use the funds to further develop its core business of providing sales, traffic and billing software solutions that empower media companies around the world.

LinkedIn will go live with third party apps today. The LinkedIn Intelligent Applications platform (InApps) was designed to let companies develop professional applications for LinkedIn's over 30 million members. Apps from Amazon, box.net, Google, Huddle, Six Apart and WordPress will be among the first to roll out on the new platform.

Plus, today's consulting question, "What's Up With All the Ad Networks?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at [e-mail]

Follow Shelly Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@shelly_palmer

Comments

[strick9]

If you wish to break the Microsoft addiction I have included a link to a free replacement for the Microsoft operating system. You can download free or buy a low cost DVD. You can try a, "Live,” version you can run from the disk without installing it on your computer. The KDE interface is similar to windows so transition is not too difficult. The full version includes an Office Suite compatible with windows files and a browser for the Internet. Firefox and Opera are customizable full-featured browsers which I prefer and are also available on line.


http://www.opensuse.org/en/

[TheVicar]

Translation from Microsoft-speak:

"Oh, crap, we thought you idiots would buy anything we threw at you. After all, you bought the idea that DOS and Windows were superior to Unix and the Mac back in the 1990s. Dammit, while we were busy coming up with money-losing ideas like the Zune and competing with Google, it turns out we started losing market share to Apple on the Desktop, Firefox on the web, and OpenOffice in the workplace. This wasn't supposed to happen! You were supposed to mindlessly pay for upgrades, and new computers to run them, every two years, like you did since 1985!

"Well, you may have started getting a little smarter, but our experience shows that you can't tell the difference between a product launch and a product preview. So we're issuing a press release with a bunch of video clips and slides from our art department, which will bear no resemblance to the final product. We know there will be enough idiots out there in our customer base for this to stop the bleeding for a while. Have fun waiting for Windows Vista The Way We Said It Would Be To Begin With, which will be a year late and still not deliver anything we promised, suckers!"

[DRaymond]

Slow down there guys. Are your memories so short that you can't remember how long it was between XP's first announcement and ship? Or Vista's? or even Windows 95? By the time Windows 7 ships Vista will be on its third service pack, will run superbly on then-current hardware, and the folks who love to grumble will be grumbling at the lack of driver and software support.

[jouster]

If WIndows 7 is a good product then the best thing Microsoft could do for their reputation would be to give a free copy to every victim who purchased a computer with Vista or a Vista upgrade.

[vincefango]

That's what I'm talking about!! But I bet MS won't do a damn thing about it. If only OS's were a political topic...ma­ybe we could get things done...sha­me them into fixing their broken system, wasting our money and legally ripping us off. Either that or we gotta start buying Macs out of spite.

[SeenItBefore]

Exactly! We little people of tiny propellor-­headedness just want the darn things to do the basic job we paid to have them do. I do not care of what tensile steel my hammer's shaft is, or the exact compounding of neoprene in it's grip... I want the tool to drive a nail and seat it properly. I have no need for a hammer that can turn itself on at night and download pictures of potential new nails it might drive in the morning. Or one that let's a Micro-shaft techie wander through at will when I'm on line. I like cookies, but only with milk... ya hear that, Billy!

[Yermammy]

That's why Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did the splitsville. Bill is anal and wanted super complex with lots of bells and whistles and Steve wanted rugged and straightforward OS architecture. Like mainframes and workstations have. Quit messing around with stupid ass Windows and get a Mac. There isn't as many programs (yet), but you can find a TON of FREE open source programs on the Web for ANY application you can imagine. F#ck a bunch of Office. You can get 15 alternatives to that noise and they are free or very little $$ shareware. When the trolls here put a virus laden link to lure you there, I go there with impunity. F#ck a virus. I got a MAC!

[1rewd1]

The bigger issue here is that the days of consumers waiting on bated breath for the next best OS are long gone. If it gets the job done then it could be 20 years old for all I care.

[NWBrunette]

Interesting how MS "introduced" Windows 7 but they're not saying when it might be available. Whatever the date finally turns out to be don't buy the product for at least 18 months after that. It'll take at least that long for them to fix the major bugs.

[sherrzinpa]

Thank GOD!!!! I was sooooo dissapointed with Vista.

[yert33]

Thank God! Vista was like Windows ME: BAd, bad, bad

[Mormon4Truth]

Vista ran fine, but my work in on xp, my home laptop on vista, and the family computer is a mac. But everytime I logged on to Vista, I had a brain freeze like "okay, what do I do?"

For a middle-aged white guy that is already angry at everything in the world, I was concerned about going unab***mber. (Note: I self-censored that because I meant to express a frustration, not a desire to undertake a physical action.)

[oldGunny]

I've never had any problems with XP

[MajorKong]

I must be the one person on the planet who hasn't had any problems with Vista.

[drumz]

If you have enough memory (2gb min) you will be alright if you don't mind all the pop-ups reminding you of what you have done or are about to do.

[Changeling]

I haven't either, but it's still a bloated resource hog that was rushed to market at least 6 months too soon.

[walk0nwalls]

You're not alone but most people expect to be able to run a base operating system on low-end machines and Vista is such a towering behemoth of a memory eater that frankly, most people have bad times with it.

[Darthwave]

Johnny is more like DOS 6.22.

[Yermammy]

Or PONG.

[Yermammy]

If MicroSoft wasn't trying to be all Rethug, they'd have made a more usable OS in the first place. I haven't tried one of the hybrids yet, but I do know that Macintosh's RULE. You truly do get what you pay for. My machine (Mac Pro Quad Workstation: Leopard 10.5 OS, 4 Duo Core Xenon Processors, 8 Gig Ram, 1 Terra HD, Twin GPU's) is actually CHEAPER than a comparable Dell Workstation (with a stupid Window OS). It's like the difference between a diesel and a gas engine. The diesel's are far more robust.

Barack is a Mac
Johnny is Windows
Need I say more...

[drumz]

MAC belongs in the graphic departments only. Programs are developed for MAC AFTER the PC and sometimes not at all.

It all depends on what you are comfortable with and what your intended use is. I prefer PC's as a developer because I can get into the guts and make changes plus I have a right click on my mouse which has a slew of customizations that I have created - MAC's can't do that and not to mention the fact that there are way more programs to choose from. VIsta sucks but XP, 2000 and NT are very robust. I have a feeling that 7.0 will be better than Vista but the jury is out as far as competing with the others.

Diesels vs gas is a stupid analogy because gas burns cleaner and the engines are faster.

[walk0nwalls]

Pretty much all they need to do is make a low-grade, low system resource OS and they can call it a day, that's ALL people ask for from an OS.

[Yermammy]

You better check yourself, before you wreck yourself! Ha Ha! If you don't know thermal efficiency and the BTU conversion factor, which make diesel fuel VASTLY superior to gas, well, why in hell would you know jack about a workstation? Your funny! :) What do you think the SR-71 Mach 4 spy plane runs on? 91 octane gas? Hee hee! It runs on kerosene, fool, and does it quite well, I might add. As far as your silly diatribe about graphics, that so old news, it's not even funny no mo. Plus, whatever program that isn't available commercially ($$$) is available for FREE open source from many many intelligent people that write their OWN programs! Go back to the sandbox and play with someone your own age, fool.

[iamnumba1]

I would have to agree. From a development standpoint, XP is great. Microsoft has many other technologies that people are not aware of that are highly functional and efficient. There used to be a myth that only MACS could run intense music production software, but my laptop running Vista runs it fine.

Also, I have website with analytics enabled. 90% of my visitors on any given day reach my site using Internet Explorer. From a business standpoint, you cater to your larger audience. In this case, most of my audience uses Internet Explorer, not Safari. So, for any web developers out there, I suggest testing primarily in IE Explorer (which is better at web page rendering) before Safari, Opera, Firefox (sucks) , Flock, or Chrome.