Claim: Microsoft earned $1.5B from "Vista Capable" PCs

An expert estimates Microsoft earned more than $1.5 billion through the sale of PCs labeled as "Vista Capable," according to a court document.

Microsoft allowed PC makers to label some XP-running PCs as "Vista Capable" prior to the release of the Vista operating system in early 2007.

The "Vista Capable" moniker has come under attack in a class action lawsuit because some PCs labeled as "Vista Capable" could only run the most basic version of the operating system. Plaintiffs argue that Microsoft "unjustly enriched" itself because the company artificially inflated demand for computers that could only run the most basic version of Vista.

[buddyro]

they earned $ 1.5B but how much was lost. Seeing that they are testing Windows 7 I think it was more then they gained.

[Fishy Fingers]

Correct me if I'm wrong, But Windows 7 is using the same new Kernel as Vista, there for it's nature evolution of the OS, the research and development costs of Vista are also part of Windows 7 (and future builds). They don't start each OS from scratch.

[Vecta]

They did not lose any money with Vista...On July 17, 2008, Microsoft announced that it had sold 180 million licenses, which would amount to between 36 and 57 billion dollars in gross retail sale price. Initial development of the software was claimed, by Microsoft, to be 6 billion dollars.

So no, despite what everyone says, Vista was far from a failure.

[DJ]

Were forced onto consumers through PC Vendors. It's nearly impossibly to find a PC on store shelves that runs XP, simply because Microsoft wants to charge more for Vista.

They simply didn't give anyone a choice.

Vista is a failure because consumers and businesses alike hate the OS. It's got huge RAM requirements (3GB is the bare minimum if you want good performance), huge CPU requirements, and worst of all has major glitches and driver issues.

For example, my Wacom suddenly stopped working last night (Vista says the driver is failing to load, which loads of help), and my printer and scanner still aren't supported. And my scanner actually has a Vista driver. Why it refuses to install properly is beyond me.

Other programs I have issues with on Vista are Vue 7 xStream 64-bit, Lightwave 9.5, Quickcam, and Zbrush.

[Viper7]

Guess I am one of the victims of this certification as my computer had Vista pre-installed and only 1gb of ram which is clearly not enough to make it "vista compatible". This kind of cheating clearly didnt improve my image of MS which is seriously on the side of negative atm.

Now I am weighting between the 2 bossibilities, a) uninstall vista and enjoy xp
b) upgrade ram and hope it will work atleast "decently" after that. Most likely doing the plan b as I like to atleast have atleast one gaming pc so might just bare with the OS for bossible Vista/W7 exclusives.

[Vecta]

Really? 99%? Maybe I should pull a random number out of my arse and state it for fact.

Everyone I know who runs Vista on their computers intentionally chose to run it. They all had the choice to run either it or XP and they chose Vista. Why? Because they all know its superior to XP. And saying that Vista requires 3gigs of Ram to run smoothly is kinda, you know, a bit exaggerated...

And Vista using up lots of CPU power? Wow were did you get that one from? I'm running a 3.0ghz duel core and sitting on the desktop and I open a few folder windows I'm using up 2% of my CPU. In fact if I spam open Firefox and Windows Explorer my CPU power being used doesn't reach higher then 25%.

And my tablet and Zbrush 3.1 run fine. Although I did have the driver on the Tablet stop working once, almost 6 months ago however.

However I can see your mind is made up about Vista.

But you wouldn't happen to have 64bit Vista?

[Viper7]

2GB is the "Minium" 4GB is the recommended so thats where ppl might get the 3gb as its between.

all the ppl I know that have vista have it only because it was pre-installed.
It is far from superior to XP, Xp with latest updates is really stable and light Operating system, and it still has superior hardware and software support compared to Vista. With good virus protection and firewall its even safe system.
so in what way Vista is superior?

looks and desktop effects? well maybe its pretty compared to XP but XP users tend to not care. If you want next generation desktops dont bother with windows, and use Linux or MAC instead.

Features? most of them are MAC rip offs and not essential. Probably with some additional software you can pretty much get them to XP as well.

As for only ones that I could safely recommend Vista (or wait to Windows 7) is the hard-core Pc gamers (Disincluding mmorpg gamers). For others, dont bother.

[Vecta]

Well most of those claims against Vista would be true if it was still mid 2007 or late 2006. But right now Vista is just as capable as XP in terms of running programs and drivers. I have yet to run into a program or Driver that does not run perfectly fine on my Vista computer in comparison to my XP computers.

Vista has increased support for my work over XP, has a far superior search feature and Start menu and supports the exFAT file system, among other things.

And of course theres the 'fluff' which is mostly useless (the Gadgets and Aero interface). But most people ignore that stuff anyway.

[Viper7]

"Vista has increased support for my work over XP, has a far superior search feature and Start menu and supports the exFAT file system, among other things."

I liked the Start menu of XP more, altough the search bar is handy to have around. Unfortunately it falls in to the gategory of nothing new as it was already introduced by mac.

However exFAT file system is one thing I am not unfamiliar with. Might be a bright exception.

Compatability of vista has improved, but as I said ppl dont usualy need to even think about combatability when using XP not to mention that many games still run better on XP or need less from the computer as Vista takes a good partion of the performance(not an issue for high end computers).

[evrfighter]

That probably had to have been a really unfortunate experience to have to put up with vista with 1gb of ram. While M$ probably did pull in a profit they lost more of their OS marketshare to Apple.

Now first off don't go around thinking Apple and M$ are going toe to toe when it comes to marketshare. Not to long ago I believe M$ still had around low 90% of the OS market.

It's just that Apple is slowly chipping this number away. While I agree with fishy fingers that Vista R&D goes to benefit win7 as well. You can't forget companies like Dell and other custome pc builders have had to bring back the option to downgrade to XP on their new pc's and laptops at an additional charge because the demand is there. But even then that downgrade still counts as a sale for Vista. your just buying xp at that additional charge

[Sonyslave3]

wow $$$$

[riksweeney]

I can imagine they did. I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago and it came with Vista, which I promptly deleted.

[Godmars290]

People can't/didn't return pre-installed software.

[thereapersson]

Whenever I would go to stores, I would toy around with some of the new, Vista-ready PC's and laptops. A lot of them chugged along, especially a lot of the laptops that had higher-end versions of the OS installed.

[SixAmpFuze]

what a stupid lawsuit if the pcs could run the basic version then by saying vista capable then MS did nothing wrong it is the same as every other company saying something is $99 but after you actually look at the price its 200 with a 100 rebate I hate that

[Scarfy]

"Microsoft earned $1.5B from "Vista Capable" PCs"

Aye. But Vista cost Microsoft upwards of $5B to make...

[Vecta]

You clearly dont understand what was meant. Company's PAID Microsoft to put that sticker on their PCs. The amount they got from company's was around 1.5b.

This has nothing to do with Vista sales.

[DJ]

Because Microsoft counts every license shoved into the PC market, most of it through Vendors like Dell and HP. The fact that Microsoft puts more emphasis on "Licenses Sold" than "Active Installations" shows that they still think Vista was a marketing failure, not a quality failure. And this is the crux of the problem.

[evrfighter]

The "Vista Ready" sticker was actually pretty marketable until not too long ago. This sticker made them 1.5b and almost all hardware manufacturers used it until recently. I remember seeing this sticker on the top quality hardware brands like OCZ, Gskill, Corsair, Seagate, Viewsonic. These past few months though their products no longer advertise "Vista Ready"

Your right in that Vista is no longer marketable and M$ is longer trying to save it. When they saw that Vista was made out to be some sort of bad guy. They knew it couldn't be saved. If win 7 is as resource optimized as benchmarks are showing they really don't have much to worry about. Based off the benchmarks I myself am really looking forward to 7.

[die_fiend]

"action lawsuit because some PCs labeled as "Vista Capable" could only run the most basic version of the operating system."

So it is Vista Capable? Did people want Microsoft to label them 'Vista capable (at maximum settings)' cos that sounds lame. If you can run Vista on it then it's Vista capable. Can't see how you can sue someone just because they labeled PC's that could just run Vista as Vista capable (cos that's what they are)

[Lord Anubis]

the most basic vista is pretty much windows XP.