Gates Defends Windows Vista, Looks Ahead

People waited in long lines Sunday to hear the Microsoft chairman make his last big address here at the Consumer Electronics Show. In an interview with the Seattle P-I before his speech, Gates talked about the future of technology and discussed his plans as he prepares to go part time at the company later this year.

He also defended Microsoft's year-old Windows Vista operating system from critics and credited Nintendo's Wii game console for its approachability -- saying he expects Microsoft to "match that and do better."

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

100 million sold

[Bill Gates]

And every last one of them is defective just like the 360.....AHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHHHHA H

[BrianC6234]

""I think a lot of people would say it was the best new product of the year in terms of the neat, new things they're using in it. "

Neato. All the cool things we're using in it. Right. Vista is crap. I removed it from my home desktop and reinstalled XP and Linux. It's still on my laptop but I'm not happy with IE crashing all the time. My wireless connection seems to drop off a lot too. I'm not sure if that's Vista but it does happen. I don't see anything neat enough to make me recommend Vista.

Wow, two people must actually like Vista since I have two disagrees. Are you two Xbots or something?

[Account deleted]

i agree with you, i had the same problem, now i have my windows xp back and btw try firefox, i find it a million times better than ie, can't wait 'till the release of firefox 3....

[BrianC6234]

I use Firefox and IE7 both. Just depends on which I feel like using. Sometimes things don't work right. I have a Vista laptop and the biggest problem is Flash player crashes IE7 a lot. That's really annoying.

[Bonsai1214]

so 100 million people are using vista? i would have guessed from the reviews and reaction that it would be a lot less.

and from what i garner from the reading, they're already working on a new windows, perhaps they know that the current version isn't up to par?

[nice_cuppa]

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo.

warning !

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo.

fanboys posting news again.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

100 million sold

[Kyur4ThePain]

It's 100 million forced onto moms and pops who don't have the savvy to do anything about it.
That's like saying I support Goodyear just because my car came with their tires.

Sorry, but you and I know that if PCs were sold as a clean slate, MS wouldn't have sold half that number as most people would opt for XP, if not some other OS.

[Zhuk]

I've come from working with IT and simply put people prefer the Windows OS and GUI over the competitors. "Mom and Pops" want familiarity and the last thing they need to happen is to be confused by switching to another style of Operating System.

I have seen countless people make switch to Linux or an alternative OS and then switch back to Windows within a month because they find out that because nerds on the internet who trump Linux/MacOSX act like the grass is greener on the other side it really isn't, they are fooled by their own biases.

Windows offers the best Operating System on the market and its rivals simply can't compare with the ease of use, functionality and productivity that it gives to its users.

[IntelligentAj]

It's rare that I agree with Zhuk but he's got a point. Vista has it's problems but you all forget it was the same way with XP. Vista will be widely adopted in about 2-3 years. The service patches will come and Vista will improve so stop Bit**in.

[Prismo_Fillusion]

Windows Vista sales don't count just like Wii Sports sales don't count.

[Zhuk]

Windows Vista is selling great, already hitting the 100 million user milestone. Vista is the most advanced OS ever created and its combination of functionality and advanced technology is paralleled. As for criticism of the OS Vista has made significant progress in the past 12 months and I have been able to get every single game and program working on it flawlessly.

Also I do remember clearly the response from the IT community about the switch to XP over 2k, most sys admins were against it and did not like XP, the same with power users. It took time for the OS to mature to a point where the power users were happy to switch over and this will occur with Vista as the service packs are rolled out

[Kyur4ThePain]

You mean it took time for MS to release versions of their other program suites that would not work with anything other than XP, thus forcing people to move to XP.

I expect the same to happen again soon.

[kr9091]

...Im pretty sure Leopard is the most advanced :] But nice try Zhuk.

[Zhuk]

I feel sorry for these fandroids, they're so delusional. I'll explain why your reasoning is flawed

Sure the US government is a large customer, however out of 100 million users it is only a small percentage of that base, as the US government. Only around 23 million people work in governments in the United States, that is combining Federal, State and Local governments, and all those people do not have a computer or out of the millions of computers governments use in the United States, only a fraction of them have made the switch. Also, depending on which departments have made the switch over, it will take a few years for there to be a complete upgrade to the Vista platform. The consumer and business markets overall still represents the large part of Vista's sales area.

[Account deleted]

i am just curious, i think you're Australian, aren't you? yet you're so informed about the spread of windows vista in official us offices, i am impressed, you must do a lot of research, i admire your dedication :p
but all of this doesn't still make vista a good system especially for gaming because it isn't. Have a look the pcmark tests of the same game on the same pc on windows vista and on windows xp with *cough*directx 10 enabled*cough* and you'll see the difference, and anyway if they are counting vista copies bundled with pcs in their sales, they should subtract one because i formatted vista and installed xp, i wonder how many poeple did the same....

[bootsielon]

100 million PSOnes and 120 milion PSTwos have indeed been marvelous feats, but when you own a monopoly and considering that in this era computers are a necessary good, then 100 million Windows Vistas are indeed overwhelming. Especially if you consider that each new computer sale is a potential Vista buyer.

[Kyur4ThePain]

Why bring the PS into this?
Let's keep this one clean, shall we?

[RonDeMuerte]

ok where are these people cause I do not know anyone that uses Windows Vista.....

[bigmoney617]

yeah typical fanboy responce...

and who bought PS into this, too bad sony does not have 90% of the desktop marketshare...I'm not even gonna go into why windows continue to dominate, bill speaks for himself.

funny fanboys kids talking business..

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

100 million sold and "growing"

[Maddens Raiders]

did you get bladstar's permission for that pic?

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

You been missing all the good fanboy fights. Last week it was the PS3 fans on the rampage and this week of course is the Xbox fans turn.

This is for them not you "100 million in a year sold and growing"

[jaja1434]

Wonder why everyone complains about Vista so much. Works just fine on the computer I just built. *shrug*

Someone mentioned IE but really if your still using IE then I'll pretty much ignore any tech comment from you. Sorry, but you should know better!

[IGNFTW]

HE LOST ALL CREDIBILITY WHEN HE SAID VISTA IS GREAT FOR GAMING

[joemomma]

If they had terminated their failed xbox then they would have had more funds to spend on vista. But unfortunatly since they were so busy with both they both came out terrible.