Tags: microsoft, vista, Windows, CTP, Community Technology Preview.
Over the weekend, CNET published their Thursday discussion with Jim Allchin, the co-president of the platform products and services division. Interestingly, they brought along a number of questions submitted by CNET News.com readers.
A number of people asked about requirements for Windows Vista, and if it will run on today’s PCs, especially when considering the graphics requirements. Jim said…
“We gave general requirements earlier, and this is going to take me a little bit longer to explain. The general requirements we say are 512 megs of memory or up. And I can’t remember the actual processor level. And that we would run in scale the functions of the operating system based on the power that was there. My general view is the more memory, the better. I would say that’s independent of Windows Vista. XP runs better that way and Vista will continue run better. Processor performance isn’t as much as an issue on any of these systems.
“Today’s product that you’re buying, in general, has sufficient processing power. We are pushing the graphics on these systems, and we haven’t finalized exactly how low a system will be able to have the Glass effect on. Hopefully within a few months, we’ll be able to say exactly how low. But if you have gaming systems today, those types of gaming systems will certainly run all of the Vista system on it. The concept: We’re going to try to scale the features to the system that’s there. So if you’re buying the system today and you have a reasonable amount of memory, then Vista will run on it. If you add more, you’ll just get more capabilities.”
You can learn more about the general PC hardware requirements for Windows Vista, see more info for enterprises and the very striking, still-in-process Windows Vista Home Page. I particularly like the layout of the Windows Vista Wiki which clearly outlines the hardware requirements. Most of the popular configurations we see today on general purpose PCs meet the minimum bar, which as noted on the wiki includes…
A somewhat lower bar than originally reported in the press.
Tags: microsoft vista Windows jim allchin
Last week I wrote on my personal blog about how I wanted to see more on-demand tv (I try to keep my personal editorials on MySpaces). When it comes to technical content, Microsoft.com offers a great selection in our archive of on-demand webcasts; a large number of TechNet and MSDN webcasts included in the archive. For our customers, it’s great because you can easily search the complete archive by audience (whether you’re an IT Pro, a home PC user, a developer…), Microsoft product and event type (in-person, live or on-demand webcasts).
For instance, I did a search for On-Demand Webcasts for All Audiences related to Windows XP 64-Bit Edition and found the The .NET Show: Win64 from last June, where Larry Sullivan, Volker Will and Kevin Frei talk about the move to 64-bit and what it might mean to your development efforts.
I enjoy music downloads from MSN Music, as well as radio plus for streaming music. I would really like to see MSN offer unlimited downloads as Napster and Yahoo do today. And the real benefit will come when I can view (and perhaps download) shows we miss at home from http://tv.msn.com/. <rant on> We were able to find and purchase a missed episode of one NBC show on (gasp) iTunes, which wasn’t very straight forward, with the video clips selection somewhat hidden in the iTunes UI. I’d rather download the shows in WMV format rather than QuickTime — and with the clean msn TV UI — so I might have increased availability of the show on my Windows devices. You’d think that with the relationship MSN has with NBC that we’d be proactive in the space. If Dateline can offer a video gallery on MSNBC.Com, then why not allow downloading of clips, even with DRM?</rant>
BTW, given the rainy weekend in Seattle, here’s a little light reading from Steven Sinofsky on what is a Program Manager (PM) at Microsoft. I have great respect for him and his work in the IW business group, and I have seen how he and his group make customer satisfaction a priority in Office. I wanted to call attention to this blog post again as the PM has a close partnership with the development team, sales & marketing and management teams, and provide a “listen and respond” channel for customer feedback and suggestions (which is also a requirement of product managers in SV) in the product lifecycle. As noted, Steven says that the PM is “the advocate for end-users and customers.”
I come from Silicon Valley where the Product Manager is the closest thing many companies have to a Microsoft PM. Steven asserts in his comments that there is a closer tie to in the “associate product manager” title in SV. I disagree, having managed product management teams there, that the role is more of the classic product manager and that additional tasks are being added to the associate role, but that is splitting hairs.
The work that he eludes to in our career framework is truly different in many ways from how companies in the Valley think about the role than we do at Microsoft, but there are a greater number of common denominators in MS PMs and product managers than there are differences – but that is my opinion based on my work in smaller, lighter organizations (vs the 60,000+ at MS) where product managers wore several hats filled by multiple roles in MS. And given Chris_Pratley’s comment on how there has been an incredible “increasing complexity of solutions” I believe that we will see more and more companies — especially as they grow — adding MS PM-type roles in their own organizations to deal with the scope of the project.