|
People BUY This Crap? (2/17/00)
|
 
|
| | |
Everyone knows that software "minimum system requirements" are an industry joke, right? The requirements listed on the box typically describe a computer that could, in theory, launch the software without crashing; it may run so slowly that you'd rather jam straight pins under your fingernails than try to use it, but it'll run. Microsoft, however, turns the act of crafting "minimum system requirements" into high art. Take Windows 2000, for example, whose listed requirements apparently reflect life in a parallel universe, where the passage of time does not exist. That's pretty much the only circumstance in which we can imagine that running Windows 2000 on a (giggle) 133 MHz Pentium is going to be observable, let alone usable.
And it seems that the real world agrees. According to a CNET article, Intel just admitted that the company "underestimated" the amount of processing power that Windows 2000 demands for adequate performance. They had to pony up an additional $50 million on hardware upgrades-- an unplanned and unwelcome expense tacked onto their total Win2K migration cost. Yes, Intel claims that people who "upgrade" a Windows NT 4.0 system to Win2K are generally going to want "up to 250 more megahertz of chip power" to get equivalent performance. Such a deal! Pay to upgrade to Win2K, and then pay again for a new processor-- all to get the performance you already had with NT 4. Where do we sign up?
Okay, sure, Intel sells chips, and they'd love to see everybody upgrade their processors to run Win2K, so they're not exactly an impartial source. But the Gartner Group recommends at least a Pentium II and 128 MB of RAM-- far above Microsoft's Pentium 133 / 64 MB claims. And Competitive Systems Analysts claims their testing shows that "PCs will need the equivalent of a 200 MHz processor upgrade to run Windows 2000 at the same performance level as Windows NT 4." And what does Microsoft say about this? We quote Craig Bellinson, the Win2K product manager: "According to independent tests... Windows 2000 Professional is up to... 24 percent faster than Windows NT Workstation 4.0 using current hardware configured with 64 MB of memory or higher." Fraudulence, thy name is Bellinson...
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (2106)
|  |
 |
 | | The above scene was taken from the 2/17/00 episode: February 17, 2000: Remember that supposed stock split everyone was talking about? Apple will be looking for a thumbs-up from investors in April. Meanwhile, Microsoft scrambles to deny that Bill Gates offered to open-source Windows to settle "Redmond Justice," and the Windows 2000 minimum system requirements were evidently penned by someone on some serious crack...
Other scenes from that episode: 2104: AAPL Split For My Baby (2/17/00) Here we are at the end of another Macworld Expo week, and you know what that means: Info Drought. You've seen it time and time again; whenever Steve delivers one of his famous keynotes, the Mac media manages to swamp itself with about eleventy-kajillion stories covering the same exact info, and that leads to a couple of problems... 2105: He Didn't Say What He Said (2/17/00) We know, we know-- things on "Redmond Justice" have slowed to a crawl recently. But don't tell us, tell the producers; most of the action is probably happening at the bargaining table, but ever since it was decreed that the settlement talks would not be televised, we poor drama fiends have been starving for the twists and turns of the good old days...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
