Vista and Core 2 DUO

Well, what can I say, I’m back. During the times when this blog was dormant there have been so many movements and innovations and even accidents that the tech world has encountered (all that in about 3 months). Basically there is a good and rather blissful vibe in the tech world today, there’s good news here and there and some of the not-so-good news too (like exploding batteries). It’s like the two leading companies in computing is actually doing things rightly (well, it is safe to say that they are not doing things as they used to do, and that’s good especially with Bill’s MS). Both Intel and Microsoft have released some of the best products in the market so far, Core 2 DUO and Windows Vista are both having great reviews from both common users and tech people. Just last night I spoke to the people in a chatroom in yahoo, they have laid their hands on the latest Windows Vista RC2, the so-called ultimate beta (more like the tallest midget for me LOL!), and I got surprise to hear that they are actually praising the newest Windows release (knowing that they are fans of Linux and Mac and one of the harshest critics of Windows).

They say that Windows Vista is far more stable than Windows XP Pro SP2, some even predict that there will only be a few fixes for the Operating system and no major Service Pack will be released. If all this remains as it is, then Microsoft has struck a gold mine with this kind of initiative and it’s quite good; it’s nice to know that they are actually thinking of improving our computing experience. So, what can I say about this Vista raves? One thing, in my opinion eventhough Vista is quite pleasing and so far it has delivered major improvements for the Windows product line, these features come with a very high price tag (I think about double of the premium Windows XP license). And let’s face it not all computers will actually be able to run Vista with all the eye-candy. A regular PC right now only meets the minimum requirements for running Vista.

I think that Vista will be delivered on time but, its effects will be quite slow and the transition from XP to Vista will be quite costly. One more issue that I see that will hinder Vista from entering the Asian market would be the enhanced Anti-Piracy module in the OS. In my opinion more and more people will be annoyed by this “anti-privacy” step of Microsoft, remember how these measures were met by XP users? Windows Vista seems to be promising, but do the regular Joe and the big corporations really feel that they need to upgrade their OS? And how will the underground community welcome this new OS? How many viruses and exploits can this new OS handle? And how will Vista perform in the real-world stress test as a primary operating system? These questions still remains unanswered, all we can do is to wait and see.

Now, let’s look at the newest and, as Intel says it, the best Chip in town; Core 2 DUO. Well, after about 3 years of getting beat-up by rival AMD in the CPU race, Intel has unleashed a beast, well an energy saving beast. Core 2 DUO processors have been in the lead for about a few months already, it’s nothing but great reviews for this chip. Superb performance and lesser energy in-take that’s quite good, but this chip also has a “good” price tag, about double of the regular AMD chip. And as we all know, AMD has kept its market share in the chip industry by plunging the prices of their chips and introducing ground breaking features for their chips. This is one thing that is affecting the “Core DUO wave” from shattering AMD’s brand line. But, what is AMD thinking of doing next, now that Intel has released a powerful chip?

So, far all they did is to, again, dive prices and introduce AM2 technology (which is not that much a threat to Intel’s Core DUO), I think AMD is yet to release another trick out of its sleeves. What it is, we still don’t know. But surely, it’s bound to benefit us users. So, what my take in this entire Intel wave”? Well, the new chip seems promising but the price tag isn’t, this is going to be a big factor for the greater number of Intel consumers, users are not really into the big scores thing anymore, for the greater chunk of users it’s all about the price tag that comes with the upgrade. And this will also be the deciding factor for business establishments all around the world. There is also no Operating system and programs that are optimized for Core DUO yet, well until Windows Vista is released. But most common users will not be too thrilled by this new chip, after all it’s all about the price.             

Bottom line, these two new technologies are quite good but they are still very pricy that’s not so good for these companies because their biggest market shares lie on the middle-income earners. Gamers and PC enthusiasts are but a small piece of that pie, if Intel does not see this trend immediately they just might loose more of their market shares to their rival AMD with their price tag strategy. But, let’s wait and see what people will think of this new chip when Vista comes out.