Firefox's new browser is a hit

While still not as ubiquitous as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's new Firefox 3.5 browser was just released yesterday and is off to a great start. The browser was met with mostly positive reviews. Reuters stated, "There's no doubt that version 3.5 of Firefox is significantly faster than version 3...All in all, this is a major improvement over Firefox 3. Even if you're not currently a Firefox user, you'll want to give it a try."

CNET was slightly more measured commenting, "Firefox 3.5 is a much-needed improvement to the world's most popular alternative browser... While some of the improvements, such as the HTML5 and other developer enhancements will continue to make the browser their first choice, many of the other changes merely keep it in-line with the competition."

At the end of the day, though, Firefox 3.5's hot new features like HTML5 support and a faster JavaScript engine won over users. Downloads were blazing at 100 per second for much of the day yesterday. Mozilla's servers performed admirably under the load.

The new browser hit 1 million downloads within a couple hours and 2 million downloads in 7 and 1/2 hours. By this morning it had 4.3 million downloads. You can view the progress yourself on the download tracker found here.

The U.S. leads the world with 1.1 million downloads, with Germany in second with 496,000 downloads.

While the new Firefox is certainly very popular, it failed to surpass its own Guinness World record set by Firefox 3, which recorded 8 million downloads worldwide in 24 hours. Firefox also faces reinvigorated competition -- Apple claims that 11 million copies of its new Safari were downloaded in 3 days, and Opera is gearing up for a big 10.0 release.


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums

Analyst lavishes both praise and criticism on Microsoft

Microsoft announced its Windows 7 pricing yesterday, and today began accepting preorders for the new OS. The preorder program in the U.S. offers a cheaper OS than Vista or XP, with the Home Premium upgrade only costing $49.99. Yet some analysts are looking at the glass half empty and have gone on the record to publicly reprove Microsoft.

Stephen Baker, Vice President of Industry Analysis for The NPD Group wrote a blog post on Thursday analyzing the release of Windows 7 information. He began with some words of praise for Microsoft, exalting, "A+ for timing pricing, and for ensuring that this will be the smoothest transition within the industry of any Windows OS upgrade yet."

Then he shifted gears, though, and turned to criticism. He chidingly remarked that to praise Windows 7 for being more affordable than Windows Vista would be "damning with faint praise". The key problem, he argues, is that after the two week pre-order program (or when supplies run out), the base price of the OS jumps to $119.99 for a Home Premium upgrade in the U.S.

He remarks, "No discussion about Microsoft ever leaves everyone happy. In this case I am mightily disappointed in a couple of aspects of Microsoft's upgrade plans for non-PC buyers. First, is the pricing on the Windows 7 home Premium upgrade. Besides the fact that $119 is a price point that fits nowhere in these economic times, it is still way too much for the software."

Mr. Baker also was less than a fan of the fact that Microsoft did not announce whether it would be offering multiple licenses per purchase, or presumably a signle license. He states, "In a world (at least in the U.S.) where most opens are moving into a multiple PC environment, it would enhance the consumer home experience if they could upgrade all their home PCs at a single low price with a single boxed purchase. Although I don't think it is exactly equivalent, Apple's Snow Leopard pricing model ($29 for a one user license and $49 for a five user license) is much more appropriate to driving adoption and raising customer satisfaction levels. This is a direction I would have much preferred to see Microsoft head into."

In the end, whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Baker, even the strongest Microsoft proponents must concede that Windows 7 is obviously pricier than Apple's Snow Leopard -- which weighs in at $29.99 compared to Windows 7's $119.99 October base price (or $49.99 preorder). If Apple allowed an open market on hardware, this might indeed be damning to Microsoft, but as the situation stands Apple's hardware (particularly its desktops) generally remains much pricier.

While Apple has its allures -- its lower OS price point, slim form factors, light weight laptops, multiboot, and long battery life -- will that be enough to steal away Microsoft customers and convince them to buy Apple's pricey products? Or will Microsoft's lower hardware prices and strong base user appeal with its Direct X gaming libraries, free antivirus software, strong file system, virtualization, and more convince users to overlook the OS sticker and go PC?


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums

New tool is intended to help businesses and customers quickly assess which systems are ready for Windows 7

With every OS launch a certain number of customers with older hardware will inevitably be left behind. For novice users, or for professionals administering large deployments, the confusion of figuring out which hardware will meet the upgrade requirements can be a headache. With Microsoft's hot new OS, Windows 7, set to release on October 22, Microsoft is looking to remove any such obstacles that might put a damper on the launch.

Microsoft has released the beta version of a toolkit which will help users determine whether their computers are Windows 7 worthy. The tool, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit, version 4.0, will also look at your machine's compatibility with Windows Server 2008, and other software products, including Microsoft Office 2007. The tool also provides advice about virtualization, power saving opportunities, and security vulnerabilities.

Baldwin Ng, senior product manager at Microsoft elaborates, "It performs key functions that include hardware and device inventory, hardware compatibility analysis, and generation of actionable, environment-specific IT proposals for migration to most major Microsoft technologies."

MAP is available via the TechNet website. Limitations include only being available for a limited set of newer Windows OS's -- Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows XP Professional Edition (if you don't have one of these on a bootable partition, you can't run the tool). The tool provides reports in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Currently, users can also check their compatibility by downloading the Windows 7 Release Candidate and installing it for free. The RC build will work until June 1, 2010.

Windows 7 sports an improved interface, new features, more speed at many common tasks, and a smaller memory and disk footprint. Microsoft is hoping the slick new OS will wash away the critical attitude the public developed for Windows Vista. DailyTech has detailed many of the hardware and software changes showcased in the Release Candidate build.


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums