[Analysis] Microsoft Windows 7 Is Essentially Vista; But Smaller, Faster

April 30, 2009
Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

Roger Kay, President at Endpoint Technologies is optimistic about Windows 7. I'm not!

A little less than 2-years after the launch of the much hated Windows Vista, Microsoft is getting ready to launch its successor.

Windows 7 is expected to be pre-installed in consumers PCs as early as the end of summer, just in time for the back-to-school season.

Under the hood, Windows 7 is essentially Vista, according to Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay.

But for Kay, Windows 7 is better than Vista in important ways:

  1. Smaller footprint — The new OS takes up less disk space and runs with less main memory; part of the release surprise is the actual hardware specifications, which are similar to those for Windows XP, Vista’s less-resource-hungry predecessor.
  2. Faster — Everything is faster: boot time, application loading, overall performance.
  3. Quiescent — A lot of the old “chattiness” of Vista, particularly of user account control, is gone; the user interface stays out of your face and does what you tell it to do.
  4. More elegant — There are many fun and intuitive features that work well, stay in the background otherwise, and look good; the interface can be personalized more easily and to a greater degree.

Sounds like a MacOS me-too, right?

I’ll be testing the final release of Windows 7 soon on a Mac virtualized environment – just to fasten the comparison! – and will report back!

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Analyst: H-P Is No Direct Competitor To IBM

February 27, 2009
Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

Quite often these days, people compare the results and business models of IBM and Hewlett-Packard (H-P) as if they were direct competitors. In truth, they do compete in several key areas, notably enterprise hardware and services. But in other ways, they are very different beasts.

Services help smooth IBM revenues, profits

Under Sam Palmisano, IBM has transformed itself into an enterprise services-led company, with that
division accounting for $39.3 billion or 38% of the company’s $103.6 billion revenue in 2008.

By contrast, H-P, even with the EDS acquisition, derived only $22.4 billion or 18.9% of its $118.3 billion fiscal
2008 revenue from services.

In many cases, IBM’s services division pulls the company’s other groups along in its slipstream. When an IBM services sales team wins an enterprise customer with a complex set of requirements, it is often able to bring the hardware, software, and financing divisions along as well.

Services have a way of smoothing out a company’s revenue picture.  Long-term signings create a huge pile of deferred revenue, which comes in handy during lean years like this one.  IBM’s financials reflect the steadying nature of its large services business.

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Half Of Netbooks Returned; Good For E-Mail, Browsing But Not Video

November 3, 2008
H-P's mini is the latest netbook on the market. But will consumers keep it?

The mini is H-P's latest netbook. But will consumers keep it?

Rumour goes that half of all netbooks are being returned back to their manufacturers.

Early last month, Taiwanese PC maker MSI revealed that returns of netbooks was higher than regular notebooks, primarily because of Linux unease; Linux netbooks return rate was at least four times higher than Windows XP netbooks. And that’s “because they weren’t positioned properly in the first place,” says Roger Kay, President of Endpoint Technologies Associates.

“Netbooks are appropriate only for email, chat, browsing, shopping, information gathering.  Unfortunately, the killer application for consumers is video, and these things aren’t up to it,” confies Kay.

Intel Atom processor will always be a low performer to avoid cannibalizing its high-end chips

The analyst adds that netbooks are not just cheap notebooks; they’re a different class of machines. “And Intel wants to keep it that way because its higher priced, higher margin parts optimized for performance would otherwise be cannibalized,” prompts Kay.

So, are netbooks real? Sure there are according to Kay and one big driving factor is Intel’s Atom. “In order to make these new parts pay, Intel has to drum up a lot of volume for them.  But PC hardware OEMs [like Acer, Asus, Dell or H-P] are also seeing a way to keep the flow of consumer notebooks going with lower price points,” says the analyst.

There’s little doubt netbooks will be a hot item this holiday season. But the multi-billion dollar question is “will consumers keep them after being disappointed by their performance?”

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Analysis: Holiday Buyers Likely to Shift Towards $200 or Less Gadgets; Market Discontinuity Coming

October 13, 2008
Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

It’s a feeble wind that doesn’t blow some ill for everybody, and the worldwide economy has been sustaining gale force lately.  Even the tech sector, despite its arctic-grade insulation, is feeling the effects. Fat balance sheets, good cash flows, decent margins, and broad customer bases notwithstanding, the large tech vendors don’t have the wherewithal to keep out the cold.

Market discontinuity to hit Tech holiday season

So, it’s time for our inner fear and deep-seated greed to have a heart-to-heart talk and come quickly to the conclusion that this season will be like no other in recent times.  In the forecasting biz, we call it a “market discontinuity.”  That is, a break from the past.  We have been whistling our way past the memorial park quarter after quarter, but this time there’s no getting around it: accounts will have to be reckoned.

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