XP and Vista question

[Josh Mellicker]

I was just about to post that same link.

The paper, a dry, pictureless but very informative and cleverly  
written tome called "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content  
Protection", describes troubles with the Content Protection  
specification of Vista, Microsoft’s next operating system.


Here is the "Executive Executive Summary":

     "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well  
constitute the longest suicide note in history."


Ostensibly, professional media applications, like editing, motion  
graphics and audio applications from Adobe, Avid/DigiDesign, Discreet  
and many other Windows developers will somehow be able to bypass or  
disable this protection scheme, but it might be such a laborious  
process that some developers will lean towards OS X or Linux, or, if  
cross-platform, drop the Vista version.

Adobe has already announced that the next versions of Premiere,  
Encore and other previously Windows-only apps will also be released  
on OS X.

Or, Microsoft could come to their senses and greatly modify this spec.

But, if the predictions made in this document are true, it could make  
professional media production systems based on Vista *more expensive*  
than equivalent performance OS X systems, due to needing more  
powerful CPUs and GPUs, and faster busses to provide the same speed,  
meaning the 50% of digital media pros who use Windows might have to  
re-evaluate to cut costs when it comes time to upgrade their hardware.

Historically, digital media pros who use Windows systems do so either  
because of Windows-only software or because they were more cost- 
effective.

Like you, I believe digital media is the future, and so a mutiny to  
OS X by digital media pros will lead a "sea change" that subtly,  
imperceptibly, will tilt the platform away from Vista.



On Apr 9, 2007, at 2:31 AM, Martin Blackman wrote:

> Not sure if this link has already been posted but here is a
> fascinating analysis of the costs & repercussions of Vista's DRM
>
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#author
>
> There are many nice quotes in the article, here is just one-
> "Because Windows dominates the market and device vendors are unlikely
> to design and manufacture two different versions of their products,
> non-Windows users will be paying for Windows Vista content-protection
> measures in products even if they never run Windows on them."
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