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Dell Warns of Vista Upgrade Challenges
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Jul 05, 2007 09:24 AM
from the if-not-putting-on-the-brakes-at-least-getting-off-the-accelerator dept.
from the if-not-putting-on-the-brakes-at-least-getting-off-the-accelerator dept.
Mattaburn writes with a story up on ZDNet UK reporting that Dell is warning businesses of the migration challenges that lie ahead as they move to Vista. The article notes what an unusual step it is for a company of Dell's size to be "toning down its sales pitch for Microsoft's Vista operating system" — particularly because "one of the issues the hardware vendor is warning business about is the extra hardware they will need to buy." Quoting: "'They need to be looking at the number of images they will be installing and the size of these images,' said Dell's European client services business manager, Niall Fitzgerald. 'A 2GB image for each user will have a big impact.'"
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so what will this mean... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:so what will this mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time Microsoft stops supporting XP, the costs for hardware will probably have dropped to the point where Vista capable hardware is affordable.
Parent
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Machines I have that have Vista on them:
4+ year old gaming rig: Athlon 2Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, sound blaster, ATI Radeon 9600, small hard drive. Today's cost is about $400 for a whole unit from online retailers.
3 year old work laptop (Dell Latitude): Pentium M 1.7Ghz, 2GB RAM, bad video, bad sound, small and slow hard drive. Cost $1800 new (or thereabouts).
0 year old wife's PC: Core 2 Duo 2.13Ghz, 2GB RAM, on-board sound, old Nvidia
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Do you have any idea how many small businesses - not big corporations that routinely swap out machines every three years because they've amortized them out - are running on four, five, six, seven year old machines that are perfectly fine for office workers with XP? Or that almost all office machines not used for video editing are probabl
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Why would you be purchasing new XP licenses. If one of your machines dies, you can use its license on the next machine. At worst, you'd have to call Microsoft and explain. If you have a volume license, you don't even need to call MS, you just install XP on the new box.
That's not going to happen for a long time. Heck, most of the hardware I
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Are you sure? Windows 98 hacked to run Firefox would probably work too. I use a VM based on that combo for a disposable browser that fits on a small thumb drive.
Re:so what will this mean... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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On the other hand, it could be worse - we could be waiting for the Hurd...
Re:so what will this mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Welcome this!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets hope this makes people think about Ubuntu atleast :-).
Competition is good, for a technological ecosystem and this is an example of it. Ultimately finally customers benefit and are more free to choose.
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Not stupid at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The nice thing about big businesses like Dell, is that they have a lot to lose; keeps them at a certain level of honesty.
Praytell.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dell doesn't offer Ubuntu for corporate customers, but they have offered RHEL for quite some time, and don't make the insinuation you pointed out. However, on a 'home and home office' page, this is very important to do, as you can't expect Joe Blow to just know Ubuntu from anything else.
Parent
You mean HP? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cio-today.com/news/Strategy-Shift-Gives -HP-Lead-over-Dell/story.xhtml?story_id=12300BCZCB J9 [cio-today.com]
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-ymleckey0624.ar tjun24,0,4681941.story?coll=hc-headlines-business [courant.com]
Wait for SP1 (Score:5, Insightful)
I would disagree. My company's IT department waited until they felt that IE7 was stable and patched enough for a rollout to start offering it. Most of the "techies" that I know think the same thing about Vista. That the really big reasons for not upgrading will be fixed after SP1.
Why not ignore it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they even want to upgrade?
I'm on XP Pro and I have absolutely no desire or see any reason to upgrade to Vista. And from what I've seen so far about Vista, my next hardware purchase will not have Vista on it.
Parent
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That is how I felt about Windows 2000, when I was working with it.
It is amazing how much it feels like history repeating itself. Windows 2000 was one of the better releases of Windows, and certainly the only one I'd use now if I had to use windows at all. (Assuming hardware support.)
Re:Why not ignore it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here. After running Linux (RH + Windowmaker) exlusively from 1997-2001, I switched over to Windows 2000, and then XP.
I had no real complaints. Good hardware support and lots of applications.
Then slowly over the last 6 years I ditched expensive Photoshop and began using GIMP. I stopped upgrading MS Office and installed Open Office. I started using Firefox exclusively. Thunderbird has been my email client for 2 years. I used Azureus for P2P. My stock trading platform is 100% Java.
It occurred to me last year that I was basically using XP to run 90% open source or platform-neutral applications. And while it was somewhat stable, it was still 32 bit, and was susceptible to all kinds of hacks, and still did crash when I had 20+ apps open, screen saver wouldn't engage, crashes when transferring across MS networks, and some other little things.
So last month it was time for a new computer.
I looked at Vista 64 Ultimate bit.
I looked at Ubuntu 64 bit.
Why pay $300-ish? I dunno. I used almost all free software.
Installed Ubuntu, and now have a triple 1600x1200 head setup with 3 monitors attached to 2 video cards.
It looks beautiful.
Have only rebooted for a new kernel updated.
Have some niggling problems (still trying to get the SD card reader and wireless scanner to recognize), but for the most part everything just works, and has yet to crash (knocks wood). And I don't have to do the virus thing constantly. Ad-aware, Norton, Registry cleaner, etc. Was getting tedious. XP had slowed down considerably after the same intall for 2 years.
And I use the same apps as before. OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox, Azureus, Bittorrent, Thunderbird, Trading Platform ... I can't really tell the difference as the desktop more or less looks the same as before. Three monitors, everything back in it's original place.
I'm not a "fanboy" of anything. I still have a XP partition which I purchased 2 years ago for Flight Simulator X. I think Mac OSX is marvelous ... but as far as BUYING a new OS ... I don't really see the point.
The strides the Linux Desktop have made in the past few years frankly astounded me, and I am running a new box like nothing has happened.
The OS can see al of my 4GB of memory, it's fast. It's stable. I update and install software with the checkbox. And at native 64 bit, it is much faster on the same hardware ... and I am using the exact same programs I was before with no real compromises (and several actual additions to my software arsenal).
I don't hate Microsoft. I don't bash Microsoft. Nor do I hate or bash Novell.
I just don't think they are terribly necessary anymore.
For the average home user, I've just no idea why Vista would be a need. And that goes for business users too, other than the fact that converting a larger operation from one platform to another may be more trouble than it is worth.
Parent
Re:Wait for SP1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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The great thing about "considering" Linux is that it costs you nothing.
I was going to purchase Vista Ultimate 64bit ... but just for shits and grins I downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 to see what all the fuss was about.
I will be honest ... I though Ubuntu was a bunch of Linux Fanboy hype about how Linux was ready for the desktop (we have all been hearing this for ye
I'm not familiar with Windows deployment (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm not familiar with Windows deployment (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, during the mini-install on first boot, Windows will automatically resize the filesystem to fill the partition it's on. Because of that feature, Dell only needs one image for all HD sizes, and it can be ridiculously small. The smaller the better, in fact, so that it takes less to write that image to all 8 billion of the HDs they ship. Although I'm quite sure they have specialized hardware and software for this, it still takes time to write out the OS image, and 2GB for Vista is four times longer that 500MB for XP.
Parent
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For people like us, the big problem would be the dozens of small or specialized apps (homemade, third parties or FOSS) we use on reagular basis in our work that refuse to work on Vista and for which there is not yet a working alternative.
Migration... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Migration... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I had REALLY expected them to release Vista drivers on time.
Parent
Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does it offer to businesses? The improved security is irrelevant in a corporate environment, because companies have everything locked-down pretty tightly already.
Beyond that, there isn't much Vista does better than XP. At some point, businesses will HAVE to upgrade, of course, but didn't Microsoft say that Vista's successor is only 2 years away? That's not a very long time. I imagine most businesses are just going to stick with XP until they just can't make it work on new hardware anymore.
Microsoft reached a plateau with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It's going to be harder and harder for them to convince people they need a new operating system.
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
We originally said the same thing about XP - that we would stick with 2000 and skip a version then Microsoft released Vista and we're upgrading to XP while we can.
Parent
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Support. Hardware manufacturers, 3rd party software developers, and Microsoft themselves will stop supporting XP at some point. I have personally been in this trap before with MS OS's in a corporate environment, you eventually have to move.
What does it offer to businesses?
Support. Sorry, it's a big deal.
The improved security is irrelevant in a corporate environment, because companies have everything locked-down pretty tightly alr
2GB? Pah! (Score:3, Funny)
A sysadmins POV (Score:5, Informative)
I must use a server for administrative work. (yes, I know I can use registry tricks to make ADUC work but I shouldn't have to)
I can't run multiple monitors on my existing hardware that's certified for Vista, using the recommended drivers, configed the way MS said to.
I can't easily change the NIC binding order.
The sidebar thingy moves on it's own.
Eats my notebook's battery like Pez.
Decides my network is a new one that it's never seen before at random... hence network number 12!
This is just what I could think of in 10 seconds.
It's not a bad try but I see this as the ME of XP. I'll move when I have no choice... but at this point we're simply buying machines without OS and imaging or wiping them. We don't HAVE to upgrade and I'm not planning to for a REALLY REALLY REAAAAAALLLLY long time.
Sanity and Respect will Sell (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this as indication that they are reversing course on this and going back to what worked for them in the past... earning customer respect and loyalty.
Dell CYA. (Score:3, Insightful)
What I really don't understand is why he made the statement in the first place. Dell really isn't over-promoting Vista to its Enterprise/Corporate customers. I recently had to quote out several Dell OptiPlex workstations, and Windows XP Professional is still the default OS licensing option for OptiPlex workstations, which are what most enterprise/corporate customers purchase.
The whole "2 GB" image thing is a bunch of nonsense as well. With every version of Windows that comes out, the default footprint size of Windows on the hard disk has increased as well. I remember installing Windows 95 on 200MB hard disks, with plenty of space left for Office 95 and other applications. Any IT manager in charge of making Windows images knows that a new version of Vista is going to be larger than its XP counterpart. Not only is this true of Windows, but of most software application packages as well.
Overall, Vista does have a lot of new changes. However, there is not too much there holding a customer back from upgrading. Many of the new features in Vista can be turned off and disabled if they can't be tested or get in the way, leaving you with a very XP-like user experience. Vista supports almost all of the group policies that XP does when it comes to being managed through AD. There are several new ways of deploying Vista images as well, with free Microsoft tools, but, there is nothing stopping you from using your existing tools either (Ghost, etc).
This statement looks like Dell spreading is FUD to cover their tracks for another upcoming quarter where they will have poor financial results. They can then blame "slow adaptation of Vista" as a reason for slow hardware sales.
Waiting for SP1? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure who might be saying that they are not waiting for a service pack before Vista deployment for their business. It's certainly none of the people I've been speaking with. Due to the number of problems with application compatibility, the problems with Vista itself, and the nearly non-existant benefit to my business that Vista would provide, I will be waiting for SP1. At the time that SP1 is released, more time will have passed so that our application vendors will have re-written or updated their code to match Vista's changes. We'll also have less of an expenditure for new equipment to meet Vista's hungry requirements since we're constantly retiring older computers and purchasing nearly top-level systems to replace them. We will _not_ be transitioning to gain access to any new "features" that Vista provides, rather, we will transition because we can no longer buy computers with XP installed. Even though Vista provides some positive enhancements to application/OS separation, we have found that user education is vastly superior to feel-good allow/deny prompts that an uneducated user will botch every time. It's more work, sure, and would be a significant effort with a company larger than our 90+users, but the savings come in time. The "trusted computing" and DRM features within Vista allow _much_ greater control of the computer to be given to the software vendor than any reasonable sysadmin would be comfortable with. Due to these concerns and others, my company has been exploring a move for all users to Linux and MacOS. I know of several other 100+ employee local companies that are doing the same.
What About the "NSA Tax"? (Score:3, Interesting)
This means, of course, to anyone with a brain, that the NSA figured out X ways to break into Vista - and told Microsoft about X - n of them (pick your numbers, the idea is the same.)
This means that any government or foreign corporation who uses Vista has just handed the farm to the NSA.
Anybody outside of the US - and any moron inside the US - who uses Vista has to have their head examined.
Oh, sure, the NSA doesn't care about me, or you, so they aren't probing our boxes - right?
Right.
This is way worse than the old story about the hidden "NSA keys" - at least that time Microsoft didn't admit that the NSA had actively been invited to break Windows security (although I wouldn't be surprised if they had been and did.)
People who compare this to SELinux simply don't know what they're talking about. There's no comparison whatsoever, as SELinux is open source.
So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We are not here to promote Microsoft and tell people they should buy it. We can show them the advantages of Vista and what they need to put in place to begin to move across. "
"Vista is big and complex and there is a lot to it. It requires a lot of testing. You can't just shut off XP on Friday and start Vista on Monday morning. There will be training. There are things to learn."
and then..
"However, he still thinks that business should go ahead with the migration and not wait for Microsoft to release its first service pack."
Parent
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I hear the word Vista and I cringe. There is no way I would ever switch over. XP works on all our machines without upgrades. I just don't see enough (any) benefit to moving to vista and we won't be doing it.
I can't imagine the head aches for a large corporation trying to move. Wow. Crazy. I'll say it again. Wow.
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He did evaluate it. Didn't you read about the part where he saw no benefit? It implies that he did look for benefits. Furthermore, if XP is doing the job on his current hardware why should he switch?
You claim security is t
Re:hmmm ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:hmmm ... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a million PCs. With the amount of money required to license and maintain the beast called Vista on a million PCs, I'd rather pay RedHat or Canonical to give me a customised OS for the lot - and switch over to Web-based apps. Yes, it's a big ask...
By the time it takes to get a million users get trained on UAC, IE7, Office 2007 and the support guys figure out how to get these running... the CIO could confdently move to Phase 2 with Linux-based web services, CRM, Business Intelligence etc. The army of MCSEs can be sent to Dell to support unfortunate CIOs stuck with Vista.
Parent
Re:hmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The post was meant to be funny right?
Parent
RAM isn't enough (Score:5, Informative)
This thing has a Sempron processor, but c'mon. I've never seen a speed issue on Windows that couldn't be fixed by throwing RAM at it... until now.
Parent
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The main reason for the migration was that we couldn't buy NT4 licenses anymore, 2K superiority being very marginal in the decision.
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