Majority of Enterprise Customers Finally 'Migrating Away From Windows XP' 246
New submitter TinTops writes "Speaking in a keynote at Intel's Developer Forum, Microsoft's vice president of marketing, Tami Reller, said the firm has 'now seen about three quarters of Windows enterprises moving to modern desktops' from Windows XP, with the last leg of Windows XP migrations being spurred by the imminent availability of Windows 8.1. However, Reller did not offer a breakdown of the enterprise uptake of Windows 8 compared to Windows 7, both of which are counted by Microsoft as modern desktops."
Yeah, that's what XP holdouts were waiting for (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 8.1. *eyeroll* They're going to 7 you morons, and they're going to stay there for another 15 years. Doesn't matter what you do to the Start Menu.
"Modern desktops" LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correlation does not imply causality (Score:5, Insightful)
If MS believes enterprises and consumers want Win 8 by choice, they are deluded.
I am almost certain that MS does not care whether people buy Win 8 "by choice" or not. As long as they buy it.
It is good to be a monopoly.
Re:"Modern desktops" LOL (Score:2, Insightful)
I bet "modern desktops" includes Linux & OSX but MS wont talk about that.
Re:How close to 100% is the Windows 7 percentage? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an IT manager who oversees deployment and maintenance of about 60 desktops and laptops, some of which are shared among multiple employees, consistency in OS availability for the end user is key. We upgrade one or two machines per month, and we started using Windows 7 three years ago, so about 15 systems still run XP. We're not touching 8.1 until there are no more XP systems on our network, AND people show interest in actually using 8.1, AND at least one service pack has been released to address outstanding issues since its public release, AND we discover a way to disable the "Tiles" start screen. Supporting systems with two different desktop interfaces is a serious pain in the ass, especially for non-technical users. So far, only two people have shown interest in using Windows 8 (techie geek types), and the vast majority of our employees are averse to changing their OS at all.
I've had to customize Windows 7 a bit to make it "comfortable" for the lowest common denominator: Long-time XP/2000 users.
Re:Yeah, that's what XP holdouts were waiting for (Score:5, Insightful)
XP being end of life next April was the spur where I work and I expect many other places too. And yeah we're going to 7, not even thinking about 8 except for some tablets.
Re:We're Skipping Windows 8 and 8.1 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only about XP's end of support on April 8, 2014.
FTFY.
There are zero positive valid business benefits to upgrading to Windows 8+, some non-issues that are used for sales pitches by OS vendors, and several negatives.
In the non-issue column, there are:
In the negative column, we have the following:
Microsoft thrives on confusing people into to forgetting that an OS is nothing more than the kernel, and the rest of the crap is GUI and application stuff that should not belong in the hands of the OS vendor. Apple has mastered fostering that misunderstanding as well. It's obviously profitable for them, which means it costs us plenty.
The worst part is that I've had our infrastructure people tell us the cost of deploying Linux is too high, for several of those same negative reasons above. Well, we would have had to do it exactly ONE time, and then we'd have been done. But no, here we are, staring down another Windows end-of-life deadline, getting ready to write them another check. Too bad we can't sue those people for malfeasance.
Re:How close to 100% is the Windows 7 percentage? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 3rd party add-ons do that well enough today. If you haven't "discovered" them yet, you haven't been looking.
Those 3rd party add-ons are not a good option for a business. Microsoft can break the functionality at any time - and they did it once already, with 8.1.
If they do it again, what will you do when on some fine Wednesday 100 workers come to their computers, wiggle the mouse, and they see ... what will they see? They never saw it before. Would be probably a thousand tiles. They will call the IT. The telephones at IT melt down, and the IT director commits seppuku with a dull byte. There is no option to "wait a couple weeks until the Start8 people figure out what is broken *this time*." The option to roll back the updates is also not very easy (if you need it, you aren't set up for approved deployment of patches.)
2-3 years from now, I figure the new start screen will have largely been adopted as mainstream
It won't be because it is not an improvement, it's a regress to Windows 3.0. Full-screen, single window Program Manager.
Re:How close to 100% is the Windows 7 percentage? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Luddite" means someone opposed to progress because of lost jobs.
People opposing the new tiles menu oppose regressions that impede work.
Re:How close to 100% is the Windows 7 percentage? (Score:5, Insightful)
True of all 3rd party software. All the time.
Breakage of a random application that dared to use a deprecated API call that suddenly suffered a regression (and wasn't tested, since it's deprecated) does occur. But it's unintentional, and MS may eventually fix the problem. They have no particular reason to protect a problem.
However Metro was a problem that was intentionally created and maintained and protected. Working around that problem is "unwelcome." I don't know how open is the API that the software is using, but as I suspect it is neither very open nor very much designed for 3rd parties. If it's undocumented, here be dragons.
In essence, software like Start8 is actively fighting Microsoft. And Microsoft fights back. What business would want to stand on that battlefield and risk being obliterated by one side or the other?
No, its becoming a tiling window manager, something several linux users run on their own systems by choice and swear by it.
Tiling window managers fit the workflow of precious few users. I don't use it myself (actively hate!) and I don't know anyone who would use one or want one. Many years ago I knew one geek; he was only using console I/O and vi. Perhaps it would work for him. But it's sheer insanity to throw a highly specialized piece of software at unsuspecting people who - for their whole life of computing - have never even seen a tiling WM. The nature of "general computing" suggests that we run different applications, and they have different needs. Tiling WM is OK if you and your software are very logical and very systematic. Most people are nothing of the sort. They just drag their windows around until they get what they want. They do not "program" their WM, they wing it.
And I think most of microsofts defaults for the start screen are stupid on a desktop... but that's all stuff that easily fixable with group policy.
Indeed, plenty of SO/HO users are ready to whip up a few GPOs and deploy them through their AD. That's what those poor souls live for - to fix Windows. Not to repair cars, and not to sell products, and not to bake pizza - but to code GPOs. Sure, this is not a problem at a large company. But it is a huge problem at a smaller company. Now you have to buy a new computer and call the support contractor right away because the computer is not usable "out of the box."