Companies 'Blah' About Vista 281
PreacherTom writes "Those who expected the initial Vista release to generate a wave of hype will be sorely disappointed. While Vista is now available for companies, they do not really appear to care. The situation is the same with Office 2007. Why? Several reasons, not the least of which is expected difficulty in adaptation to the new features." From the article: "Office has an entirely new look and new formats for saving files in Word and Excel. Slick as it is, the new look will take some training to master. And the new file formats, which will be easier to use with high-end corporate programs such as those that run servers, mean users on older versions of Office will have to download a program to open documents and spreadsheets sent with the new technology. 'This thing is not going to be all that easy to roll out,' says Michael Silver, research vice-president at Gartner."
a new car! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, software doesn't wear out, at least not like cars do. This is where Microsoft has to re-figure the business model. Their products (OS, Office suite, etc.) are so mature people and companies actually have to rationalize moving to the new plan. In the old days migration paths often followed needs -- today most needs are fulfilled. How many thousands of fonts could one possibly want in their documents?
It's time to think about service. It's time to think about customers. It's time to think about humility. Microsoft, other than their monopoly, no longer has a hammer to coerce the public into the new products -- though that's probably enough.
Meanwhile, with all of this talk of a long adoption window, wouldn't this be one of the most opportune times for things Linux to gain purchase (how ironic for a free product)? As companies look at budgets and costs, couldn't Linux now get it's foot in the door? I hope so...
(Note: from the mysterious slashdot future, how ironic -- an article about Microsoft dissing Open Source as insecure because people can look at the code! Looks like Microsoft is hard at work ensuring a glance at Linux and other Open Source software is at least uncomfortable.)
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Re:a new car! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even greater reason to push home users towards Google's Docs & Spreadsheets, but the business users everyone is concerned about aren't mindless cattle anymore. Lets give them credit. Office 2003 & 2007 can be installed in parallel, let them play with it and call it pilot testing.
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Re:a new car! (Score:4, Funny)
This is your boss and you are fired.
Re:a new car! (Score:4, Interesting)
WHile the temptation to get the flamethrower out is pretty large, I am only going to say that, for a huge percentage of the American workforce, training IS a big hurdle. I spend a lot of my time getting folks introduced to new programs, and, I continually run up against the wall of "too hard to learn". I had a fellow the other day tell me that he did not want to switch from Internet Explorer to Opera because it is "too hard to learn a new browser". Right off the bat, I can't think of many other software tools with a LOWER learning curve than a browser. That, alas, is not all that unusual though. As another example, I know a company that still does all its invoicing on an antique pentium system running XENIX because it is too hard to move to more modern software. This ignores the fact that the newer software is actually EASIER to use than the ancient stuff on the XENIX box, and, is much more powerful.
dave mundt
Old software on new OS (Score:2)
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That same maturity of both technology and its users
Re:a new car! (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless security is an issue, I really see no need to over complicate something with more features when what we have does just fine. You have to show me a product that is major like jumping from NTSP6 to win2K/XP. Where my current OS can handle all the devices I have just fine, my current office product (2003) works above and beyond our needs, I dont need to upgrade until I see an end of life on the product.
With few exceptions I think most seasoned Windows administrators would agree.
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So
Re:a new car! (Score:5, Insightful)
New file formats are a good way to start.
Not selling the old software.
OEM bundles where the OS and applications are only to be used on that one machine. Get a new computer and pay for a new OS.
I hope that OO.org instead focuses on making the software easier, smaller, faster, and more reliable.
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-matthew
Re:a new car! (Score:4, Insightful)
To reiterate, first is the completely redesigned interface, and the need for retraining. This will make companies, large and small, reluctant to upgrade. They'll hold off as long as possible. Remember, people in managerial positions and their assistants use office. And for most of these people, who have trouble with technology as it is and who'd spent the better part of the past 10-15 years getting used to office since the days of 5.0, retraining is going to be a very painful process. Add to the fact that they're the decision makers, and you've got even less chance of companies moving to office 2007.
The second is the presence of a half-decent competitor: open office. So what if microsoft stops selling office 2003? Suddenly, open office, with its familiar interface and remarkably similar feature set is going to look very lucrative. And add to the fact that it's free, and there's even greater incentive to move to it if microsoft is foolish enough to stop selling office 2003 outright. Sure, it's not as polished as office 2003. But as long as it can read and write those files, it'll do. New file formats force upgrades only when there's nothing decent available to read and process the old one. Open office isn't stunning, but it'll do for the most part.
The final, and most important factor is the same one that plagued Intel and AMD a few years back. Office 2003 is good enough. Sure, it might be lacking in a few areas compared to office 2007. But people have found ways around those shortcomings already, and having spent many years improving those workarounds, they're pretty efficient by now. Why upgrade to 2007 when the feature set of 2003 is sufficient?
And these are the same reasons people won't upgrade to vista. Sure, vista might be more secure. And at home, it'll find wide adoption because of its OEM bundling. But in the corporate world, people know that an upgrade will cost money. How much depends on the company, but if it's on par or more than the existing security budget for the current windows xp setup, there's no reason to upgrade. And by the time xp goes into extended support, well, there's still a couple of years, and like office, there's an alternative that's gaining popularity. So by the time businesses get around to deploying office 2007 and vista, they might just go, screw it, and start deploying linux instead.
More likely, anything that isn't backwards compatible will hinder the transition rather than help it. The reason why people moved to XP? Because it worked well with 2k. And it had a set of features 2k didn't have that was actually useful. Vista actually was supposed to have some of those nifty features that would encourage people to upgrade. But over the course of its development, they all were eventually canned--put off indefinitely or until a later upgrade pack.
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File formats (Score:3, Informative)
Re:a new car! (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's no compelling event to swap a perfectly working (sic) XP for Vista, why would one consider moving to Linux? Surely, the migration cost in terms of training need would be even higher for such a move.
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Microsoft software is quite a bit different in that regard. It goes bald, its ass sags, and it yells at customers who walk on its lawn.
Gentoo Linux (Ignore compilation for a moment) (Score:3, Informative)
Then there's Gentoo Linux. (Ignore for a moment all the snarky remarks about waiting for it to compile, though maybe I'll come back to that, later.)
Gentoo does have releases, and the current one is 2006.1. But the releases just aren't that important. What's more important is keeping your software up to date and making sure that yo
Less is More! (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe the argument to upgrade to the latest version of Office would be better made if they promised to not allow 10 pt Arial font ever!
True believers already know that 12pt Time New Roman is the only "TRUE" font.
Why should businesses care anyways? (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, honestly - what does Vista do that XP doesn't? From a business standpoint, of course.
I could see end users getting much happier about Vista. New eye candy, DX10, and all that, but generally businesses don't care about such things.
What is Vista's business argument in the first place? Not trolling, just genuinely curious.
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Sheldon
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In any size company, you will care when the CEO sends everyone a memo written on his personal laptop with Vista and the latest version of Office and you can't read it.
Microsoft has free programs to read the Office file formats. It would cut into their profits if they didn't - who would buy the next version if nobody could read the new documents?.
The 2003 reader for Word is available here [microsoft.com], for example. When Vista and Office 2007 are released, I'm sure they'll have a 2007 version, too.
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Fast user switching on a domain.
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The ONE time I've seen this be useful was terminals on a manufacturing floor. Not for shift workers, as they log in and out on their shift, but for when a supervisor comes over to do something. This is because Windows doesn't have decent support for somethin
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I work in a lab, we share computers.
Actually, that is exactly what "fast user switching on Domains" is, a version of SU. WTF took them so long?
You are 100% correct. There is absolutely no excuse for not having an equivalent to 'su'.
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Re:Why should businesses care anyways? (Score:5, Informative)
Better centralized management tools. Improved security model. Mostly, the changes affect infrastructure management as opposed to end-user experience. Oh, yeah, the big one: 64-bit support, which is not needed for typical office applications, but is an absolute must for companies moving their CAD workstations to Windows. CATIA V5, for example, fully supports the 64-bit Vista architecture right now.
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You're making it sound like 64-bit is REQUIRED for CAD use. Perhaps SOME products out there, but countless companies are doing their AutoCAD business on 32-bit quite happily, and have been doing it for well over a decade.
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Better centralized management tools - that you already bought for previous versions of Windows
Improved security - which is unproven at being better, and proven at being highly intrusive to users
These things *could* be useful, but they aren't anything people are going to rush out and spend hundreds to thousands on, per workstation, ever.
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Better centralized management tools. Improved security model. Mostly, the changes affect infrastructure management as opposed to end-user experience
For some reason, when I read this I had a little flashback to the consultants who tried to sell me an upgrade from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003. They were spouting something about improved integration between different domains across an Active Directory forest. I was supporting a small company with 1 domain, 1 location.
For lots of people, these things are
Re:Why should businesses care anyways? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think MS needs to at least consider a model to one of incremental updates (and I'm not talking security fixes, or SP packs here.) This could turn out to be an advantage to them (especially as I see Linux distros closing the gap with tremendous speed).
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a 12-month release schedule?
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Which would be valid if you were talking about Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). Businesses interested in long term planning and stability would be using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support) for precisely this reason - a five year guarantee of support matters in business. It will be interesting to see if that does get extended fo
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Re:Why should businesses care anyways? (Score:5, Funny)
For one, you won't be able to play Halo 3 LAN games at the office without it!
OEM Support (Score:2)
I mean, honestly - what does Vista do that XP doesn't?
You could ask the same question about Windows 2000. The majority of users at this customer are still on Win2K and they can do what they need to do. If they could get new Win2K licenses they might use it another ten years.
If MSFT didn't push business customers into upgrading by withdrawing support and OEM agreements that keep them from selling older versions, then I think you'd see a time horizon for os upgrades on the order of 10-12 years. Maybe
The "Business Argument" (Score:5, Informative)
Vista has a lot of Business features - in fact, they probably have more biz features than consumer features.
BitLocker is a nifty tech that encrypts the system volume, needing a USB key to boot. I wonder how many businesses with (stolen!) laptops would love to have this feature.
Windows MeetingSpace uses the new network implementation in Vista to allow peer-to-peer detection of clients. Meaning you bring your WiFi laptop into a conference room and you're logged into MeetingSpace. The program itself lets you collaborate - you can share an open program and work on it simultaneously, or share your entire desktop, or what have you not.
Speech Recognition is built into the OS and in my experience, actually works pretty well. I can see a lot of secretaries, typing-deficient people, bosses, etc. appreciating being able to dictate to a computer. I can also see some liability disappear as businesses "cure" carpal tunnel and other repetitive strain nonsense.
User Account Control makes it completely possible to run as a standard user or to default to standard user privileges only even when logged into an admin account.
Windows Service Hardening uses the same changes in the Vista kernel that allow IE7 "protected mode" and UAC to function to run each Windows service under its own user. This means that viruses and the like will be unable to mess with the file system, registry, etc. by piggybacking onto a Windows service, because the special user account the service runs under simply won't have those priviliges.
The new Windows Driver Model and Code Integrity make the system more secure and stable. Unsigned drivers are no longer allowed to run in kernel mode. Instead, the kernel exports a set of interfaces used to program most drivers in user mode, meaning:
There's a bunch of other stuff, too, like Windows PowerShell [microsoft.com] that system admins are going to love (although they're releasing this for Windows XP SP2, also).
There's a lot of business features, most of them focusing on security and stability. (Vista also plays a lot nicer with Unix than XP does.) The question isn't whether there's any "business argument", but whether these features are worth the upgrade. For some businesses, they will be; for others, they won't.
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Eliminates the incredibly annoying SPACE in the user's home-directory path:
C:\Documents and Settings\jafac -> c:\users\jafac
At long last.
For me, this is worth the price of the upgrade.
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So asking a question is spreading ignorance? Nice troll, fanboy.
If it works, don't fix it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah but that would dry up one of MS's many revenue streams!
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Yeah but that would dry up one of MS's many revenue streams!
Which MS product doesn't need fixing?
Their entire business model is based on making people think that finally this stuff will work!
Or, in Microsoft's case... (Score:2)
Hell (Score:2, Insightful)
I work at a large university in sweden.In february we will upgrade about 3000 machines to Vista. It's a question aout budget and timing, between many reasons.
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Vista RCs have been available to businesses for months. There is not a compelling reason to switch a business to Vista from XP. At least from 2000 to XP there were some noticeable advantages but right now switching to Vista looks like work just for the sake of work. Ugh.
As for "new machines coming with Vista", that is easy to take care of. Just install your MSDN copy of XP on top of it and save the license. This was done all the time when machines came
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I'm actually very wary of an upgrade to 2.6.19 (I still haven't tried any of the new Gentoo patch bundles for 2.6.18!) because of the trouble I had with 2.6.17.
I swear, all of the odd-numbered releases have sucked lately.
Who will exercise downgrade rights? (Score:2, Interesting)
How many volume license owners will pay for a Vista license but install XP now and upgrade later, on THEIR timetable?
I bet quite a few.
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Too much headache, too high a hardware requirement, too low a ROI.
Disappointment? (Score:5, Funny)
So, what, all two of them?
Yeah right... (Score:4, Insightful)
People debate the cost of rolling out OSS products for these very reasons, and MS lackeys have touted how a MS upgrade costs less in support and training for the upgrade. The simple truth: The upgrade roll-out costs are near the same when there are feature and function changes. Companies also have to think of the COST of new licenses on top of generic roll-out problems and costs. Its just not a good time of year for such activity. I think it was a poor choice of times to launch?
What OS are the OEM's using? (Score:2)
How long are we going to be given the option to buy computers with XP? When will Vista be a mandatory pre-load?
Slashdot 'Blah'... (Score:2, Insightful)
Incompatibity to force upgrades strikes again (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see no good reason to migrate to Vista, and the compatibility and re-training issues are strong reasons not to. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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and (b) actually convert to openoffice?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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Except that this isn't the case. Microsoft is providing a free add-in for older versions that will allow them to read and write the new XML formats. Office 2003 (maybe others?) is smart enough to recognize the new formats and phone home to Microsoft to downlo
Not all companies are 'blah' (Score:2)
Access 97 (Score:2)
Education sector not considering it either... (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in a school, and as such we have an MS Schools License Agreement, which entitles us to all the latest Microsoft software for a reletively cheap price (I think £30ish a workstation).
We're expecting delivery of our Office 2007 and Vista discs in either the December or January licensing packs. While we may test them around the office, a network-wide deployment (about 350 machines total) of Vista won't even be considered till after SP1 is released. Not to mention all the poorly-written educational software that will need compatability testing on the new OS. Due to the training requirements of Office 2007 I probably can't see that being rolled out till 2008 at the earliest either - especially with the admin staff, since a lot of their applications tie directly into Office and they use it all day, ever day. The training requirements for that alone would cause so many headaches for us to support.
Many people I know who work at other schools in our area aren't even considering an upgrade yet or in the near future. XP works just fine for now and the forseeable future. My school is lucky in that we have a large IT budget and have mostly up-to-date PCs (enough for what they do on them anyway), other schools in my area are still running 333MHz/128MB RAM machines - not exactly the powerhouse needed to run Vista at a reasonable level.
I posted the original comment here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=209148&cid=17
Microsoft does not really care that much! (Score:2)
For Microsoft, it will be a matter of threatening to stop support for older programs or even make maintaining them more expensive.
The other strategy is to stop shipping Windows XP to OEMs while providing Vista alone. That act alone will do the trick.
So I say to Microsoft...."Do not worry, these ambivalent companies will soon bite whether they like it or no
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Would anyone expecgt differently? (Score:2)
1) The OS is in its infancy, meaning that there are large numbers of bugs.
2) It is just before a major holiday break, large projects will not be starting until after the break.
3) There is no feature that requires an upgrade.
4) The training of the tech staff is probably just getting started.
Most companies will be looking at switching when their next major desktop purchase goes through (generally once pe
I wonder if some compines will move away from MS (Score:2)
Re:I wonder if some compines will move away from M (Score:3, Interesting)
That bei
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Companies haven't upgraded from Windows 2000 yet (Score:5, Informative)
Though with Windows 2000 in extended support phase [msdn.com] since June of this year, there are probably a number of larger corporations that skipped Windows XP and plan to go from 2000 to Vista.
why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows XP is at end of support life time.. (Score:2, Informative)
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223 [microsoft.com]
This is great news for XP owners, after this 2 year period is ended they WILL release a hotfix / patch to remove the ACTIVATION requirement for XP.
They have stated this here.. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302878 [microsoft.com]
"Does Microsoft use activation to require me to upgrade? Will Microsoft ever stop issuing activation codes for one or more of the products that require activation?
No. Microsoft does not use activation as a tool to requir
There is not a compelling case to upgrade (Score:3, Informative)
Overall:
Pluses -
Bitlocker might be a great solution to keep stolen laptops from causing so much damage.
Built in apps for managing photos and your calendar are nice to have.
Built in Search works well.
Backup and Restore are nice if you can afford the "right" version of Vista.
Windows Meeting space is neat.
Windows Update now just a small app that runs locally.
Firewall does both ways and is much improved.
Cons -
If you own a CRT Vista may not be for you. Fonts are designed specifically for LCD only use. Yuck!
Aero adds literally nothing to the user experience, waste of cpu and gpu cycles.
Slower gaming than XP until DX10 cards and games become common a while from now.
They changed the file system layout for no reason, ie no more "My Documents".
High system requirements with little payoff.
You need 64bit to truly take adavantage of the new security measures.
New unproven network stack may be a huge mistake.
UAC , Everyone is just going to click "Allow" anyway so why bother?
Current Free 3rd party and MS apps for XP duplicate what Vista is offering. With Picasa, Google Desktop Search, WMP11, Windows Defender, etc all available why do we need Vista?
Overall this is not a necessary upgrade for the vast majority of XP users. A few years from now when developers really start taking advantage of the "under the hood stuff" you may have something. But until then home users should avoid upgrading unless there is a specific feature you feel to be must-have. I usually upgrade to every MS release when it comes out(well except for ME) but I find having to force myself to even boot into Vista.
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Only if you buy the "right" version of Vista [microsoft.com] (i.e. "Ultimate"). Which comes with other things that business really aren't interested in.
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If i could think of one feature all by itself that makes upgrading Vista worthwhile on my home machines it is this one:
Per-Application Volume Control
Sounds ridiculous, right? in XP, turning up the volume in media player to hear that low-volume encoded movie got really irritating just about the time outlook told you that you got new mail, or a new IM contact signed in. The deafening "DING!@#$" wa
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't gforget that:
Companies are blah about replacements to pretty much anything that already works and already does the job well enough. Eventually they'll shift, but only when all their hardware has broken down and been replaced by stuff that can run it, the current operating system of choice is no longer supported and they have major applications that won't run in that aforementioned operating system.
This is hardly new, they have been working this way for years and I fully expect them to be "blah" about the next version of Office and Windows as well.
Slashdot. News for nerds, stuff that is blindingly obvious.
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But this time that may need to add a lot ram, faster cpu, better video card, and a Bigger HD.
so that will slow it down even more.
Companies aren't going to rush out to install this (Score:2)
Hey, my company is switching!! (Score:2, Funny)
I think M$ is in trouble. Their business model seems to require churning perfectly good SW. Businesses have caught on. If it aint' broke
This is for rich people (Score:2)
Basically people are buying cheap and small PCs with bank credit (you can pay in 12 times) and it comes with linux. Unhappilly more than 72% of those PCs end up with running windows, but here is the thing, those PCs can barely run windows XP (most of them just have 128 MB of ram), how can
Enterprises. Don't. Care. (Score:2, Insightful)
XP is fairly stable and so what incentive do corporations have for upgrading? Better security? That's laughable, as this is a 1st gen of a new OS from Microsoft we're talking about. More eye candy? Yeah, now *th
Here's our reason (Score:2)
My company is sure blah (Score:2, Informative)
Businesses and Upgrades (Score:2, Informative)
At what point will new file formats backfire? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that I'm not likely to be using Office 2007 for at least a few years, if ever, so until then, folks are just going to have to make sure they do a "save as" for me. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone.
I don't really follow the Office 2007 file format news, is the new format the default format?
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You should see educational pricing. It's going to cost us about $100 per PC. For BOTH.
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Wait, are you saying there's actually places that pay different amounts based on how many hours you work?
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What, you think everyone develops their own apps and/or uses open source exculsively?
Re:Only gamers will care about Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
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CxOs who get to spend other people's money love to get into their dick-waving contest saying "mine's bigger/better/faster" when in reality they're suckers who overspent and then have to lay people off at the end of a quarter in order to rescue their overly-generous bonus packages.