Dell Warns of Vista Upgrade Challenges 287
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.'"
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.
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1) After December XP not available for sale (volumne license folks may be exempt)
2) Drivers for the new hardware you buy may not work on anything prior to vista.
(some companies have migrated some machine from 2000 to xp because of these reasons.
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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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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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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.
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Re:so what will this mean... (Score:5, Informative)
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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)
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No, seriously, pretty much nothing. They will probably upgrade to vista waaaay before 2014. It's not like XP is problem-free, and Vista is the opposite.
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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Last month, Microsoft passed 40 million sales of Vista, but most of those appear to be to consumers rather than businesses, which have been slow to upgrade.
It would explain the number of people "purchasing" vista. As usual they slop all of the mandatory OS that comes with new machines in just as if someone asked for it.
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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.
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I take it you don't intend on ever becoming a CEO then? A company has to buy products/services that meet its requirements -- if that means they buy from MS or IBM, so be it. And most CEOs are not in the habit of overturning the judgments of their technical people -- they are interested in the big picture of the company as a whole, not the minutia of day-to-day operations. The don't care what hardware/software is used, as long as it runs, works, and they don't have to hear about it from shareholders.
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Competent tech people consider the business requirements and then choose the solution which best meets those needs. Sometimes that's an open source solution; sometimes it's a propietary one.
It's business not a moral crusade.
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Some CEOs are responsible to a board elected by shareholders who want the business to make as much money as legally possible. If IT is a large share of the overhead a
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It's early, maybe my brain isn't on yet after last night (I know my hearing isn't)
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-nB
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.
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Because if he were a real CIO managing 10,000 computers, he ought to know that Home, Home Basic, Home Advanced, Home Ultimate and Home Wet Dream are just a way of confusing buyers, and preventing them from becoming tech-savvy. It tells a lot about the psychology of Dell, and it's unthinking gullible customers. In short, it tells the CIO he shouldn't be trusting Dell for any tech advice.
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Of course they don't, but that isn't what was being said. Tech managers should know their stuff.
As somebody who is pretty out of the loop but at least knows the basics (well, on a consumer level - I know more about designing than buying), I cringe wh
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As somebody who is pretty out of the loop but at least knows the basics (well, on a consumer level - I know more about designing than buying), I cringe when I'm in a store and I hear some tech explaining something all wrong or clearly are talking out of their A$$.
What I mean is, I might not take advice from Dell, but I am more likely to trust them to make good decisions regarding hardware etc if they seem to know what they're talking about. It is credibility for product, not credibility for advice.
We are not talking about newbies who just know the basics, we are talking about people managing 10,000+ PCs across multiple locations, delivering critical IT services across the enterprise. Such CIOs ought not trust a company like Dell, given their lack of competence on technology issues. Dell was, is and will continue to be a marketing company - much like Microsoft. It can never ever (in the foreseeable future) transition into a technology company. Sane CIOs wouldn't be asking Dell for tech advice... leas
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]
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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Install Kubuntu.
Install restricted driver manager. (skip this step on Ubuntu)
Click on checkbox to enable NVidia driver.
Reboot.
Configure multiple monitors.
Enjoy a nice 2560 x 1024 double monitor setup!
I would personally avoid any ATI cards like the black plague, until good drivers come out. The NVidia control panel compared to the joke that is the ATI panel was more than enough to convince me.
Re:Wait for SP1 (Score:4, Insightful)
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Which is why we should be weary for Microsoft's rush to put out SP1 [computerworld.com] ("Microsoft attempted to undercut Google's reason for extending the consent decree by promising to release a beta Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) before the decree's Nov. 12 expiration.") -- It's not really the fix everyone's hoping for. Maybe in the future SP1 will be put out as soon as possible just to pla
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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.
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Do they want you to prepare each user's system from the preinstall done by Dell, adding software as each user likes, and then write back and keep the image in case a reinstall for that user is required?
How many businesses work that way?
We just press F12 on the first powerup, boot from the network, and overwrite all of D
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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.
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Migration... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Migration... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I had REALLY expected them to release Vista drivers on time.
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Yes, HP is unprofessional. I don't buy their products anymore.
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Just release a non-optimized version - a straight compile of the 32 bit code with a 64 bit compiler. Then later they can tweak the code for 64 bit goodness, but for now, just get the damn thing out.
Or Microsoft's just going to take over the Flash market with Silverlight. Doesn't really matter to me, just quit prompting me to install software that doesn't exist. They've had four years for XP x64,
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.
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A support contract from Microsoft. When they pay for Windows support companies are basically tied to Microsoft's product lifecycle. These companies don't want to be on XP once Microsoft drops the level of support (e.g. patches, unlimited support calls, etc.).
Also, many companies signed that licensing deal that Microsoft introduced years ago to spread the cost of upgrades over time. So these compa
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Two words: Software Assurance. Some companies have already paid extra in their last license to get a discount on Vista. Whether that move saves them money in the long is really determined by the circumstances of each company. I would think that the TCO would have been lower had they waited for Vista's successor.
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.
Re:Why bother? Stay with Windows 2000 (Score:2)
We originally said the same thing about XP - that we would stick with 2000
I'm still running Windows 2000, with the latest service pack. We had an XP machine for a while, but got rid of it. The current versions of OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, MySQL, Python, Dreamweaver, etc. are all installed, so everything important is current. Even obscure stuff like the development environment for Atmel embedded microcontrollers, the eMachineShop part design system, and the latest Nero CD/DVD burner work fine on
The only reasons I switched to XP (Score:2)
In other words, I was pushed. There were no "go-to" features in XP that prompted me to switch.
Same for Vista. What are the compelling "go-to" features for Vista?
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Uh, no they don't. Although lot of them do, and it's very costly, often done incorrectly and incompletely, and a constant headache. Of course, Vista's security model isn't really the right answer to that particular problem... but hey, if you like sending your money to Redmond and you just can't stop, it'll keep you wedded to Windows for an
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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
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Highly improbable. Windows ME was the last gasp of a dying operating system, the MS-DOS/Win16/Win9x line, and was vastly inferior to Windows 2000, which had already been released. It was clear that the Windows 2000 line was the future (Windows XP is the direct successor of Windows 2000), and that Windows ME would not be developed further.
Vista continues to gradually increase its market share, a
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but didn't Microsoft say that Vista's successor is only 2 years away?
That's hilarious. Did they really say that? Isn't Vista's successor supposed to be an entirely new operating system built from the ground up to finally incorporate all those features they've been promising in each new OS since Windows 2000? Vista was supposed to be released in 2004, too, once upon a time.
No, there isn't a clear reason to upgrade to Vista until you're forced to. AFAICT, the new security won't really help most people ver
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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.
Vista==Home Entertainment System (Score:2)
That, I think, is the root of the problem, but Windows has never been a proper business system anyway...
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.
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You are coming to a sad realization that Vista has no value. Cancel or Allow?
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Ha ha, true. I'll admit my preferred OS is Mac OS X. But I have Vista installed, and still do lots of Windows work for clients. It's not bad. I like to downgrade most of the features and effects to the Windows 2000 interface, because that's what I prefer. I did the same thing with XP, and a lot of clients prefer it as well, as it keeps the UI cohesive from one version to the next. Most small businesses don't have time for
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Hmm, my fix didn't take effect despite doing a preview. That line should read "I was just pointing out the article is stating the obvious." Sorry for the typo.
Vista is Not Selling. (Score:2)
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.
But Vista sales are slow [slashdot.org]. That would be the reason Dell switched back to selling XP and started selling GNU/Linux. Catering to AMD and GNU/Linux on servers [hp.com] is how HP stole the PC crown, and that's why Michael Dell is back in charge. The WinTel thing is over.
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.
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I use a Linux desktop at work (suse 10.0), and the Linux sound system stuff on suse sucks. I'm not switching to suse 10.2 because the software management on 10.2 is EXTREMELY SLOW, suse screwed that up. Maybe 10.3 will be better, but I'm not betting anything on it.
And I got my one and only windows BSOD for this _YEAR_ so far from Vista. And that's after just a few minutes of testing Vista on some box anoth
Redmond's dark shadow (Score:2)
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interesting. I wonder if different architectures are need for larger OS? OR if, maybe, and OS should just be an operating system and not have ever damn widget and control mechanism embedded in it.?
That is an interesting hypythosis, I wonder what the formula would be if it were true?
Woupd it be based on the maximum numbr of lince in a class/function? so any function longer then 1600 lines is nearly impossi
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Difficult position for Dell (Score:2)
If Dell were across the table saying hardware needed to be upgraded to support Vista, who could not be suspicious it was an attempt to pad the project because they're a hardware vendor? That's the tough position Dell consulting is in when a hardware refresh is needed.
Disclosure: I've dealt with Dell consulting on two different projects and always found their recommendations were pretty balanced, even where hardware was involved. Don't confuse consulting with the reps.
If anything this is another badge
2GB (Score:2)
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."
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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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So not only do you get a load of "better security" hype (that you get with every windows release) you also getting a lot of annoying wack-a-mole pop ups when you're trying to work! That'll help those employees become more efficient
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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)
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That's perhaps not the best example [slashdot.org].
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.
Re:hmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The post was meant to be funny right?
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.
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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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If eye-candy is what they're looking for, show them Beryl's cube desktop. Never fails to wow the rubes, and works better than I'd heard...
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That's why the video card has a seperate procesor (actually, many parrellized ones). The CPU cost is probably less than before because instead of the CPU filling pixels (like in WinXP), it tells the graphics card to do so.
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