A Majority of Businesses Will Not Move To Vista 378
oDDmON oUT writes "An article on the Computerworld site quotes polling results from a potentially-divisive PatchLink survey. The poll shows that the majority of enterprise customers feel there are no compelling security enhancements in Windows Vista, that they have no plans to migrate to it in the near term and that many will 'either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X'. A majority, 87%, said they would stay with their existing version of Windows. This comes on the heels of a dissenting view of Vista's track record in the area of security at the six month mark, which sparked a heated discussion on numerous forums."
Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
I could go into details, but I don't want to become a troll. Suffice to say, I'm happy on XP, wasn't on Vista.
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
I predict a lot of very expensive work ahead for vendors trying to port any hardware-intensive software from XP to Vista, particularly if it's going to have to support multiple languages. (because you'll now need a bi-lingual developer to re-code the device-tree scanning and parsing code - for each language. Microsoft developer support's still scratching their heads here. . . )
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You won't need a bilingual developer. You'll need a developer with access to a translator.
Lost in the discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
I've spoken to many people who have used and hated Vista and a few who have sworn if off entirely.
What's really relevant is that Vista came out at a time Microsoft desperately needed to hit a home run. Instead Vista turns out to be a one-hopper to the short stop. An unexpected bonus for Linux and especially Apple.
The culture that produced Vista didn't arise overnight, it's been building for ten years. Vista is the product that comes out of a broken corporate environment.
Ballmer needs to go. He's
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What printer actually *has* drivers for XP-64? Although I see the advantages of going w/ 64-bit OSes, the hardware/software support just isn't there yet - although it should be. And it is not MS's fault. 64-bit windows has been around for a few years now (also, nearly any computer bought today has a 64-bit supporting processor) and the driver/application developers knew
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It depends... the Open Source community is quite willing to make its own drivers if the hardware specs are available. Can't we expect the same from Microsoft? At least for the "big brands"?
;-)
Besides, if Microsoft says "give us the specs or your hardware stays unsupported", I guess most hardware vendors will comply a lot faster than when the Linux community says the same
The thing is generally vendors write the drivers and sometimes Microsoft distributes them with the OS. I don't think Microsoft write any print driver for physical hardware printers. Although I'm sure if they do a Slashdotter will correct me.
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Informative)
An example is World of Warcraft starts using DirectSound to pump out sound at 75%. Then your email application pops up and tells Windows, hey i want you to turn the sound to 100% so i can play a "you've got mail sound". Neither of these applications know about each other, and they both want access to the same card. In XP, there is going to be conflicts, the email application might turn your sound up, but forget to turn it down causing WoW to get really loud. WoW is still at 75% but because your email application told the card to go higher, well, it gets noisy.
In Vista, you get two streams heading into a single control layer which can adjust the volume on each input stream seperately before merging into a single stream to the card.
As you mentioned it would require special hardware support and then Windows would have to support it.
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Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a little bit of both actually. My own company sent out a memo stating that no PC is allowed to be purchased with Vista and not to upgrade to IE7. They also cited a government response to this [informationweek.com]. (which I submitted posted here on /. back in March, but never got picked up that I noticed)
You see, the thing is NOT that Vista is broken but that other software breaks on Vista. You see the difference? We're not talking about some Video games or Office Suite programs but 3rd party business applications such as accounting software, medical software, etc. Along with IE7, my own companies IT department has been testing IE7 and Vista and have concluded that a lot of our 3rd party software that runs a lot of our day-to-days would not work or crash often on Vista or IE7 (for internet based apps.).
Given expectation of most people that a computer will 'just work' no matter what setup it is, it's much easier to just ban it altogether until there's a need for it. Also, there's the obvious reasoning for cost, which I due agree that it's the most important reason. If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Safe to say, they're waiting for for the cost to come down or until MS forces everyone to buy it by a) stopping XP support b) requiring Vista to run programs (such as Halo 2, Shadowrun, etc that they're trying to do with the gaming market... and I absolutely refuse to take part in and I hope Linux and open source can get something to compete with DX10 and supported by companies before that happens so I can happily switch to Linux for gaming.)
Cheers,
Fozzy
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You see, the thing is NOT that Vista is broken but that other software breaks on Vista.
How much of this is due to lazy software development by 3rd party vendors in the past 12 years since Windows 95 came on the scene? Many of the incompatibilities are due to hard coded file and data paths, poorly implemented file and registry permissions that require administrative user access to run the software, or non-standard GUI implementations. How does one create a secure OS when the applications that run on it are so poorly written? Vista breaking 3rd party apps was unfortunately a step MS had to
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
MS was able to gain such a huge marketshare because they found the sweet spot for upgrading... there has been a continual backwards compatability between OS releases, with only a few API calls being broken with each release. The result is that people still have batch scripts and DOS software that will run under XP -- but all this ends with Vista.
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Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
My business has good, tested, proven software. Even if I felt absolutely compelled to upgrade to Vista, it breaks some of my software. Some of it can be updated to a new version of the software from the vendor, but why the heck would I do so?
It's been my experience that "upgrades" are rarely so. In addition to the cost in money and time, they add features I don't need, and senselessly change the interface. It works fine now, but if they don't radically change things, and add new "features", nobody would pay money to "upgrade".
I would still be using Quicken 8 for DOS if it supported online banking. I'm tired of Intuit changing the online banking format every few years, and deliberately breaking old versions of the software. The new interface is horrid, and adds a lot of useless crap.
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From Microsoft:
Vista breaks a lot of stu
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1) Got a new laptop (no XP option). Complained about compatibility, but tried to stick with it last I heard.
2) Got two bluescreens in one day using Vista, installed XP and all is well. Left the Vista HDD in just in case he changes his mind, but I doubt it.
So everyone.... well, since I'm 2 for 2 who don't like it, I guess there's quite a few not happy with it.
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A friend is using it, and its working great on his desktop. On his laptop, he's had major frame rate drops, but it works.
Another friend had to revert to XP due to Vista blue screening so often that he couldn't do anything in WoW.
I think you're right though, the problem is simply that people have XP figured out, and it does the job. There's no reason to go through the expense and hassle of a migration.
YMMV (Score:3, Interesting)
One is the owner of a small electronics company, and his experience (relayed to me through a colleague) was that he encountered several problems. OK, it's hearsay and not very accurate...
The other one is a software tester from a consulting company we work with. He told me in person that they "set up one laptop for evaluation, and ended up deciding not to switch to Vista". I kn
Do what I want, or I won't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone doesn't support Flash or Java (and won't ever support them, from what I hear, because Apple wants to be the only company that can write software for it). Thus, it is broken both as a handheld computer and as a web browser. Again, those features, as cool as they are, are not selling points for me.
Windows Vista comes with spyware, DRM, and other such malware built-in as part of the core OS. Thus, it will not do what I want it to do, and it will do things I don't want it to do. It's new features are not selling points for me.
What I am getting at is this trend, both in software land and gadget land, of trying to make consumers buy products that limit them, rather than empower them. It is as if they are saying, "of course you want it to be an open and compatible system, but if you have that then you might be able to do things of which I disapprove (whether they are legal or not) or for which I would prefer to charge you. So, I will not give you what you want, but you will buy it anyway."
No, I won't.
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Probably, in a year or so, these problems will go a
Businesses will adopt... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, the security gains are there and they are real. Things like ASLR, file and registry virtualization, BitLocker being much better integrated and a whole lot better recovery scenario that standalone encryption products, etc. Agreed that so far this year there have been only two patches that I needed for XP that I did not for Vista. That's not great - they need to do better there.
We are at 5 years on our existing hardware, so it is time to replace it. The replacement will be with Vista Enterprise. With the better security - it just makes sense to use Vista instead of shipping XP again.
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
It's clear that large corporations are normally the early adopters and it's highly unusual that we didn't see CTOs standing outside Circuit City at midnight waiting for Vista to be released so they could immediately install it on their mission-critical machines.
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I imagine at some stage they may switch but in the meantime it's simply an uncessary expense
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Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
2 weeks and some 100+ hours later, I still don't get it. What it is, why it was created, what it does that XP didn't do, etc.
I can confirm that it is quite a bit more resource intensive, and appears to be somewhat slower than XP. The interface is odd and counter-intuitive. I had to turn off UAC because it asked me to confirm every time I wanted to fart. When I turned off UAC, all of my application settings were reset, which means I had to re-configure pretty much everything. The mouse settings won't stick between reboot. I have to reconfigure the pointer evertime I boot the machine.
I have 4 gigs of memory (only 2.5 gigs are visible), and the disk thrashes every moment that the machine is on. Even when sitting idle at the desktop doing nothing. Some programs don't work, or work in an odd manner. Adobe Premiere dumps on my with a cryptic error message, and I have had one BSOD. Something about could not get driver_power_state. Unplugging the external firewire drive seems to have stopped that.
I thought FSX would really fly on Vista compared to XP, but the framerates are the same, even with the significant bump in hardware (From an AMD FX-55 to a Intel QX6800 and 6800 to 8800 video cards).
I am trying to love the thing. I really am. Does it have some positives? I suppose. The little "Aero View" thing is marginally cool. Visually, the window manager theme is nicer. It runs MOST of my applications fine and allow me to get things done similar to XP. The drivers for the X-Fi card sound just incredible, and this is the best audio I have ever had. The drivers for the 8800 cards produce very nice and sharp images and go back and forth between quad monitors and SLI with a simple reboot.
But does it do one thing that XP didn't do? For me ... no. At least nothing that I have come across. It does the same stuff as XP, sligthly slower than XP ... and seems to pound the living shit out of my hard drive. I am looking at the drive light right now and the thing is flashing constantly. It never stops.
I still have my Ubuntu machine beside this one, and would love to install Ubuntu on this QX6800. But until Creative releases a driver from the X-FI card (which I am not willing to give up), I'm pretty much screwed on front.
Once Ubuntu 7.10 is released, which will probably have native 8800GTX drivers on the live disk, and hopefully will have some kind of driver for the X-Fi card, this is going to become a Ubuntu machine very quickly, with a 50gb Vista partition for FSX. I am a heavy multi-tasker and have used every manner of OS release since DOS. I was a Unix admin for several years. So I am not exactly Joe and Jane Soccermom when it comes to screwing around with new OS's
Until I can get some better Linux drivers for my current hardware, I will be spending more hours with my new buddy Vista, and I will be trying my best to figure out what Redmond was doing for the last 5 years.
I keep telling myself that it just has to be something more than a window manager update ... but as of this typing, that is about all I have been able to find. XP with a new, slower, but prettier Window Manager.
I am not sure what that point of upgrading from anything to Vista would be. Maybe I will figure it out in time, but don't know why anyone would bother right now.
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Business is really all about risk vs reward. Migrating to Vista has associated risk and cost (licens
Re:Slashdot... oh slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, 32-bit apps have been common for over a decade now. Excluding
Maybe Apple, Sun, & Linux folks should band together to show their collective strengths in fighting Windows and fund projects like WINE to their collective benefit--instead they fight each other. (Then again, Jobs' ego would prevent such an unholy union...)
MS made big mistake with XP (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think Vista is a bad OS at all. But if XP is working fine, and the next step up is only a mild improvement (and from my experience, something that the home user will notice more than a work user), it's not worth switching. XP just isn't bad enough to move on from.
(Now, if only OS's could get crappier over time, like cars...) Maybe MS should release a "critical update" that turns it into Windows ME or 98.
Re:MS made big mistake with XP (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think Windows peaked with 2000.
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Fixing a hosed 2000 system can be a nightmare because the installer sucks. And setting up a home network was really unreliable. Also wireless network support sucks, and USB was more cumbersome. I can't stand dealing with 2000 anymore. Why would you like 2000 more than XP (other than the fact that you don't have to activate it?)
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Re:MS made big mistake with XP (Score:5, Insightful)
If XP's only advantage over Vista was that "it doesn't suck enough", then you'd be seeing a repeat of the XP rollout. In that case, a few people upgraded their 2000 and 98 machines to XP. But mostly, people got XP when they got new computers.
This time, it's not just the old systems that are not getting upgraded. Brand new systems are still mostly shipping with XP. People don't trust the beast, and with good reason.
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If you were running 2000 there was little reason to update it, but 98/ME were total crap. There are very few instances where someone would want to roll back, plenty of people went back to 2000 however.
Operation PUMPKIN (Score:2, Insightful)
Couldn't help think of Cinderella when you said that. But is that what people really want? Do they really want software decay? No.
That's part of what older generations can't grasp... is how software is infinite and does not degrade like every other product. That means the best business model with software will always be SERVICE not product or captive audience. Just o
Or maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't be the first time they copied a certain fruit company.
But they will probably just stop supporting XP, and then that 87% will buy Vista, for fear of the next virus.
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\ (Now, if only OS's could get crappier over time, like cars...)
I haven't used Vista yet but every Windows version I used up until now did get crappy over time. It's called Windows Rot [google.com]. As someone who installs lots of software on his machine this is single handedly the most annoying Windows "feature" ever.
Of course this can be fixed by reinstalling but it's really not a viable solution.
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Re:MS made big mistake with XP (Score:5, Interesting)
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Probably you just need to turn off a few of the eyecandy effects.
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Can't understand software company logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Company BozoTron makes Bozo-XKE, a software program that does, well, something. They release version 1.0 and it sells a few at $299 a box. Two years later, they release super-improved Bozo-XKE v2.0 (which does nothing more than muck up the user interface that all their customers took so long to learn, and fix a few bugs). It sells for $379 a box. But you can't buy the old version 1.0 at $100. And the owners of v1.0 can't sell their software for $100 to someone else and have BozoTron continue their support with the new owner. Some software companies might do this, but not BozoTron. You also can't split the v1.0 package and sell one part of it to a company (that will only use that section of the software, and doesn't need the rest of the package) for $50.
So absurd and insane. The only reasonable thing to do is just make copies of XKE and use them however you like. Which drives BozoTron nuts. But that wouldn't be happening if they were a reasonable company with a reasonable marketing plan to begin with. But they aren't, they're a software company, a fantasy business, a virtual corp that only works as long a people agree to continue to give them money.
Now I realize that this goes against everything that the Slashdot community believes in and threatens your livelihood, such that it is, but the only true value in software is what wealth it can create when applied to other economic resources. In itself, software is worthless. Its only value is when it's applied to other techniques, processes, and materials and increases the ability of those other techniques, processes, and materials to make money.
So indeed, if XP is making you money and the cost of going to Vista is going to cost you more money than XP is making for you, then nobody is going to switch to Vista. Microsoft should franchise their old operating systems. Let some other company buy a support license from Microsoft to be the people who adapt and fix the bugs in Windows 98 and continue to support it in its various business environments. They are fools for expecting people to abandon old OS installs and go to unproven alternatives. That used to work for the first twenty-five years of the office PC, but it's beginning to change. People are beginning to realize that their corporate PC needs don't match Microsoft's corporate expansion needs. It used to be that what was good for Microsoft was good for the rest of the corporate community. Now that basic symbionic relationship is splitting. This would be good for the Linux community, but they are too splintered for reliable corporate support. It would be good for Apple, but they took too much LSD and it still shows with their obsession with flashy expensive electronic trinkets instead of rugged flexible low-cost computing systems. Eventually someone else will step up to fill the needs that Microsoft used to be able to do before they lost their way.
Re:MS made big mistake with XP (Score:4, Informative)
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Sure it was, you were just late to the game.
6.0 very rarely, if ever, crashed. I don't recall many crashes before that (unless you opened something larger than Word could handle, then watch out!), and I don't recall them as common on 7.0 and 7.1.
hawk
Not a Big Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Vista is made for the Industry not the consumer. Consumer's are dairy cows to be milked for their money."
And businesses aren't? We all know the real reason Microsoft issued Vista in December was because otherwise they would have lost a lot of business customers with their "software assurance" program. They had to either issue a new OS before 2007/01/01 or face a revolt, because businesses were guaranteed between 3 and 6 years of OS updates for buying their plan. December 31st, with no new OS, would have
XP was much the same (Score:4, Insightful)
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This gives businesses time to consider alternatives and also time for alternatives to mature even more than they already have.
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Given that everyone knew Vista was on the horizon and how MS deals with roll-outs a lot of businesses did their refresh last year since the de
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It's been like that with every Windows release actually. This isn't news; it is normal.
I tend to agree, and this was my first thought on reading this article.
I remember way back after Windows 95 came out there were many businesses that just refused to switch, despite 95 being a million times more stable, better UI, etc than the (IMO embarrassingly bad) Windows 3.1. Microsoft was still selling Windows 3.1 licenses as late as perhaps 1998 due to corporate pressure.
Now this isn't quite like that transition.
No, Vista is a real failure. (Score:5, Insightful)
XP did not do well but Vista is doing much worse. The rejection seems to be universal. [slashdot.org] The same low percentage (12%) of business and home users say they want an "upgrade". M$'s power to push upgrades is over and with that goes the whole vendor manipulation monopoly.
Laughing Last, Re:LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
A silly AC taunts:
XP did not do well - No, it only managed to capture 97% of the desktop market.
By M$ standards and needs, even your inflated share is not good enough. It took two or three years for XP to gain majority share, which is one of the reasons M$ has delayed Vista for so long. Their absolute growth has not been anything good and Wall Street was not convinced - M$'s stock price has remained flat since the tech crash of the late 90's: [nytimes.com]
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Really, I think the last must-upgrade version of Windows was 2000. Windows 2000 offered much better hardware support than NT, but much better stability and security than Windows 98. For many business, there still isn't any compelling reason to upgrade beyond Win2k.
Now, honestly part of that is because Windows 2000 was a pretty good OS for its time. On the other hand, I don't know what it says about Microsoft's future that they haven't developed anything compelling in the last 7 years.
Now the real question is.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they will (Score:2)
Linux / OSX plans (Score:3, Interesting)
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We're one of them... (Score:3, Informative)
It's unbelievable what they have compromised just so they can have flashy graphics and smooth looking buttons. It all boils down to one thing in the end however, I just don't see any benefit to upgrading any time soon so therefore there's no reason to. We will continue to buy our new PCs from Dell with Windows XP on them until they either quit offering it or we have a piece of equipment that requires it.
Re:We're one of them... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm.. I didn't think reading stories counted as research anymore, but I guess it does nowadays. Of course the majority of Vista users without problems are not out on the messages boards singing its praises, they (like me) are simply using their computer and find it more pleasent than XP.
I did however have an coworker who received a new laptop with Vista on it and we have had nothing but problems with it. Our printers wouldn't install and I cannot believe how overly complicated they made it to find anything in the operating system.
Ahh, one test machine and you've written off Vista. I had print drivers that don't install, but that's because the manufactor hasn't released any Vista drivers for the printer. Personally, I've found things are better orgainized in Vista than with XP, once I figured out how they set it up.
It's unbelievable what they have compromised just so they can have flashy graphics and smooth looking buttons. It all boils down to one thing in the end however, I just don't see any benefit to upgrading any time soon so therefore there's no reason to.
OS makers have a tough time selling their product. It IS more secure and more locked down (I've hit this when doing my everyday development on Vista). I've also read some technical artciles about what is more restricted in Vista. So I'm included to say they are there.
Unfortunately all most people see is the new UI. Its the only part of the OS you interact with, even though there are quite a few new features in there. Building applications on the new UI IS going to be much easier for me.. no longer do I have to fork out money just to get a context menu that can have a textbox in it.. I can put one together myself easily.
At any rate, I'm not posting to say you should upgrade or that I think you need Vista right now.. my main objective was to point out flaws in your reasoning used to tell your boss not to buy Vista; nothing you've posted about indicates that you did any kind of real evaluation at all, and I think that you need to be called out on that.
Re:We're one of them... (Score:5, Insightful)
If my boss asked me if we should upgrade to Vista, then I would tell him "No" without a second thought. And I actually like Vista.
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You also ignore any security risks; Vista does seem to be much more secure than XP. Even running as an admin, you're not really an admin. That in itself is a pretty big ch
Wish my campus had seen this... (Score:2)
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Sticking with windows (Score:5, Informative)
2% said they are already running Vista
9% said they planned to roll out Vista in the next three months.
87%, said they would stay with their existing version(s) of Windows.
8% of those polled acknowledged Linux plans and
4% said they would deploy Mac OS X.
I would say "many will stick with the Windows they have", certainly, but I'm not sure I would call 8% or 4% 'many'. And somehow I suspect 'linux plans' might not mean complete replacement of Windows on the desktop.
Just my $0.02
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Also would really depend on who you asked (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, given those choices, I'm not surprised there are a small number that are switching. Had you asked me before recently if we were rolling Vista out in the next three months the answer would have been no. We are going to roll it out (somewhere around three months is the timetable for the first lab I'm planning on converting) but it isn't like we are just going to rush in to it. Things need to be tested, license needs to be hashed out and purchased, etc, etc. So while our long term answer is "Yes we are going to slowly convert all systems to Vista in the coming years," we aren't going to be converting them tomorrow or anything.
Really, all the doom and gloom about Vista seems silly as it has been doing just like past Windows OSes, and even a bit better if you use sales number as the benchmark. Adoption isn't going to be in a big rush, but rather a slow trickle. Right now Vista systems are pretty rare, I'm guessing only slightly more common than Windows 2000 systems. Next time this year I bet they are common, but under 50%. Year after that I bet they are the majority, year after that I bet XP is downright rare.
It is how is has generally gone in the past, no reason to assume it'll be different this time as their are no different indicators. No, the increased hardware demands are nothing new. I remember the bitching with XP over 2000 and particularly NT (which some were running when XP came out). Now, the issues seem like squabbling given the progress in computer power. Similar deal with Vista. It may sound like a lot when someone says "Really, you should ahve a gig of RAM for it," until you realise that a gig of RAM is $50 or less. It really isn't a big deal these days and will only become less so in the future.
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A good point, considering if even if none of those 8% "acknowledging Linux plans" are talking about on the desktop, there is still a 102% pie being split up between Windows (Any) and Mac OSX.
Also, note this is in the next three months. Yeah, most businesses tend to be slow in adopting something that could put them out of business. Now, if it covered the next 3 years, then we could talk.
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Unless ofcourse that having used vista, they are considering rolling back or migrating away from it to osx/linux.
Wrong Department? (Score:2)
:)
I hear a lot of people bitching about XP every day, but they'd all be loathe to switch to Vista. In fact, they'd have a good chuckle at the very notion. I'm actually impressed that relatively many are considering an alternate OS....
If not now, but when? (Score:4, Insightful)
For people who don't need the latest and greatest hardware support, where is the motivation to upgrade at all? I suppose there are probably security issues with the older Windows versions, but I think you can avoid a lot of this by being careful; something which will probably still be necessary with Windows 2060.
This argument applies even further with application software like Word. I'm not sure I've noticed any of Word's new features since they started underlining my spelling errors, and yet there have been quite a few major (expensive) version since then. Other than version incompatibility and the fact that everybody else is upgrading, why do we need a new version?
Peter
The "KISS principle" or It's an OS, not a blender" (Score:2)
Most SMB's can (Score:2)
Won't move *now* (Score:2)
Why share such plans? (Score:2)
Why even let MS (or any other entity for that matter) know anything about your future business plans? At least make them work for it, sheeshhh.
Question to MS: "What are your business product pricing plans for the future in regards to VISTA?"
MS: "No comment."
Question to business owner: "What are your software
Duh! (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.perfectreign.com/stuff/2007/20070519_v
Most businesses don't have to anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
I have no doubt Vista will become significantly better in a couple of years and narrow the competition with the next-gen Windows, but that's how it should be too. After all, XP and 2K were very similar at first, until service packs and such made XP much better. In the meantime, development of 2K halted, which presented a bigger gap between the two systems. The same will happen with XP and Vista.
Security is no selling point (Score:4, Interesting)
A recent survey by websense [websense.com] (unfortunately in German, so rather useless for most people reading here) came up with 98% of companies considering their security "adequate" or better, 53% thinking their security is "very good". 66% of middle management thought that nothing could penetrate their security, their IT guys are rather suspicious, only 25% share the view of their management. Still a lot, if you ask me...
Unfortunately, admins rarely make the decisions when it comes to purchases. They only have to suffer from them.
And the rest of Vista, the eye candy and the fluff, aren't a selling point either for companies. A company doesn't care whether their workers get to "enjoy" their "computing experience" more. Their question is: Does it increase productivity? And the answer is probably no.
Well (Score:2, Informative)
Cant wait forever (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - MOLP will require it after a grace period
2 - soon, you wont be able to buy a pc with XP. And then later you wont be able to get one with XP support ( drivers )
2a - supporting mixed environments suck, so they will end up upgrading the rest.
3 - new software will eventually require vista.
Re: (Score:2)
Just the general differences will end up 'forcing' lazy developers to make their software 'Vista only'. The big-name software is almost always compatible with older versions of Windows, it's the little stuff that trips you up.
Re: (Score:2)
We went thru this same process in the past, and will again. Try installing Office 2007 on win98, or buying a new piece of hardware with drivers for 98. ( or even NT4, since this is a discussion about businesses, not home users ).
I completely see this... (Score:3, Informative)
We develop a lot of aerospace software and are required to maintain development environments that can reliably and consistently reproduce software loads over long periods of time (think life of an aircraft). Using a new OS can throw a monkey wrench into older tools, so we are careful to jump on any new OS or whatever. Not that every company has the same issues, but I bet many have similar concerns. After all, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
We're just migrating to XP now... (Score:2, Interesting)
No complelling security improvements eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm mostly joking.
This is not exactly bad news for MS... (Score:2)
9% said they planned to roll out Vista in the next three months.
87%, said they would stay with their existing version(s) of Windows.
--
98% continue to run Windows, with at least 88% exclusively.
Heck, we're a Microsoft gold partner, and we haven't moved to Vista yet. Personally I've been doing a lot of work for large and conservative institutions, several of which have been doing the 2k -> XP migration in the last year or two. Do you think Microsoft really cares if the
The long road to XP (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? One, it was the "unknown" as in "we don't know what bugs are lurking around the corner."
Two, it isn't trivial to convert an enterprise. Training costs alone are substantial, not to mention the other costs of rolling out a new OS.
In order to defeat XP in the business marketplace, Vista has to be not "just as good as" but actually "better than" XP.
In some ways, Vista has clear advantages over XP:
* It has a longer shelf life. XP support will end sooner.
* It has certain security features not found in XP
* It has certain non-security features not found in XP
On the other hand, it has some distinct disadvantages:
* It presumably has more unknown security bugs than XP, although over time this will approach zero
And of course those things that are "different" which make it more costly than XP for established businesses:
* It has some different bugs than XP
* It has some different features than XP
* The look and feel is somewhat different than XP
I'm sure there are many other advantages, disadvantages, and differences of XP vs. Vista.
It is up to each customer to decide which version of Windows, if any, suits him best.
My personal opinion?
Defer ditching XP as long as possible, but plan on being XP-free well before support ends. "As long as possible" may be "we had to buy Vista the day it shipped" or "we'll stick with XP until the day before support expires" depending on your business needs.
End of Life will FORCE upgrades (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes they will (Score:3, Insightful)
1) The CEO trades in his/her old laptop for a new one with Vista preloaded. Now (s)he can't do X anymore over the VPN to the company intranet. X being some function for which the Vista API has been redesigned for maximum incompatibility. CEO becomes entraged, pounds his/her fist on the big mahogany table and demands that everyone upgrade immediately. IT department capitulates and orders Vista and the several hundred million dollars of new hardware needed to support it for everyone.
2) Someone points out that the CEO will no longer be welcome at the Bill Gates annual CEO dinner if his/her company isn't up to spec. CEO demands that IT department upgrade everyone to Vista. See above for details.
Vista have plenty of security improvements... but (Score:4, Insightful)
BUT... Due to the problems with Windows XP's security, I bet most companies already have good third party firewalls, spam filtering, and antivirus tools in place. We already subscribe to the enterprise edition of NOD32 antivirus that has an excellent track record, and use a Linux server with Smoothwall for our firewalling and VPN purposes. (and I'm eager to upgrade to the new Smoothwall 3)
Microsoft has to assume people already have security infrastructures in place, and then the question is no longer "is Vista secure", but "what more does Vista offer than this". And I believe that is the problem for Microsoft. Vista offers no earth shattering security improvements, it merely brings it on par with most existing Unix-based operating systems. But if companies have already taken care of that in other ways by using complete security suites with reasonable subscription fees, why should they discard all that, that already works, to spend a lot of money in retraining staff and reinstalling Vista operating systems en masse? It's a huge risk for no clear benefits.
Vista is clearly better than XP security-wise from my experiences, but the thing is that XP + third party security tools (often free and even open source) is usually good enough.
My perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
So far the only (and I mean -ONLY-) compelling feature I have seen in Vista is the ability to easily control 802.1X (P)EAP settings for the wired network interface from Active Directory GPO policies.
Seriously - that's it. If I deployed Vista we would have never ending complaints about nothing working, and even slower machines.
Maybe we will look a moving when drivers stop being available for XP for newer machines that we buy in 5 years or so, but I will be looking to migrate to thin clients or maybe a desktop Linux by then.
XPSP2 as it stands works ok for us for now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mainstream support stops on 4/14/2009
Extended support goes out the door 4/8/2014
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
can someone make a HARDENED WINDOWS XP version please :) hehehe
You can too!
(1) Don't use your PC logged in as administrator unless updating hardware/OS. Run as command prompt or MMC works great too, and don't even have to log off or switch user.
(2) Patch it to the max.
(3) Disable every service you can. I run Windows 2003 with about 8 or so services on, default install: 25+ services.
(4) Stop using IE for other than Windows Updates. Firefox + AdBlock Plus + NoScript = awesomesauce.
(5) Stop clicking on every "OMGZ! CLICK ME AND WIN!!!!! OMG111!!!" popup.
(6) Stop download