Companies 'Blah' About Vista

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Posted by Zonk on Friday December 1, 2006 @04:53AM from the it's-new-but-not-exciting dept.

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."

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a new car! by yagu · 2006-12-01 04:55 · Score: 4, 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.)
1. Re:a new car! by LWATCDR · 2006-12-01 05:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Microsoft is going to "force" the software to wear out.
  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.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
2. Re:a new car! by traabil · 2006-12-01 05:06 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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...
  
  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.
3. Re:a new car! by diersing · 2006-12-01 05:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  True. I also wonder if training is really that big a hurdle anymore. As the general public (and especially long term business users) get more tech savvy can't we expect the average user to just need a couple hours of play time to re-learn where the core functionality is? Everything the average user needs is in the ribbons of Office07, its just a matter of learning their arrangement.
  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.
If it works, don't fix it. by erbbysam · 2006-12-01 04:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

If it works, don't fix it.
Re:Only gamers will care about Vista by Whammy666 · 2006-12-01 05:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Vista may not be an asset to gamers. DX10 doesn't really add any new features to the graphics capability of a system since that is largely dependent on hardware. Developers may like the newer DX10 interface, but there are severe backward compatibility issues for users. Any game which depends on DX10 will not run on XP or W2K platforms. I can't see developers embracing DX10/Vista for fear of excluding a large portion of the gaming market.

--
When all else fails, run.
Yawn by Mr_Silver · 2006-12-01 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
Don't gforget that:
- Companies were "blah" about Windows XP
- Companies were "blah" about Office 2003
- Companies were "blah" about Windows 2000
- Companies were "blah" about Office 2002
- Companies were "blah" about Office 2000
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.

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