Microsoft Vista, IE7 Banned By U.S. DOT

An anonymous reader writes "According to a memo being reported on by Information week, the US Department of Transportation has issued a moratorium on upgrading Microsoft products. Concerns over costs and compatability issues has lead the federal agency to prevent upgrades from XP to Vista, as well as to stop users from moving to IE 7 and Office 2007. As the article says, 'In a memo to his staff, DOT chief information officer Daniel Mintz says he has placed "an indefinite moratorium" on the upgrades as "there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."'"

Comments

Nothing really unusual about it

[2.7182]

This is an agency that is very conservative. I mean, it's illegal to have curved driver side mirrors in the US for pete's sake.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[skiingyac]

I think his point is that drivers side mirrors have a blind spot, which causes who knows how many accidents, but its illegal for manufacturers to make the mirrors in a different way, which is why K-Mart sells those little $2 stick-on convex mirrors. Seems like a lot more engineering time is spent on things like heated/cooled beverage holders than would be needed to design a better side mirror, I don't know the law but I'd assume thats why manufacturers haven't improved them. Of course, if somebody (the manufacturers) lobbied hard enough for it, I'm sure the DOT would change their mind.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[Divebus]

"..there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."

The DOT is just figuring this out now? Hell, most of us knew this years ago.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

Where I work we just switched to XP from Windows 2000 less than 2 years ago. We won't switch to Vista anytime in the near future (my guess is three years at least). This isn't a story, it's standard practice. In order to upgrade, you need to do a lot of testing and updating software, especially in-house apps. If they were using Linux, they wouldn't update the kernel as soon as it was available either.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[thewils]

Who is this pete? And why doesn't he like curved driver side mirrors?

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[bcattwoo]

This is how I have heard you should adjust your mirrors. While sitting in your usual position lean your head to the left until it is almost against the window. Adjust your mirror until you can just see the back corner of your car. As a car passes you while driving, it should become visible in your sideview mirror just as it leaves your rearview and be visible out of the corner of your eye as it leaves your sideview. Seated comfortably with the seat all the way back I have to crank my mirrors all the way out to the maximum but it works.

If you want to see where your car is when backing up, just turn around and look. The back corner of your car isn't going anywhere.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[aedan]

European Volvo mirrors have a faint vertical dotted line about 2 cm from the outside edge. To the outside of this line the mirror is convex and gives you a better view of the blind spot.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

We won't be migrating to Vista either.

Most likely upgrade path for us is to linux - but only when we either change our accounting package to one supported on that platform, or Intuit ports to linux, or Crossover Office fully supports the latest QB enterprise.

Second likely path would be an OSX server -if and only if the price and licensing were not as heinous as they are with M$.

Of course, the third option would be not to migrate at all.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[cayenne8]

"I think his point is that drivers side mirrors have a blind spot..."

Don't most people actually turn their heads to LOOK before changing lanes?

That's the way I was taught to drive.....

I keep a constant eye on the mirrors while driving to have a good feeling where traffic is around me, but, I always turn to look before changing lanes...

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[networkBoy]

Are you nuts?
Then we'd have wGnome Vs. wKDE flamewars. That's the only damn thing I seem to like about windows is the unified desktop manager.
-nB

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[UncleMidriff]

I work as a contractor for the FAA, which is under the DOT, and around here, Windows XP is a brand new thing. We just switched from Windows 2000 less than a year ago, for the reasons you stated.

I have no doubt that the FAA will switch to Vista a some point, but it will likely be around the time the next version of Windows comes out. I'm not holding out much hope for a switch to Linux then, either, as most of our in-house apps are .NET, VB 6, or even Access(!).

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[dosquatch]

Oh, for Christ's sake, you're not turning around and staring over your shoulder, you're doing a quick eye flick to determine whether the space is occupied by A) air, or B) something large, metal, and opaque that may do significant body damage if you run into it. If this takes you longer than a fraction of a second, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[NatasRevol]

OS X server licensing not as heinous as MS?

Are you on crack? They're not in the same neighborhood, much less ball park.

All Xserves come with unlimited client licenses. And the OS X Server software comes in two flavors, unlimited clients ($1k) and 10 clients ($500). The 10 client limitation ONLY applies to AFP connections. Everything else - mail, web, smb, ftp - is sill unlimited.

Try putting 500 users on an Exchange server. Try putting 500 users on OS X Server. Spend the extra money on an all expenses paid conference trip to Vegas for two weeks.

Re:Nothing really unusual about it

[Pfhor]

Licensing isn't even in the same planet compared to MS.

unlimited license of server is $1000. it COMES with the xserve.

Maintenance (3 years of free upgrades, for 10.5-6, etc.) is another $1000, and entirely worth it.

So initial license purchase on top of the hardware is $1000 if you want 3 years of major versions of os x server. From past experience, that saves you $1000, because 2 more updates will happen in the next 3 years.

You are looking at $4,000 from apple vs $4313 from dell, but the dell only comes with 5 CALs (bare minimum 1u dual dual core xenon servers).

As a webmaster

[pembo13]

I wish they would at least move to IE7 if they are not going to move to Firefox/Mozilla. To stay with IE6 is just unfair.

Re:As a webmaster

[Anonymous Coward]

To stay with IE6 is just unfair.

It's not unfair, it's just plain stupid.

Re:As a webmaster

[Anonymous Coward]

To say there is reason specifically to not upgrade from IE6 is basically saying that they've developed a bunch of IE6-only web applications (with a bunch of ActiveX controls that require lax security settings perhaps.. or maybe just by developers that have never visited w3.org and have used Microsoft's [wrong] implementation of Javascript/HTML/CSS). They've screwed themselves on this one.. eventually as IE6 security updates stop coming (if they haven't already?) they're going to have endless problems when their users continue to use it to browse the internet..

Re:As a webmaster

[JoshJ]

Every time IE7 spews pointless ActiveX security warnings on .html files that contain no active content whatsoever, God kills a gnu.

If that were factual, Microsoft would make sure that all GNUs are extinct the day after the next Patch Tuesday.

Re:As a webmaster

[ChunderDownunder]

It's an issue of browsers not implementing the current standards fully nor correctly.

Browsers are still playing catchup to full XHTML/CSS compliance.

'Javascript' is a moving target, with incompatible dialects in each browser. ECMA standardized the language some years back but vendors keep adding new features that aren't available in other browsers yet.

It would be nice if web designers could at least use a baseline of available web standards of 2006 and know that all the major browsers would support them correctly. i.e. CSS2.x, ECMA-262 v3 and E4X.

Sadly, today's web applications tend to implement workarounds specific to IE and firefox (gmail for example), leaving other browsers as unsupported.

So it's not about designing websites to run with any browser that will ever exist in the future but a battle creating ones that run using the standards of today. :( IE 6 is 5 1/2 years old and should be regarded as a legacy platform.

What's that noise?

[HangingChad]

It was like the sound of thousands of MSFT reps all calling their elected representatives at once.

Fixed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to any Microsoft software products."

Seriously, so what?

[throx]

What this is really saying is that IT in the DOT wants all their systems to be running the same set of software. Wouldn't this just make sense from an efficiency point of view? I mean, they probably have bans on running MacOS 7.1, Gentoo and OS2 4.0 as well so I don't get the big news.

Did anyone seriously think large enterprise level customers would be jumping to Vista immediately, or even worse, letting their employees arbitrarily upgrade their own machines?

Re:Seriously, so what?

[div_2n]

It is no small deal when a government agency specifically bans products internally for very specific reasons. Case in point is that we do a lot of business with the US Government. There are websites we MUST use for business purposes. IE7 specifically doesn't work with how they have been designed. This means that as IT Manager, I have instituted the same policy (IE7 ban) here.

The point is that there is a trickle down effect. Why do you think MS has fought the ODF issue in Mass. so hard?

Re:Seriously, so what?

[Shadow Wrought]

Not just any Department either. But the one that is specifically taksed with investigating and reducing crashes;-)

Re:Seriously, so what?

[Dragonslicer]

You see, upgrading a Microsoft OS is much like making love to beautiful woman...

Except that there are plenty of people on Slashdot that have experience upgrading a Microsoft OS.

Re:Seriously, so what?

[rapidweather]

An individual or family that has a fairly well-behaved Windows XP computer, decides not to run out and buy Windows Vista, or a new computer that has Vista preinstalled.
Mostly because of the price, and secondly, because the Windows XP computer works well for them. And, they paid a good price for it, and would like to see if they can get some more miles out of it. A third, and perhaps major reason is that they are unclear as to "just what Vista does", besides look pretty.
It would be Big News if Microsoft could say that Vista is a secure operating system, and that Vista spells the end of the viruses and trojans war.

The point is that there is a trickle down effect.

No one paid any attention to the individual or family that "decides not to run out and buy Windows Vista"

But, a major government department that has perhaps thousands of computers, making this decision not to upgrade, and giving reasons, gets everyones attention.

That individual or family now doesn't feel all alone, the U.S. DOT is on the same page as them.
It's a matter of money for the individual, and a matter of money for the U.S. DOT, not to mention the other reasons they have, that are much more serious for Microsoft.
  Everyone thinks the Government has plenty of money, and "buys $100.00 toothbrushes", etc.
Money to burn, literally. So, perhaps their reasons are more about the "other problems", rather than the money.

What large organization or Government entity will be next?

Please don't let this story get on Drudge Report.
Yes, I know Drudge Report has a little text box where one can send in story links.
Don't all rush in and do that at once!

A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way

[eldavojohn]

Ok, so the Department of Transportation can't make a business case for it. Big deal.

Allow me to strike some real fear into Microsoft. I work for a large Fortune 500 company with six digits of employees. While it's not our primary product, we write software as a lot of companies do.

When IE7 came out, I decided to use my work legal machine to install it to try it out. This resulted in a next day 7 am nastygram from my system administrator stating that I am authorized to install any software that isn't married to the kernel. Not only were we told not to use it, we were threatened not to install it OR ELSE I wouldn't be able to enter my time or access shared community sites internal to the company.

Because a lot of our company's tools don't work very nicely inside of it. So I'm still using IE6 and my company sure isn't going to upgrade my MS Office suite. Did I mention I write web applications and I can only test them in IE6 and Firefox?

So what would scare Microsoft more? The fact that a government department isn't using it or the fact that many companies like mine are still writing stuff for the old software hence forcing our customers to stick with IE6 or any version of Firefox?

Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way

[Billosaur]

Because a lot of our company's tools don't work very nicely inside of it. So I'm still using IE6 and my company sure isn't going to upgrade my MS Office suite. Did I mention I write web applications and I can only test them in IE6 and Firefox?

And you can make a business case for that. Face it -- you develop for your company based (hopefully) on a set of standards for what the company will use as its backbone technology. I worked at a Fortune 500 once, and they held on to Netscape 4.7 for the longest time, because it was deployed everywhere (globally), and everything was designed to work for it. It wasn't the greatest browser, but it was still better than IE5 at some critical things.

Change comes slowly at big companies/organizations, because it's due to economies of scale. The more machines you have to upgrade, the more applications you have to re-write to support the upgrades, the more the bottom line takes a pounding. Even if you manage to pull off a major, world-wide upgrade, you're going to spend the next couple of years fending off bugs that will turn up every day. Eventually you will get it stable -- just in time for the "next big thing".

Companies cannot afford to go chasing every new technology or upgrade that comes along, without risking the stability that IT works so hard to create.

Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way

[RetroGeek]

Did I mention I write web applications and I can only test them in IE6 and Firefox?

Well I set up a machine specifically for IE7 testing. This is on an Intranet that is isolated from everything.

After IE7 started it wanted to connect to the MSN site. I waited until it timed out, then set the start page to "about:blank".

The next time IE7 started, it again wanted to connect to MSN. In fact it ALWAYS wants to connect to MSN, regardless of the blank page setting.

Annoying as hell, and what is it reporting to Microsoft that is so important (to Microsoft)?

Re:A Nightmare on One Microsoft Way

[CastrTroy]

I've never understood why companies base so many important applications off stuff like MS Office, or IE, or other apps that they don't have any control over. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to design applications in an environment that isn't as likely to stop working? I hear this complaint all the time. We can't change to OO.o, because we have a critical business app written in Excel. Why do companies continually use office suites and specific web browsers as development platforms? This never ends up being a good idea. I can understand web apps, but there should never be a reason to make the require something in IE or NS or any other browser. Just code them to work with standard HTML/CSS/JS and you won't have all these upgrade problems.

does not compute!

[Denial93]

MS is bad!
But the government never does anything right!
But MS is bad!
But the government never does anything right!
But MS is bad!
But the government never does anything right!
*head explodes*

Why it's news

[truthsearch]

I'm sure some are wondering why this is news. The US government is Microsoft's biggest customer, by far. If many agencies cut back on Microsoft purchases it will hurt Microsoft a lot. I would imagine one department's decision may set a precedent for others. And even if not, many investors watch for government spending news when deciding Microsoft's stock value. So any change in government policy can have huge implications for Microsoft.

avoid early adoption in production systems

[davidwr]

In general, businesses shouldn't be "early adopters" of any technology unless there's a compelling business reason. Any "early adoption" should be in testbed or non-critical environments.

I wish I could say "never upgrade without a compelling reason" but time marches on and lack of new software and the approaching end of vendor support can be very good reasons to stop using a product.

With that in mind, don't even consider using a Windows-based system unless it's been around 6 months UNLESS there is a very good reason, and strongly consider moving away from it at least 6 months before end-of-life.

Machines which are in special-purpose environments, such as machines which are not connected to any network, or which are adequately firewalled and whose connections with non-firewalled machines are heavily restricted, can continue to be used after end-of-life, but even these should be migrated to a vendor-supported environment or at least one where you have source code so you can fix problems yourself.

I feel sorry for the guy who made this decision.

[sehlat]

Since he's clearly bent on saving taxpayer dollars by not climbing on the MSFT "rising license costs" escalator, the words he's going to be hearing soon are:

"Have you ever thought about what you'll do after government service?"

non-story

[aapold]

This is a non-story. It is perfectly normal for any organization to not adopt a new OS for a significant amount of time after it is released, years, even. There are enough things to harp on Vista without making things up and pretending they have significance...

This is not unusual

[StewedSquirrel]

It is very ordinary for a company (or government agency) to adopt a "wait and see" attitude toward new software. Most companies I've worked for will not install a new OS, new software, new firmware, new drivers or whatever until they've gone through at least one revision.

Recently because of Microsofts crappy handling of IE7 upgrades (flagging them as "critical updates"), we had a number of remote users on IE7 and our SSL VPN appliances simply would not work. I had to call a moritorium on upgrading to IE7 and deployed the Microsoft "prevent IE7 update" patch in order to stop these critical updates.

Then, I had to use early-release code for our Juniper VPN concentrator, which broke about half a dozen other things.... Finally, after a few weeks, new a firmware revision for the Juniper VPN came out which enabled me to get the box back to a stable state AND allow IE7 to be used.

But if we had simply called a "ban" on IE7 upgrades in the first place, it would have saved me a lot of headache and our company a lot of productivity.

This is not a "Microsoft sux" decision, but merely a business-case against early-release software that they would likely take whether it was Microsoft or Juniper or Cisco or Oracle or whatever...

Now, Microsoft's handling of the IE7 "critical update" bullcrap.... that falls clearly in the arena of "Microsoft sux".

Stew

What are the Reasons for not Upgrading to IE7?

[jeevesbond]

I can think of one very big reason to upgrade to IE7 (unless Opera/Firefox is an option) and that's better web standards support. The web development community is going to drop support for IE6 very quickly (I give it approx. 6 months) because the standards support is so bad.

IE7 has a long way to go with this, but it's a massive improvement over 6. It's not as if it costs any money, aside from bandwidth, to download it.

Obviously I would advise them to just use Opera or Firefox and switch to Linux while they're at it. But if that isn't an option they should at least take the free IE upgrade. The decision to not upgrade Office is a sound one though.

Routine..

[joshetc]

I work for DHS and we just migrated to XP / Office 2003. It is routine for government agencies (just about all major computer systems really) to wait a LONG time before upgrading.. Everyone already knew people wouldn't mass-migrate to Vista until at least SP1 was out...

Rear View Mirror Warning

[Stanistani]

*Warning*

Operating systems may appear more compatible then they are...

It's not about the features sometimes

[connorbd]

I've heard of people saying "But I don't want version 5! I want you guys to make version 3 work the way it's supposed to!"

I really think a lot of nontechnical users couldn't care less about new features or redesigned interfaces -- what they've got works, and they don't want it messed with. So every time a software company adds a bunch of features or redesigns the interface, there's a good number of the user base that is going to be seriously ticked off because they have to retrain on all the new stuff.

Microsoft is one company that doesn't even come close to getting that. I've seen some of their smart house ideas for example -- their designs solve problems that people don't have to begin with. (Is anyone really in such a state that having the fridge track the RFID chips in your food packaging will improve things? Well, handicapped people and shut-ins, maybe, but for the vast majority of people it's overkill at best.)

Except the dead ones

[Mateo_LeFou]

...they just write letters.

Microsoft's standing on upgrading to Vista?

[LoudMusic]

Microsoft employs thousands of people as well - I wonder what their standing is on upgrading to Vista and associated products. Sure they get the software for free and the hardware for cheap, but it's still thousands of computers I bet they're replacing too.

And what's happening to all of these displaced PCs? Someone should build a cluster!

Ban? Hmmm....

[ksalter]

From the article:

Schmidt says the Transportation Department hasn't ruled out upgrading its computers to Windows Vista if all of its concerns about the new operating system -- the business version of which was launched late last year -- can be resolved. "We have more confidence in Microsoft than we would have 10 years ago," says Schmidt. "But it always makes sense to look at the security implications, the value back to the customer, and those kind of issues."

emphasis added

Funny how the positives from the articles aren't mentioned.

I also like the use of the word "ban", which doesn't appear anywhere in the memo. No negative implications with that word.

If you are going to bash someone, at least be a bit more subtle.

Re:Yes it is

[Divebus]

1968: "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"
1996: "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft"
2007: "you're both fired!"

Lies and FUD!!!

[eno2001]

I get sick of hearing all the lies and FUD that the anti-Windows crowd spreads all over the place. Microsoft , is the unsung hero of the computer world and internet commerce. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have the booming businesses bringing millions of dollars into the hands of simple and plain people like you and me all around the world. Microsoft beyond bringing startling innovation and major progress to the computer world has also indirectly created an infinite number of business and wealth creation opportunities with every PC out there whether in business or at home on your desk. That alone is the MOST compelling reason. By preventing the distribution of Microsoft's latest and greatest to the largest possible number of PCs, these sorts of actions are essentially trying to prevent the lubrication of the orifices of commerce. I plea with you to please reconsider your actions.

Respectfully,
Davis Hawke

Don't worry, he's being fair.

[twitter]

I wish they would at least move to IE7 if they are not going to move to Firefox/Mozilla. To stay with IE6 is just unfair.

From the fine article:

Among the options the Transportation Department is weighing as a possible alternative or complement to Windows Vista are Novell's Suse Linux and, for a limited group of users, Apple's Macintosh hardware and software, he says.

With an open mind like that, I'd be surprised if they were not running some kind of Netscape browser already. Give him some time and he's discover Firefox, Debian, Open Office and all sorts of great stuff.

Re:Improve security - buy alternatives

[Quantam]

...you do realize that the entire reason they're doing this is to KEEP a monoculture, right? Because a monoculture is easy to admin. Having 15 different OS, while likely good from a security standpoint, is never going to be a viable option for any business (or government). Just look at Linux - its extreme diversity and customizability has always been its greatest strength and greatest weakness; I can almost guarantee you that the only way Linux will ever have a hope of stealing the crown from Windows will be to have a single distribution so consolidate market share that it's a monoculture of its own.

Re:Yes it is

[hublan]

What do you mean? Sounds like he's got a fine career as a high-flying CFO ahead of him.

Orgs banning IE7 because of SAP Portal

[Synic]

SAP Portal software doesn't work with IE7 without using a recent patch and huge orgs can't patch SAP without a shitstorm of trouble, so they just ban IE7 altogether. Oddly enough Firefox works with those versions of SAP Portal (although suffering from some minor rendering bugs causing very wide pages with scrollbars).