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Dell Warns of Vista Upgrade Challenges
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.'"
This sounds like a way to boost hardware sales.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
...for companies when Microsoft stops supporting XP?
Am currently running a Vista Test on our infrastructure - HW needs to be updated all over the place - most important feature to the management team.. AERO.. who cares if IE7 breaks all of our corporate applications :s
"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." He wants clients to upgrade to Vista, buy new hardware AND not blame Dell if any thing goes wrong.
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.
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
By giving an advice which is not intended to generate more sales in the short term, Dell just boosted their credibility with the CEO's, CIO's, CTO's and other non-technical people who'll decide which brand to buy the next time they need to upgrade their 10,000+ PC's. ...Unless they get IBM or MS size, in which case dishonesty isn't punished because people will buy from them no matter what.
The nice thing about big businesses like Dell, is that they have a lot to lose; keeps them at a certain level of honesty.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
While Fitzgerald accepted that some business are holding back from migrating to Vista, he denied that there is a widespread feeling that it is better to wait for Service Pack 1. "I have heard that, and I don't buy it," Fitzgerald said. "It used to be a thing people did, and it might have been the case with, say, Windows 2000, but not now."
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.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
But by '2GB image' does it mean deploying a new Ghost image for machine upgrades or builds? And would desktops be deployed in place across an office network or on a dedicated replication network? I would say that that is a logistics problem - the greater problem is the migration training.
Did you not have to upgrade your hardware to run XP back in 2001?
The hidden migration problem is with multi-billion dollar companies who you'd assume would update their drivers. When I upgraded to vista I had to use xp drivers for my current model HP laserjet with a workaround I found searching on google. This is the kind of unprofessional stuff that companies wont be doing so waiting probably makes sense because a lot of equipment you can buy now brand new still has no drivers.
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.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I'm hard-pressed to think of ANY reason for companies to "upgrade" to Vista.
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.
Common, the desktop of vista barely scratches 1999 Quake levels of 3D complexity.
Do we see exploding windows, with 10000 particles? no.
At most windows vista is just an opengl style desktop with lame transparent bits that no one cares for. and a dozen 3d rectangles with textures, nothing
that a $39 video card or anything post 2003 can do easy.
Sure if you have some old crap compaq 800mhz box from 2002 its not going to cut it. Upgrade dudes.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I'll just stick it in my gmail account, and mail a copy to everyone in my org. The Exchange Server shouldn't have a problem with that...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I simply can't see Vista as a viable upgrade path in it's current state. I am one of those people that does have to worry about image size and getting a solid, well-built image into a good (read: decent sized) package for network distribution is vital to what I do.
The more news that comes out like this only pushes me and the people I service further and further away from MS based solutions.
Your television will not tell you when to start the revolution.
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.
"Chinese Amazons, power armor, laser swords.... things just meant to be." - Shampoo, A Very Scary Bet
The Exchange Server _should_ be configured to block that almost immediately. If not, find a new admin monkey.
Vista!=Business System
That, I think, is the root of the problem, but Windows has never been a proper business system anyway...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Now that Michael Dell is back at the helm, I [hopefully] believe we're seeing a trend of recovery of the respect Dell once commanded. By laying out the facts as they see it, they are helping their customers make better decisions. The respect and loyalty of their customers was once a very strong asset to the company, but at some point in the past, they started squandering that asset by outsourcing support and all sorts of shenanigans that were once the repertoire of their competition. But once Dell started playing the competition's game instead of their own, they started to lose.
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.
Praytell why a CIO would be looking at a home and home office computer page?
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.
Actually HP is now the #1 computer maker. They surpassed Dell in 2006.
s -HP-Lead-over-Dell/story.xhtml?story_id=12300BCZCB J9
r tjun24,0,4681941.story?coll=hc-headlines-business
http://www.cio-today.com/news/Strategy-Shift-Give
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-ymleckey0624.a
Are these folks on one of Microsoft's licensing plans where they have to upgrade?
I'm coming from ignorance here - not trying to give you a hard time. I am not sure why the corporate guys have to upgrade. I can only guess it's because of the licensing thing I've mentioned or their PHB is telling them to. Or are there other reasons?
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I believe this is the same problem that came up when it was time to upgrade to XP and NT. Guess some people never learn...
Why, yes! I AM new here.
This looks to be more of a "CYA" statement than anything else, probably a direct result of some of the negative articles that have been written about Vista and Microsoft.
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.
From TFA: "he denied that there is a widespread feeling that it is better to wait for Service Pack 1"
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.
-write unit tests, or else.
It's pretty obvious that the NEXT turn of the crank from Redmond's meatgrinder will not produce a usable desktop OS. It's as if we've hit some fundamental law for desktop OS's in terms of size, complexity and hardware. Whatever is post-Vista may very well be a server OS and desktops will be left behind as Redmond tries to figure out how to extract the typical $109-179 per seat retail price out of its installed base. This is probably going to be a great opportunity for any non Redmond OS out there. If the non Redmond world can't compete on compatibility and features and fear then they can compete on sheer ability to be installed and run even at near parity pricing.
So, if training, and heaven forbid, learning something new is required, it's an excellent time to train on and learn Linux!
... just wait for the fun when that happens.
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 of shame Vista will have to wear around. Your top OEM is selling Linux machines on the side and telling customers there will be problems if they try to upgrade. Even the most resolute MSFT fanboy will have a tough time putting a positive spin on this. Better call in Karl Rove for advice, this is going to take some massive counter-spin to equalize. Everybody stand clear of the whirling masses!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Look up "sarcasm" in the dictionary, George...
We waited around 18 months before rolling out XP. We generally went direct from NT4 bypassing 2000 completely, bar a hundred or so machines which were pilots. I also see absolutely no killer reason to move to Vista - from a business perspective there's nothing I've found which sets it apart from XP.
Who knows, give it a few years until the masses start to feel the pressure to upgrade and maybe Linux will have got its foot in the door. It's already happening to an extent here in the UK. We use a lot of Linux desktops already (who cares that they have Evolution instead of Lookout, they've got XGL!!), and when I called into the local parcel depot to collect something the other day I noticed they had SuSE on their systems. When I casually mentioned it, the apparently dim employee said "yeah man, none of that Microsoft crap in our company". That's a huge national parcel and logistics company. Many are cynical, myself included to some extent, about the ability of Linux to find its way onto the desktop, but it's happening, slowly, surely, but it is happening.
I see no reason to upgrade to Windows Vista at all, and either do a lot of I.T. people that I know. I have a lot of reasons not to upgrade:
XP is fast.
Windows XP is performing stable for me. I have had no crashes in the last couple of months.
All my up to date software runs quickly and smoothly on XP.
I have third party software that secures my Windows XP operating system more than Microsoft built-in security for Vista would be able to.
XP looks good enough, I don't need any Aero Glass or whatever, I don't even use the Luna interface, I have the Themes disabled and use the Windows 2000 look.
XP has been tested much more thoroughly, and it's on Service Pack 2 with Service Pack 3 coming in a year.
In the enterprise market, Dell has been pushing its custom imaging and rollout services lately. Although being honest about the resources required for a Vista rollout won't hurt Dell at all, they also stand to gain if enterprise clients contract Dell to do custom imaging and rollout for their systems.
For us, this works like this: we develop and test our images here at the college, and send them to Dell. Dell puts them on the hard drives for new machines coming back to us (which image goes on which machines is part of our order). Optionally, they can also have their staff come in with the machines, take them to the departments that are having their systems replaced, get them plugged in, data migrated if necessary (shouldn't be, but...), etc.
I suspect this is a very good profit area for them so increasing the pickup for these services is probably very good for Dell.
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 Windows 2000.
Microsoft's OS is a mature technology. Vista? Who needs it?
M$: It's time to pay us again what you owe us for that defective OS we sold you.
victim: We can't afford it. Widows and orphans need the money...
M$: What can you afford?
victim: $250000!
M$: OK, for that we will only break one knee. Remember this next time and don't be late!
victim: Oh! Thank you, M$!
---------
Every time I hear people willingly paying the M$ tax it makes me sad/angry. There are hundreds of millions of folks around the world who have just upgraded to XP, which was obsolete in 2001 when it was released, IMHO. I work in education where PHBs boast about being Wintel shops and there are classrooms with 0 or 1 PC in a classroom running that obsolete OS. It is all they can do to maintain a few labs where kids are scheduled to visit. If they used FLOSS, they could have twice as many PCs in schools and more peripherals for the same or less money. IT is not fulfilling its promise to education simply because of the M$ tax.
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
A friend just bought a new Compaq notebook with Vista (home basic) and 512MB of RAM. It was dog slow, especially booting up, so I had him add RAM. Still slow as hell with 1.5GB.
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.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
The joke was that Dell might be afraid that it will run out of memory to install in the computers that it is shipping. In which case the business issues with handling the million users are simply not Dell's problem.
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?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Sysadmins everywhere are weary of vista and the upgrade procedure, but that is what we are payed to do. We use MS so we have someone to say "stfu and fix it" when things break. I cant support running a new os right out the gates but I cant support running an os that is out of support (linux guys wouldn't run out of support rhel versions either). So lets all break out the test machines and learn to use it so that we can actually do our job when its time to make the move (I have heard about sysadmins without even one vista testing machine....) At the very least use it as a reason to upgrade your own machine by telling the boss "my machine cant run vista get me a new one, yes that one with the G80 will do just fine :D". Vista is turning system administrators into the woman who couldn't press ctrl+alt+del because her fingers were too short, sheesh...
tats y i say, switch to linux, there are plethora of LINUX OSes available in d market 2de both commercial nd non commercial ones as in free ones and take my words the free OSes hav greater rate of security fixes dan d paid ones
/. account
PS: am too lazy 2 create a
In the typical Slashdot "rush to anti-MS FUD" campaign, let's not forget that years ago the exact same statements, articles, and outrage were expressed regarding the move from Windows 2000 to XP.
Vista will end up just as widely accepted as XP, and just as beloved.
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. That would be the reason Dell switched back to selling XP and started selling GNU/Linux. Catering to AMD and GNU/Linux on servers is how HP stole the PC crown, and that's why Michael Dell is back in charge. The WinTel thing is over.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Can anyone explain how the image being 2GB image has become an issue? A DVD still holds it (and a lot more), ghost automatically spans to additional files when it reaches that size (and can be set to span smaller for CDS). I have never encountered any issues with deploying images greater than 2GB from media OR over the network. Heck, even powerquest drive image (now assimilated by the symantec collective) and some of the crappier image utilities can handle it. Perhaps this is an issue for people using IE to download an ISO of an image disc (IE has a cache bug that limits the size of a file download over http to 2GB) Or perhaps this is some issue with Microsoft's new WIM imaging format that I am not aware of? Most workstation deployments in the enterprise include an amount software on them which has already put them above 2GB. Am I missing something or is this just an anti-microsoft bloated software nitpick.
It's a nice feature missing from XP. With user switching, you could walk up to any desktop that is locked, switch user logon yourself and get to your files/mail/whatever.
It'd be a nice little productivity boost at many companies.
Business and government are staying FAR away from Vista for the exact reasons enumerated in the article. At our office we just ordered PC's from HP. HP will sell us the Vista license but install XP on the machine instead. We've done the same with Dell too.
I've heard that Vista breaks a lot of higher end apps, like CAD programs, etc. We'll see.
Sounds like PHB to me! ;-)
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
grep -iw skynet
The Pre-first-boot Vista Business Ghost v11 images I've taken from Dell OptiPlex 745s, Latitude D620s and D531s are all well over 3 GB. This is with Ghost compression set to the max (-z9). Ghost v11 images from installed systems with Office 2003, a few utilities and one user profile are nearly 5 GB. If anything, the quotes in the article understate the image rollout issue.
N/A
FlightGear appears to be in the same league as MS Flight Simulator.
:)
Of course it does have one advantage - Free.
http://www.flightgear.org/
Pirates - Making commercial software better than stock since 1979
--- Do you believe in the day?
Okay, why Ubuntu of all distros? Big corp customers would surely go with RHEL or SLES, smaller customers might well find CentOS or Mandriva or some other more suitable to their needs. Sure, Ubuntu is good and the Ubuntu community is excellent, but it's hardly the be all end all of Linux distros.
(And that's just for Linux. Where I work we ended up replacing Windows with FreeBSD in our servers and desktops -- FireFox for in-house web apps plus OpenOffice do nicely for our users -- and haven't looked back. Our vendor lock-in days are over and we have an extremely tidy environment for admins.)
Microsoft has now ADMITTED that the National Security Agency had two sets of teams - "red" to determine how to break in, and "blue" to "assist" in designing Vista security - working on Vista.
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.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Fitzgerald can believe whatever he wants ..
.. for good reason too, if it cared to look hard enough.
As an Architect for an Integrator/Managed Desktop Service Provider with Service Level Agreements, I can assure him that we not only wait for SP1, but we encourage contracts of N-1 provisioning - meaning that our Windows 2000 based clients can enjoy the revolutionary new "Windows eXPerience" with XP being rolled-out now that Vista is being trialled by 40 million beta testers.
This industry tends to forget that most other industries revolve around the client's core business, not the vendor's
"Windows has never been a proper business system anyway..." - by flyingfsck (986395) on Thursday July 05, @11:08AM (#19754293)
i ntsCISToolResult84735.jpg
c 5745a8042c4b2d9c2f29c47ed57bd&p=375355#post375355
I have to disagree with you here!
Especially regarding Windows Server 2003 SP #2 (or RC2 - the foundation code for VISTA no less) & SQLServer 2005 (which @ secunia.com, a respected website regarding security, has shown it has having ZERO/0 vulnerabilities in its entire history to DATE)... check for yourself, & see!
Also, NASDAQ (an INCREDIBLY "high tpm (transactions-per-minute)" environs has achieved the fabled "5 9's" of reliability using the combination I mention above (Windows Server 2003 & SQLServer), 365 days a year & 24x7 no less...
(Not trying to KNOCK you personally man, but it's a factoid you ought to be made aware of is all, beacuse apparently? You aren't!)
APK
P.S.=> As far as "home workstation usage"? I have achieved a CIS Tool 1.x score of 84.735 of 100, here:
http://img.techpowerup.org/070618/APK14SecurityPo
& THIS IS THE ROADMAP TO ACHIEVE IT (a "how-to" guide for Windows users, since everyone ought to know this stuff today imo, especially today/nowadays):
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=c8
(CIS Tool 1.x is from the CENTER FOR INTERNET SECURITY & the tool IS multiplatform, & runs on various *NIX derivants (Linux/SELinux kernel hook addons for MAC (Windows-like ACL), Solaris, BSD variants (sorry, no MacOS X version yet, but that's just a clearcut case of MacOS X having less softwares really than Windows does))...
Not a single taker from here @ slashdot 11x now, has beaten my score...
NOR, some Linux oriented magazine sites forums members either, have beaten that score (OR, even come close to it imo, because stock outta the box? Most any OS will score sub 20's, & I'd be willing to almost bet on that in fact, having seen unsecured Windows rigs take that test)...
So, bottom-line:
All I can say is, for all the *NIX user's 'bluster' of "Windows is less secure or less securable than (insert *NIX variant here)", it's all F.U.D. & Hooey... pure b.s!
Show me otherwise!
Take your *NIX variants, & beat that score... put your monies where your MOUTHS are!
(... Yes, you can TRY to "undermine/lessen the value" of my using a std.'ized test such as this one, but if you don't beat my score on it? Well... The Linux PENGUIN imo, ought to be a chicken... & the "BSD DEVIL" runs when the Win32 Angel comes around... prove me wrong!)
If you somehow do? Great...!
I mean that, because I would like to discuss your scores + how you achieved them on your *NIX variant, & the test only takes a minute to download/install/run!
I want photo proofs thereof though (I won't accept less than photo proof as I provide, sorry)!
We can ALL grow/gain here, especially HOME USERS of both types of OS (SELinux & OpenBSD/FreeBSD are ones I'd like to see here the most though, because they are touted as the "MOST SECURE" of the *NIX genre, even from Linux folks I challenged, but did not get beaten by in terms of this test's ratings system)...
There are "minor errors" the test makes, & I can prove this (from a Windows stdpoint no less, based on registry data &/or use of secpol.msc where it downscores myself, perhaps you NIX nuts can find the same, & it does NOT account for things like firewalls of ANY kind, or antivirus, but it is STILL a damn good test! I know my actual security rating's higher than my photo (84.735) too, based on that)...
The point is to compare & discuss this here... care to take a challenge, NIX nuts?
apk
With DOS, 3.1, 95, 98, and maybe NT4, TCP/IP and networking in general weren't rock solid. USB was pretty hokey in those OS's too.
Windows 2000's USB and TCP/IP networking are pretty much as good as any new operating system. I think it will stick around for a lot longer than any previous OS.
does this mean MS will still support WinXP till the end of the world?
You don't got a thing if you don't have that ping.
... does that means that all Linux distributions now require 1GB of ram to run everyday tasks? Does it mean that all Linux distributions now have an install image in the multi-gigabytes (funny, I could have sworn there were Linux distros that fitted on thumb drives)? Does that mean that Linux has now lost both its immense configurability, and its rich library (and back catalogue) of very lean programs?
No? Well, what exactly does your rather dubious assertion mean anyway?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.