Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Or is it a hedge against a rush of demand with supply failing causing clients to go to other sources than Dell? Imagine you've got 1000000 computers and 2000000 sticks of 512MB RAM. Then comes Vista. That's an oversimplification, but I believe it's also quite valid. It would be better to stagger the upgrades than lose clients to other vendors that might have the supplies to serve demands faster.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
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.
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.
Same here. After running Linux (RH + Windowmaker) exlusively from 1997-2001, I switched over to Windows 2000, and then XP.
I had no real complaints. Good hardware support and lots of applications.
Then slowly over the last 6 years I ditched expensive Photoshop and began using GIMP. I stopped upgrading MS Office and installed Open Office. I started using Firefox exclusively. Thunderbird has been my email client for 2 years. I used Azureus for P2P. My stock trading platform is 100% Java.
It occurred to me last year that I was basically using XP to run 90% open source or platform-neutral applications. And while it was somewhat stable, it was still 32 bit, and was susceptible to all kinds of hacks, and still did crash when I had 20+ apps open, screen saver wouldn't engage, crashes when transferring across MS networks, and some other little things.
So last month it was time for a new computer.
I looked at Vista 64 Ultimate bit.
I looked at Ubuntu 64 bit.
Why pay $300-ish? I dunno. I used almost all free software.
Installed Ubuntu, and now have a triple 1600x1200 head setup with 3 monitors attached to 2 video cards.
It looks beautiful.
Have only rebooted for a new kernel updated.
Have some niggling problems (still trying to get the SD card reader and wireless scanner to recognize), but for the most part everything just works, and has yet to crash (knocks wood). And I don't have to do the virus thing constantly. Ad-aware, Norton, Registry cleaner, etc. Was getting tedious. XP had slowed down considerably after the same intall for 2 years.
And I use the same apps as before. OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox, Azureus, Bittorrent, Thunderbird, Trading Platform ... I can't really tell the difference as the desktop more or less looks the same as before. Three monitors, everything back in it's original place.
I'm not a "fanboy" of anything. I still have a XP partition which I purchased 2 years ago for Flight Simulator X. I think Mac OSX is marvelous ... but as far as BUYING a new OS ... I don't really see the point.
The strides the Linux Desktop have made in the past few years frankly astounded me, and I am running a new box like nothing has happened.
The OS can see al of my 4GB of memory, it's fast. It's stable. I update and install software with the checkbox. And at native 64 bit, it is much faster on the same hardware ... and I am using the exact same programs I was before with no real compromises (and several actual additions to my software arsenal).
I don't hate Microsoft. I don't bash Microsoft. Nor do I hate or bash Novell.
I just don't think they are terribly necessary anymore.
For the average home user, I've just no idea why Vista would be a need. And that goes for business users too, other than the fact that converting a larger operation from one platform to another may be more trouble than it is worth.