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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.'"
...for companies when Microsoft stops supporting XP?
"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 --
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.
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.
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.
Nope. XP ran perfectly fine on my 512MB 900MHz Duron Windows 98SE machine back in 2001. Of course, I've upgraded the machine since then, but it handled XP with no problems.
This guy's the limit!
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!
me too - Aero is the least important feature as far as I am concerned - most of the management in my company have brand spanking new hardware anyway and instead of feeding back on performance of applications the just go on about how nice it looks on their new Tablet Laptop! whilst they enjoy watching their stocks and share prices rising in the sidebar :) they are so far removed from the end users that they cannot understand why other people are complaining that its slow to boot and work with - we are looking at refreshing the vast majority of our estate to enable us to deploy vista - which will not be cheap or painless - keeps me in employment though :)
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
yeah, but don't forget, most people aren't running quake and office at the same time. The graphics complexity is because it has to be very quick at what appears, and it has to retain that quickness regardless of what the user is up to. That becomes a very heavy task with say, 88% cpu load and 10 windows open, and you drag something,etc.
stuff |
ok - so how much does it cost to purchase and install 65,000 $39 video cards? - sure about 2.5 mil just to buy them - however its much easier to buy new hardware and not have to worry that in 6months time people will start complaining about memory / processor / disk space etc and it all needs replacing anyway!
That's perhaps not the best example.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
At my previous work, I switched from NT4 to 2K in 2005 after a very painfull and expensive 2 years migration effort (almost every program or third party library had to be upgraded and large parts of our code in both production and tool apps needed heavy changes).
The main reason for the migration was that we couldn't buy NT4 licenses anymore, 2K superiority being very marginal in the decision.
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.
Imagine you've got 1000000 computers and 2000000 sticks of 512MB RAM. Then comes Vista.
.but it would be a one-time investment, and one single learning curve.
That's a million PCs. With the amount of money required to license and maintain the beast called Vista on a million PCs, I'd rather pay RedHat or Canonical to give me a customised OS for the lot - and switch over to Web-based apps. Yes, it's a big ask...
By the time it takes to get a million users get trained on UAC, IE7, Office 2007 and the support guys figure out how to get these running... the CIO could confdently move to Phase 2 with Linux-based web services, CRM, Business Intelligence etc. The army of MCSEs can be sent to Dell to support unfortunate CIOs stuck with Vista.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
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.
That's why the video card has a seperate procesor (actually, many parrellized ones). The CPU cost is probably less than before because instead of the CPU filling pixels (like in WinXP), it tells the graphics card to do so.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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
If eye-candy is what they're looking for, show them Beryl's cube desktop. Never fails to wow the rubes, and works better than I'd heard...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
and vista runs perfectly fine on my 3 year old 3.0 Ghz P4 with 1 gb of ram. and an ati 9600 pro video card... and XP ran great on my system back when I got it (P3 1 Ghz, with 256MB Ram). back in 95 people were complaining about having to upgrade their 386s and 486s for windows 95. Is this a new phenomenon to release an operating system that works best on the higher end systems of the day, and not so good on the lower end systems of the day? nope. heck windows 3.1 didn't care too much for XTs either.
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.
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?
The post was meant to be funny right?
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
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...
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.
I'll give you the training on Office 2007, and maybe even IE7, but UAC? If you have a million PCs (or even a couple dozen) then you should already have users not running in administrative mode. Such a user should never see a UAC prompt.
Still IMing in the stone age?
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.
I'm sorry, but since when is switching over to Web-based applications a one-time investment and a single learning curve? "Yes I will take one Internet please" "that'll be $100" "Thanks" Something that people seem to forget is that using Web-based applications is not free because it comes with increased bandwidth needs when you are talking about it on a business-scale (which is usally payed for on a month-to-month basis). Also, I feel the need to mention that it is not as if web-based applications and linux-based applications never change. Yes, google office has been the same since the first time I used it, but I would bet my life savings that it will change before the next version of windows comes out. Linux changes all the time, and you have to fight to keep up with it. I'm sorry, I agree with your point that when you cost-compare using existing computers to run Linux (which will likely run faster/better) to buying new computers that run Vista that Linux will win every time. Of course, this has always been the case. The questions are: 1 - when you buy NEW hardware is it worth it to have Vista? 2 - when Vista comes out, is it worth it to upgrade? To spoil the answers, it is almost never worth it to upgrade and it is almost always worth it to have on new hardware. This is why there are getting to be an army of old, functional machines that run linux and new, shiny machines that run Vista (which will eventually switch to Linux after the Vista++ comes out).
I'm sorry, but since when is switching over to Web-based applications a one-time investment and a single learning curve?
"Yes I will take one Internet please"
"that'll be $100"
"Thanks"
Something that people seem to forget is that using Web-based applications is not free because it comes with increased bandwidth needs when you are talking about it on a business-scale (which is usally payed for on a month-to-month basis).
Also, I feel the need to mention that it is not as if web-based applications and linux-based applications never change. Yes, google office has been the same since the first time I used it, but I would bet my life savings that it will change before the next version of windows comes out. Linux changes all the time, and you have to fight to keep up with it.
I'm sorry, I agree with your point that when you cost-compare using existing computers to run Linux (which will likely run faster/better) to buying new computers that run Vista that Linux will win every time. Of course, this has always been the case. The questions are:
1 - when you buy NEW hardware is it worth it to have Vista?
2 - when Vista comes out, is it worth it to upgrade?
To spoil the answers, it is almost never worth it to upgrade and it is almost always worth it to have on new hardware. This is why there are getting to be an army of old, functional machines that run linux and new, shiny machines that run Vista (which will eventually switch to Linux after the Vista++ comes out).
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
Urm, think he meant Dell, (which already offers Linux on its machines), not an imagined megacorp buying and impementing a million PCs in one go.
Not sure that's ever happened.
Since even IBM, (remember OS/2, anyone?) failed at launching a windows competitor, you'd have to be crazy brave to do it.
Big corps just don't do that - finance and prudence dictates that they switch gradually. That's how Linux in its various mutations is winning ground, upgrade by upgrade, site by site... It's an ongoing skirmish, not a nuclear war or a revolution.
Oh - and web-based services? Not ready for prime-time yet, I'm afraid. I've got lots of corporate clients, (many still running Windows 2000 and old 'Office' versions), and especially after recent scares, (Russia shutting down Estonia's Internet access whilst all NATO did/could do was wring its hands, security breeches in outsourced IT centres in India and elsewhere), they're not really that bullish about that kinda thing anymore... Personally, I don't blame them.
Pirates - Making commercial software better than stock since 1979
--- Do you believe in the day?
Your scenario assumes that the web-based apps are hosted by an external third party. A better option would be for the company to host the web apps on its own internal servers. Then there are no bandwidth charges because all of the traffic is on internal networks. (OK, there will probably be some bandwidth used by traveling and remote employees using the app server from external machines, but that's the case even with current non-web apps, if those employees need to remotely access company servers.)
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!
Cool, thanks. I am downloading it now.
Urm, think he meant Dell, (which already offers Linux on its machines), not an imagined megacorp buying and impementing a million PCs in one go. Not sure that's ever happened. You've obviously never worked for Siemens! Siemens has an office specifically at the M$ HQ, as well as one close to Dell in TX for those specific reasons of MASS quantity purchases. Rolling out new PCs every 2yrs company wide...buying quantities so large with PC so specific Siemens Dell PCs get their own unique Dell Model Number that is Siemens Specific Only. Siemens easily purchases 1M PCs a year from Dell...for internal use and customer use (Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, PDA, Servers, Clusters...etc.)
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.