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A Majority of Businesses Will Not Move To Vista
oDDmON oUT writes "An article on the Computerworld site quotes polling results from a potentially-divisive PatchLink survey. The poll shows that the majority of enterprise customers feel there are no compelling security enhancements in Windows Vista, that they have no plans to migrate to it in the near term and that many will 'either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X'. A majority, 87%, said they would stay with their existing version of Windows. This comes on the heels of a dissenting view of Vista's track record in the area of security at the six month mark, which sparked a heated discussion on numerous forums."
Perhaps this could be because they are already satisfied with the versions of Windows that they have? At least satisfied enough that they will put off upgrading and spending all that money until a few years from now.
Notwithstanding the issues some users are having, Vista seems to me to be more of a consumer oriented operating system. It doesn't really have much to add to businesses beyond UAC, which I'm guessing most system administrators will turn off (in exchange for one of their internal security policies). Thats not even considering the fact that large businesses are extremely slow to upgrade to anything new. We only got XP Service Pack 2 where I work in the past year.
Businesses were *very* slow to adopt XP for many of the same reasons. Until the platform is patched up some and compelling business reasons come out in favor of migrating, they won't. It's been like that with every Windows release actually. This isn't news; it is normal.
Whether businesses will have a choice when they order new computer's through their provider.
I suppose this is probably a hoary old chestnut, but I always wonder how long we can be kept on the upgrade band-wagon. Up until quite recently, I ran a Windows 98 machine because it did most of the things I needed it to do. I could connect to the web, make SSH connections, write Word documents and play (older) games. It also had a really small install and ran on a crappy old machine.
For people who don't need the latest and greatest hardware support, where is the motivation to upgrade at all? I suppose there are probably security issues with the older Windows versions, but I think you can avoid a lot of this by being careful; something which will probably still be necessary with Windows 2060.
This argument applies even further with application software like Word. I'm not sure I've noticed any of Word's new features since they started underlining my spelling errors, and yet there have been quite a few major (expensive) version since then. Other than version incompatibility and the fact that everybody else is upgrading, why do we need a new version?
Peter
Just some of the horror stories I have read about all the incompatibility and the problems with just using the interface was enough.
Hmm.. I didn't think reading stories counted as research anymore, but I guess it does nowadays. Of course the majority of Vista users without problems are not out on the messages boards singing its praises, they (like me) are simply using their computer and find it more pleasent than XP.
I did however have an coworker who received a new laptop with Vista on it and we have had nothing but problems with it. Our printers wouldn't install and I cannot believe how overly complicated they made it to find anything in the operating system.
Ahh, one test machine and you've written off Vista. I had print drivers that don't install, but that's because the manufactor hasn't released any Vista drivers for the printer. Personally, I've found things are better orgainized in Vista than with XP, once I figured out how they set it up.
It's unbelievable what they have compromised just so they can have flashy graphics and smooth looking buttons. It all boils down to one thing in the end however, I just don't see any benefit to upgrading any time soon so therefore there's no reason to.
OS makers have a tough time selling their product. It IS more secure and more locked down (I've hit this when doing my everyday development on Vista). I've also read some technical artciles about what is more restricted in Vista. So I'm included to say they are there.
Unfortunately all most people see is the new UI. Its the only part of the OS you interact with, even though there are quite a few new features in there. Building applications on the new UI IS going to be much easier for me.. no longer do I have to fork out money just to get a context menu that can have a textbox in it.. I can put one together myself easily.
At any rate, I'm not posting to say you should upgrade or that I think you need Vista right now.. my main objective was to point out flaws in your reasoning used to tell your boss not to buy Vista; nothing you've posted about indicates that you did any kind of real evaluation at all, and I think that you need to be called out on that.
Not a bad OS? Have you been following the news? Spontaneous reboots, driver problems, VPN compatibility issues, application compatibility issues, USB device corruption...
If XP's only advantage over Vista was that "it doesn't suck enough", then you'd be seeing a repeat of the XP rollout. In that case, a few people upgraded their 2000 and 98 machines to XP. But mostly, people got XP when they got new computers.
This time, it's not just the old systems that are not getting upgraded. Brand new systems are still mostly shipping with XP. People don't trust the beast, and with good reason.
To be fair, incidents of problems are just evidence of risk. Vista is a new OS, which means that certain kinks and driver support are still being worked out. Theres no reason to subject critical business machines to any sort of risk when XP and/or 2003 works fine for them right now.
If my boss asked me if we should upgrade to Vista, then I would tell him "No" without a second thought. And I actually like Vista.
...they could make a compelling upgrade, so users want to upgrade.
It wouldn't be the first time they copied a certain fruit company.
But they will probably just stop supporting XP, and then that 87% will buy Vista, for fear of the next virus.
Lies about crimes
A verizon cell phone takes pictures, but I can't transfer them to my hard drive, so it is a broken digital camera. Therefore, that "feature" is not a selling point for me.
The iPhone doesn't support Flash or Java (and won't ever support them, from what I hear, because Apple wants to be the only company that can write software for it). Thus, it is broken both as a handheld computer and as a web browser. Again, those features, as cool as they are, are not selling points for me.
Windows Vista comes with spyware, DRM, and other such malware built-in as part of the core OS. Thus, it will not do what I want it to do, and it will do things I don't want it to do. It's new features are not selling points for me.
What I am getting at is this trend, both in software land and gadget land, of trying to make consumers buy products that limit them, rather than empower them. It is as if they are saying, "of course you want it to be an open and compatible system, but if you have that then you might be able to do things of which I disapprove (whether they are legal or not) or for which I would prefer to charge you. So, I will not give you what you want, but you will buy it anyway."
No, I won't.
I simply can't understand software company logic. They sell a 'product', that is, a cardboard box containing a disk and a book. A few years later they sell more or less the same product (a disk and a book in a cardboard box) with a few changes. But they won't reduce the cost of the previous product. They simply refuse to sell or allow anyone else to sell the previous product at a reduced rate. It makes no sense and no other business (or at least any business that actually makes things) works like this.
Company BozoTron makes Bozo-XKE, a software program that does, well, something. They release version 1.0 and it sells a few at $299 a box. Two years later, they release super-improved Bozo-XKE v2.0 (which does nothing more than muck up the user interface that all their customers took so long to learn, and fix a few bugs). It sells for $379 a box. But you can't buy the old version 1.0 at $100. And the owners of v1.0 can't sell their software for $100 to someone else and have BozoTron continue their support with the new owner. Some software companies might do this, but not BozoTron. You also can't split the v1.0 package and sell one part of it to a company (that will only use that section of the software, and doesn't need the rest of the package) for $50.
So absurd and insane. The only reasonable thing to do is just make copies of XKE and use them however you like. Which drives BozoTron nuts. But that wouldn't be happening if they were a reasonable company with a reasonable marketing plan to begin with. But they aren't, they're a software company, a fantasy business, a virtual corp that only works as long a people agree to continue to give them money.
Now I realize that this goes against everything that the Slashdot community believes in and threatens your livelihood, such that it is, but the only true value in software is what wealth it can create when applied to other economic resources. In itself, software is worthless. Its only value is when it's applied to other techniques, processes, and materials and increases the ability of those other techniques, processes, and materials to make money.
So indeed, if XP is making you money and the cost of going to Vista is going to cost you more money than XP is making for you, then nobody is going to switch to Vista. Microsoft should franchise their old operating systems. Let some other company buy a support license from Microsoft to be the people who adapt and fix the bugs in Windows 98 and continue to support it in its various business environments. They are fools for expecting people to abandon old OS installs and go to unproven alternatives. That used to work for the first twenty-five years of the office PC, but it's beginning to change. People are beginning to realize that their corporate PC needs don't match Microsoft's corporate expansion needs. It used to be that what was good for Microsoft was good for the rest of the corporate community. Now that basic symbionic relationship is splitting. This would be good for the Linux community, but they are too splintered for reliable corporate support. It would be good for Apple, but they took too much LSD and it still shows with their obsession with flashy expensive electronic trinkets instead of rugged flexible low-cost computing systems. Eventually someone else will step up to fill the needs that Microsoft used to be able to do before they lost their way.
XP did not do well but Vista is doing much worse. The rejection seems to be universal. The same low percentage (12%) of business and home users say they want an "upgrade". M$'s power to push upgrades is over and with that goes the whole vendor manipulation monopoly.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Many businesses kept Windows 2000 well after XP came out.
Why? One, it was the "unknown" as in "we don't know what bugs are lurking around the corner."
Two, it isn't trivial to convert an enterprise. Training costs alone are substantial, not to mention the other costs of rolling out a new OS.
In order to defeat XP in the business marketplace, Vista has to be not "just as good as" but actually "better than" XP.
In some ways, Vista has clear advantages over XP:
* It has a longer shelf life. XP support will end sooner.
* It has certain security features not found in XP
* It has certain non-security features not found in XP
On the other hand, it has some distinct disadvantages:
* It presumably has more unknown security bugs than XP, although over time this will approach zero
And of course those things that are "different" which make it more costly than XP for established businesses:
* It has some different bugs than XP
* It has some different features than XP
* The look and feel is somewhat different than XP
I'm sure there are many other advantages, disadvantages, and differences of XP vs. Vista.
It is up to each customer to decide which version of Windows, if any, suits him best.
My personal opinion?
Defer ditching XP as long as possible, but plan on being XP-free well before support ends. "As long as possible" may be "we had to buy Vista the day it shipped" or "we'll stick with XP until the day before support expires" depending on your business needs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Vista has plenty of security improvements and may well be Microsoft's mote secure Windows version yet.
BUT... Due to the problems with Windows XP's security, I bet most companies already have good third party firewalls, spam filtering, and antivirus tools in place. We already subscribe to the enterprise edition of NOD32 antivirus that has an excellent track record, and use a Linux server with Smoothwall for our firewalling and VPN purposes. (and I'm eager to upgrade to the new Smoothwall 3)
Microsoft has to assume people already have security infrastructures in place, and then the question is no longer "is Vista secure", but "what more does Vista offer than this". And I believe that is the problem for Microsoft. Vista offers no earth shattering security improvements, it merely brings it on par with most existing Unix-based operating systems. But if companies have already taken care of that in other ways by using complete security suites with reasonable subscription fees, why should they discard all that, that already works, to spend a lot of money in retraining staff and reinstalling Vista operating systems en masse? It's a huge risk for no clear benefits.
Vista is clearly better than XP security-wise from my experiences, but the thing is that XP + third party security tools (often free and even open source) is usually good enough.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!