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Vista at Risk of Being Bypassed by Businesses
narramissic writes "With Windows 7 due in late 2009 or 2010, many businesses may choose to wait it out rather than make the switch to Vista. According to some analysts, Vista uptake at this point really depends on how good Vista SP1 (due in Q1, 2008) is. If it doesn't smooth over all the problems, companies are much more likely to stick with XP. And that holds especially true for those businesses that follow the every-other-release rule." Note for Microsoft: Allow us to natively disable trackpads.
Truth is, while holding off Vista might be an idea, what guarantee is there that Windows 7 will be any better. In many ways Vista seems to be a symptom of a failed development process, bad priorities and not understanding their users. When you have five years to developer a product and this is what you get, something is wrong.
Vista is not a total failure, but its not a success either.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
What's this about? Anyone want to clue me in?
I always mod up spelling trolls.
The thing that bugs me the most is the additional system resources it hogs - i buy a pc to run applications not run an OS. look at anything that runs both vista an xp and xp always has lower requirments. MS would win a lot of fans if they made OS releases they used the same or less resources instead of massive bloatware, or atleast show SOMETHING useful that's hogging the additional memory and CPU time.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
So, they already waited for Longhorn, which cratered. There's a very slow uptake of the 1 1/2 year rush-job that they called "vista", and now businesses are expected to wait for another MS development cycle of indeterminate duration?
I really don't know why MSFT's shareholders haven't lynched Ballmer by now.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It makes the hardware look old.
At first glance this doesn't appear that bad for Microsoft -- so businesses wait, and then buy a different product from Microsoft; it delays income, but isn't that bad. The problem for Microsoft here is that it gives desktop linux an extra year or two to keep improving. The reality is that Linux on the desktop, whethr you consider it "ready" yet or not, has been improving at a far faster rate than Windows has. Just compare Windows98 and the contemporary releases of Linux (around Redhat 5.2 I think, back when they were still using Afterstep as the default environment) and then compare Vista to Ubuntu 7.10: any gaps have narrowed dramatically. Give linux another couple of years to make comparative gains and things may look inteesting when it comes time for businesses to look at OS upgrades -- do you move to Windows 7, or Linux? Both will probably represent almost equally large changes and require as much retraining as each other, and by that point Linux may well be a very good desktop option. Combine that with the fact that Linux (via wine) might actually be as good as Windows 7 at running your old win32 software (given Vistas difficulties with such things) and Microsoft may have a potential revolt on their hands.
The simple reality is tht, once you all out of step on the treadmill, then working to stay on it doesn't continue to look as attractive as it used to. Lock in is quite important to Microsoft's business model, and failing to keep businesses in step with current MS trends is actually quite a serious potential problem brewing.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
M$ need to move corporate keys back to XP system.
Businesses do not like the idea that there vista system must call in to M$ to check there key from time to time or go in to limited functionality mode or use a key sever that calls in to M$ and systems can also go in to limited functionality mode if the sever / network goes down.
And if vista starts to gain more ground this may end become a big problem that limited testing be for a big roll is something that you may not run in to at that time and you may have to hope for a fast fix it your key gets blacklisted by mistake and most of your systems go in to limited functionality mode.
Yeah, but this is Slashdot, and it's a Microsoft OS. You can't just focus on the stuff it gets right; we want to hear about the cons too...
I'm astonished that I have yet to see the best reason not to roll out Vista in a business environment mentioned. The answer is quite simple.
Vista kills productivity, yet offers no real value in return.
In order to run Vista where I work, we would have to replace every single machine we have. That's over 100 desktops and laptops--not cheap. Granted, some of those computers need to be replaced, but that's beside the point. Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than a brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card runs Vista (it was running Vista Business Premium). Why in the @#$%! should we pay a boatload of money to slash our workers' productivity? As far as I can see, there is absolutely no business case for Vista whatsoever. Until such a day as there is, then you can bet your bottom dollar I won't allow a move to Vista to kill ours.
Granted, from a technological standpoint, Vista is crap. But that's not the argument to make to your superiors when opposing it. Show them how it will hurt your bottom line. That'll get their attention.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
You mean, "I get to call someone in Delhi, who will walk me through the script, and tell me to reinstall Windows if my problem isn't on the script?"
Fuck that.
We joke a lot about bit rot around here. It's applicable to frequently-updated development environments, where it might matter which version of which DLL you're using.
(Warning, I feel a rant coming on! I'm not flaming you, I'm flaming a certain dipshit who'll probably never read this, because it's been that kind of a weekend for me.)
In a production system, bits don't rot. The only bits that rot are the ones fucked with by dipshits who think that having "support" is so important that it's worth upgrading part of a production system without checking to see if the fucking latest version of foo-are will work with the currently-installed versions of bar-ware, baz-ware, and quux-ware.
Bits don't rot. The production system I was speaking of worked fine for five years, and it would have worked for another five years had I not been ordered to fuck with it. (Hard drive failure? No problem, the point of being a production system is that it's static, so we'll just load it off a drive image.! Hardware failure in 2012 and you can't reinstall the old OS on it? That's what virtual machines are for! We don't need to fucking upgrade just because some douchebag in a suit says that the old version isn't "supported". We've never fucking had to call support for the old version of the product, because it actually fucking worked!)
CAPTCHA: "coffee". Heh. I've had one too many, I guess, but at least I feel better now :)
Because the definition of "works" changes all the time as well.
5 years ago I would have told you a 800x600 15" display works. Try upgrading to a 1600x1200 20", or better yet 20" 1600x1200 next to another monitor for dual monitor use. This also works, and works so much better that once you adapt to the new possibilities, the old way no longer 'works'.
Same with internet connectivity. Disk space. Etc.
Admittedly hardware, but you could say the same thing about some revolutionary software breakthroughs; Protected memory, fair scheduling, good filesystems, network filesystems, etc.
Ideally what you have now will always work for what you do now, but will limit you in what you can do in the future. You have to update what you have to update what you can then grow to do.
The trick is to weight he risks. If theres no noticable improvement, upgrade somewhere that isn't expected to be stable first. Test your updates. Make sure nothing breaks before you roll them out.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
You know, in reading this article, I have just been enlightened. I realize that all this time, I was confused because I didn't understand the purpose of Windows Vista. You see, I thought it was Microsoft's way of making a really, really funny joke. I mean, what else could Vista possibly be? Let's examine Vista and see why this is so:
- Every other button you push, the entire screen goes black and it asks you, "Did you really push that button?"
- The system is so excruciatingly slow that even on the newest hardware, it is much, much slower than XP on much older hardware.
- Boatloads of drivers and applications that worked fine under XP do not function under Vista. The result is that things like printers that were supported just fine under XP do not work under Vista. The result is that you have to throw away your perfectly good printer or whatever, and get a new one, as if having just bought a brand new computer and dropping a ton of money on Vista Ultimate isn't enough of an expense.
- The Vista installer takes F*O*R*E*V*E*R to load, and then gleefully tells you that Windows Vista "saves you time," as if to demonstrate that if the installer is this slow, wait 'till you experience the operating system!
- The colors chosen for the Vista desktop and windows are such an eyesore that even their own mother couldn't possibly like them. I'd like to know what the graphic designers were smoking, because I want some.
- There are not one or two but six different versions of Vista. Do they suddenly think they're in the Linux business because it seems they want to scream out, "We're just like Linux; we have too many distros to choose from too!" (Well, I think someone mentioned that RMS wanted Vista to be called GNU/Vista or something like that.)
- Even if you're an expert XP user, you have to completely relearn how to use a computer when you downgrade to Vista, because everything is so significantly different that you'll have a field day just figuring out how to move a file from one place to another.
So, I mean, what else but a really funny joke could this be? A product?But having read this story, I now understand that there are actually people who worked on this Vista thing who believed that they were making a serious software product. The only thing I can think to say is that this is a tremendous shame. I mean, Windows XP can do pretty much anything that a business might need. All they had to do was spend the last five years or so perfecting XP, ironing out all the bugs, cleaning it up as much as they could, optimizing it for better performance, tightening up security, etc. That would have given them a very solid product with which to compete. Instead, they wasted all this effort, time, and money making a product so embarrassingly slow and bloated, even on the newest hardware, that many businesses are avoiding it like the plague. I'm sorry but I really think that Vista is an enormous flop, even if Microsoft is successful in selling millions of copies. The point is that Vista is actually a very good advertisement for Apple Macs with Mac OS X, and for Linux and the *BSDs.
Their motto used to be "Where do you want to go today?" I don't know about you, but as my sig and journal both say, Microsoft released Vista, so I went to an Apple retail store and bought a Mac.
Ok. No email about the world's finest software company is complete without a remark that calls for chairs to be thrown... but I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader.
I see you don't work in "IT Support". If you did you would know how stupid that is. Large and even small companies either hire individuals or hire outsource IT companies for "Support" These individuals that "do" the actual support work are trained Techs or Engineers. They don't need to call MS and never do. When they do get stumped with a problem they either call a cohort in the business and ask them if they know of a fix or go online and in the case of Windoze go to the TechNet site or check the forums of answers. I know this for a fact I work for a company that does Outsourced IT for small to medium sized businesses. We NEVER! call Microsoft! We are engineers and most likely know their OS better than they do so why call and waste time?
Now for Joe and Jane user that works for a company that we support who are they going to call? They call us. That is what we get paid for. We are "Support" not Microsoft. We still support Win95 if needed. MS doesn't. Hell we will even support DOS if needed. We are Systems Engineers where I work. We work on systems. We don't care what it runs on. We will work on it. A MCSE is NOT a System Engineer. A real Systems Engineer maybe better at one system OS than the other but he can work on any of them. All systems are not Microsoft.
So what if Joe and Jane user decide to run Linux or a Sun desktop? Who are they going to call for support? They are going to call us that is what we get paid for and yes they will get support! You might get transfered to a different person but you will gladly get support. We support most flavors of Linux and Solaris. Most of our customers don't realize it but they may have an XP desktop but most of the backend servers that are serving them are running Solaris or Linux.
Actually we discourage the use of Vista and say that we don't really support it. Any Windoze boxes we put online are XP. We beg our customer NOT to get Vista. These days we are encouraging our clients to really look at Sun and Linux. One of our big points is if your going to have to learn a new desktop and a new office suite. Why not make the change to Linux or Solaris and be done with client licenses, malware, spyware, viruses, blue screens O' death, changing desktops, and on and on...
Personally I haven't even looked at Vista. I did watch my boss play with it for a week and then reload XP. (yes he's a Windows engineer) His evaluation? "What a piece of shit." I must admit I have turned Vista off a couple of times to load FC7 or Solaris10 on the machine infected by Vista. Vista is not an OS. It is an infection in itself.
Why will I not learn it or touch Vista? Anyone that has worked Windows support knows the scenario. You work on a system and it fails again it is now YOUR FAULT its broke. If I never touch it, then it is never my fault. What do I tell people when they cry to me about their Vista machine? "I told you not to buy that crap. Sorry I don't work on Vista."
Remember the "The Suit" that is screaming about support isn't the poor bastard that has to work on it. I am.