Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Disses Windows to Sell More Windows
mjasay writes "I stumbled across this fascinating Microsoft tutorial entitled "How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade." It's an attempt to coach IT professionals on how to sell Windows desktop upgrades internally. Apparently the value of Vista is not readily apparent, requiring detailed instructions on how to connive and cajole into an upgrade from XP. The most intriguing thing about the tutorial is its implicit rejection of Microsoft's older technology. Just a few years ago Microsoft was pitching the world on how secure and cool XP was. Now it's telling us largely the opposite, implying that XP is a security threat, costs too much to run, and so on. With Microsoft marketing against itself, perhaps the Mac and Linux camps can simply wait for Microsoft to self-destruct?"
It's kind of silly to blame Microsoft for making the claim that their latest OS is better/more secure/prettier/whatever than previous versions. After all, isn't that the whole point of versions? i.e. To easily identify the progression of features and functionality. If the latest version of Windows weren't the latest and greatest, I'd be very surprised to hear Microsoft say otherwise.
Linux may be a great OS, but I'd take a 2.6 kernel over a 2.2 kernel any day for my desktop computing needs. 2.2 is buggy, slow, insecure, and sucks compared to the latest kernel. If you were in charge of upselling users to 2.6, you'd say as much, I hope.
MS and Intel have been their own biggest competitor for years. With each new revision they have to go out and convince people that latest one is the best one ever and the old one should be replaced.
Oh, I don't know. I, for one, take great comfort in the thought of Microsoft delivering the DRM products of tomorrow. It's like being locked in the Alcatraz for life and realizing that the walls are made of wet cardboard.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
OP ED
Microsoft will *never* produce a secure system: the user is *not* the customer: the advertising industry is. just as in television, *we* are *not* the customer: *we* are what is for sale, advertising is the customer, tv industry is selling *us* as *audience* to the advertisers
and Windows is not any different in this respect but is rather a transitional product taking us from the television screen to the selectivision screen which is what the WWW+television will morph into
the initial work is already done: the www has injected so much graphics into computer presentaions that hi-speed broad band is now necessary for "surfing".
now that that's been done the next step is to combine the web with digital TV and you have the advertising marketing dream come true: television with instantaneous feed-back on what everyone is watching and how everyone is responding to it
the ability to adjust your windows programming all along a little here and there is critical to the development and maintenance of this scheme and that is why Microsoft can *never* produce a secure system. Their system provides access to customer computer for paying customers and that includes the ability to modify the client programming ( your computer ). all of this is hidden from everyone except the hackers of course
why do you think we patch and patch and patch and patch and for every patch a new vulnerability shows up? because the patch only moves the remote access capability from one hiding place to another it doesn't remove it. and never will.
"IMHO", -- FWIW
The heading "troll" on this slashdot article is correct and appears to be a fabrication that misrepresents the article
"How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade." Why is garbage like this allowed to stay up?
1) The MS tutorial mentions older operating systems as a generic, it does not diss XP, it does not even mention XP!
2) "newer operating system, such as Windows Vista". Vista is the example, put "XP" or other OS in there if you want.
3) The article is a template to help frustrated IT admins/managers show reason and overcome objection to a proposal of migrating to a newer OS. Any admin in any environment could use this template.
I am not commenting on the PCWorld article here, just the misrepresentation in the first part of the article. Let me know if the poster is talking about a differnt version of "How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade" because from what I see the posting is a lie, plain and simple.
CC
You have stumbled onto something interesting. The key to selling Linux as a replacement for Windows is to calculate the savings in terms of something the PHBs understand -- BMWs. A 2008 528i is about $50k, so if you can save $150k, that's 3 BMWs. Smaller companies can calculate using the 328i, larger companies can use the M5 or 745li.