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Dell Will Offer XP Past Cutoff Date
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, brings news that Dell will be offering Windows XP pre-installed on their computers past the June 30 cut-off date. Computers purchased with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate past June 30 will come with a copy of XP Pro. Dell plans to simply install that copy upon request to save users a step. Perhaps this will help Microsoft officials make up their minds about another extension.
I applaude this decision and will do my best to support them if they continue selling XP.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
It's what they're customers want. I can't roll out Ubuntu where I am because it doesn't support Outlook, at least in a fashion that I would consider stable. It's that simple. I don't want Vista when I get new machines, I want the operating system that I know is proven reliable.
Step out of your Linux bubble for a second and accept that XP is still in demand by a lot of businesses.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Good luck with that. Companies like to have someone to blame when the software stops working. With Linux you have no one to blame becuase (for most cases) you aren't paying anything for it, so you don't really have much leverage.
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"why not instead redirect the customers to their Ubuntu offerings instead?"
Maybe because they are going with XP Pro? The OS that Dell's business customers are already using and still demanding? The OS that Dell obediently stopped offering back when MSFTs product rollout originally demanded that Vista go on all new machines more than a year ago. The OS that Dell started putting back on new machines as soon as it was discovered that Vista BROKE "mission critical" business applications left and right.
Maybe Ubuntu is no more capable of handling those same mission critical applications that Vista. Is it's Dell's reponsibility to guarantee that Ubuntu is going to seamlessly slot into any and all of their business customer's IT infrastructure and run the myriads of customized internal and thrid party apps run by those customers?
Why the heck would Dell put a "kick me" sign right over their corporate cojones by offering another useless OS to their business customers after having already been on the steel toed receiving end of the backlash over Vista?
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
better question is...what are the reasons people want to switch FROM XP?
From an administrators standpoint, Vista offers NOTHING to our users that XP doesnt already. Vista (and office 2007 ftm)is a bloated pos requiring everyone to upgrade their computers to use it. So the OS should be the driver of new hardware? GIVE ME A BREAK!
I'll be keeping XP on my computers until the "next" windows OS shows up that actually gives me a reason to change, or they pry it out of my cold dead hands...
Sure, I'll replace the most important app for 1000 people with " couple of Linux projects which at least claim to support that."
You'll pick up my mortgage and other expenses when I get canned, right? Please be slightly realistic in the Linux fanaticism.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
1) Dell already offers ubuntu under certain conditions, it's not like offering or not XP is linked, to the people affected by this(I keep referring people to the dell website, and people come back with the impression they can only get a pc with vista now, despite the fact that its still sold.
2) WinXP will have "support" long past the cut off date. The end of support date for Windows XP was announced before the end of sale date, I can't rememnber what it is right now, but I believe its in 2010 sometime.
3) Even if they didn't have "support" from microsoft, Dell was already handling some of the support for their XP machines, so it's not fair to say it's unsupported, just "unsupported by vendor"
On the other hand, why not just reverse engineer the cut off date from the end of support date Microsoft? if you're going to stop supporting XP by Jan 2011, the only cut off date that makes sense to me to stop selling is is June 2010, not something in 2008.
OK OK... I know, I'm on slashdot, and expecting Microsoft to make sense, when will I ever learn?
I do like and use Linux.
But there are just some programs that you can not get on Linux yet. Some of those programs you may absolutely need to run your business.
And before you say the classic dumb answer of just pay for someone to write it for Linux and open source it or do it yourself. Not everybody has the time, talent, or money to write code or start a FOSS project.
Not to mention that you may need it TODAY.
Oh and Wine just isn't that good yet.
I sure wouldn't run Solidworks under Wine.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Out of curiosity, what do you think Microsoft would do if you blamed them when the ______ virus causes downtime or chkdsk corrupts your harddrive?
It drives me crazy when people bring up this point, especially when people are arguing for a soon-to-be unsupported OS like XP.
Umm i will assume you are trying to be funny because you do not provide any references to back up your claim of 2 billion Linux devices vs about 600 million Windows devices.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
So pay for it then. Plenty of companies out there will take money off you for supporting linux.
In fact, if you pay for linux support, you're in a better position than if you pay for Microsoft support, as you have the resiliance of choice in the market. You don't like what Oracle are doing, pay Redhat instead. You don't like what Microsoft are doing? Tough.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
http://www.mhall119.com
I have always loved this argument for one simple reason. If you name and itemize the last 20 times something went wrong at your company, how many of them were something the vendor did wrong, or something the vendor had to fix for you? How many were end user issues, networking configuration nightmares of your own creation, configuration management that someone at your company messed up? Misapplied patches or patches you 'forgot' to apply?
In truth, support from the vendor does little for you UNLESS the system they supply is so fscking locked up that you can't do anything with it in the first place, and are FORCED to call for help because you can't do anything with it.
Where I work, we are slowly writing code to work around 'no longer supported' binary processes. If there is no 'community support' we just learn how to do it ourselves or write code we can understand to take its place.
When you want to point that finger of blame it still will take 4hours minimum to get the pointing done. In that time I will generally have already fixed the problem and be working the code to avoid any such occurance in the future.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Does anyone remember Windows ME? Did anyone "upgrade" to it. Vista seems mildly familiar with a whole lot more momentum. The major exception is MS realized it was a mistake and admitted it was a stop-gap between windows XP and 98.
Selling a computer with XP past the Microsoft cutoff date is pretty irresponsible. At least Ubuntu has community support, whereas XP will have no support? Is it really Dell's place to oversee microsoft's business decisions?
Considering all the business and home people that would like XP Professional rather than Ubuntu. I'd say this a great business decision for Dell.
They aren't required to support anything, except what you've paid them to support, and sometimes the contract/license terms don't even require that.
It's the whole reason the Linux/BSD market took off. NO ONE can tell you you can't fix that version of Linux 1.0.18 if that's what you REALLY want to run.
Performance is a big reason. You basically need new hardware to run it. Even then it is slower than XP on the same hardware. Consistency is another reason. Admins don't really want to support more OS's than they have to, and they don't have the budget to upgrade all of them, so XP on all makes sense. Then there are issues getting old hardware peripherals to work with it. There are issues with older applications that won't run or won't run stably on Vista. Some you can upgrade (another cost) others you cannot so it is a hard block. Finally, there are migration costs and user training (many of whom obstinately don't want Vista for whatever reason).
From an enterprise perspective, looking at a Vista migration means considering alternatives, like Linux which is a real possibility in many ways and a long term cost saver. A lot of companies are just holding off and waiting for it to stabilize and most of the problems I listed to go away. Others see holding off as a necessary step now, since Vista includes even more data and protocol lock-ins that will make migrating away from it even more expensive than migrating away from WinXP. I have nothing against Vista and recognize some of the real improvements, but I would not recommend a large scale migration to anyone for a while yet. A year ago I said, at least wait a year and see how it goes. It's been a year, and I'd still wait a while.
True, but the open source community can do something... try to create a perfect open-source clone of Windows.
Like ReactOS.
(Although it's FAR from perfect right now...)
Well, the GP was slightly wrong. People don't care if programs have a consistent L&F with each other, they care if they have a consistent L&F with Windows XP and Office 2003. (Note that I said Office 2003 - the user interface is the single largest reason why the company that I work for isn't migrating to Office 2007.)
First, Vista is unimaginably slow compared to XP. Sure, things that took advantage of the pre-cache feature (I forget what it's called) were fast, but anything else was noticeably slower. Second, there are way more processes running in the background (which goes along with the first point). Third (and this is why I switched back to XP), I had memory overflows 3-5 times per week. I hadn't seen the BSOD in the 5 or 6 years that I used XP and I saw it more times than I can remember on Vista. So I said "screw this" and switched back to XP -- now the only time I normally have problems is if I forget and leave firefox running before I leave to work or someplace else for a long period of time and the memory leak causes a reboot.
Not every user? Thus implying more than half the users are programmers? From what I've heard about the quality of the contribution of these people that fancy themselves as programmers, you'd probably be better off waiting for a professional to do it.
Frankly I am tired of this "You can fix it yourself" mantra. A very, very small percentage of users even have the capability and of those, only a small percentage have the motivation and time to attempt it.
Not having seen this mythical thing, I have no idea what it is like.
However, as a user of Firefox and Thunderbird in an organization which uses Exchange and Outlook calendaring extensively
See, the Outlook calendaring feature is so embedded in most organizations, that you can't seriously be offering up a solution to it. Believe me, if I could figure out how to NOT have to bit the bullet and use it, I would.
The reality of it is, there just isn't a replacement for that stuff that you could have any hope in hell of getting a large organization to adopt. The 2000+ people multinational organization I work for sure as hell isn't going to do it. You can't book a frigging meeting room in my company without inviting it to a meeting, and that's all Exchange/Outlook.
Sadly, I think that is one application that FOSS will never be able to kick out out the enterprise.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Microsoft Action: Set a date to stop selling a product years before you intend to stop supporting it.
Slashdot Answer: Why the hell would you stop selling it if you are still supporting it? Stupid Microsoft. I would sell it until the same year as I stopped supporting it, this is just a ploy to get more Vista sales by scaring people.
Microsoft Action: Stop selling a product only a few months before you intend to stop supporting it.
Slashdot Answer: Its so irresponsible of Microsoft to be selling a product they don't plan on supporting! This is just a way to milk more money out of the consumer and force upgrades when their OS becomes suddenly outdated next month.
Microsoft Action: Donate $1m to "Save the Kittens" foundation.
Slashdot Answer: What about the mice? Microsoft is subverting the poor mouse by an illegal and monopolistic process of buying out a 'charity' that directly kills mice.
If you can't find a real troll, just mod down whoever you don't agree with!
I can help add some things to what I as a user want that my Linux desktop doesn't have:
1) Flash without having to install 32-bit libraries. 32-bit is dying, Adobe, and I'm sick of redirecting Firefox windows from my server to my desktop.
2) A friendly and standard file open dialog for Gnome apps. Mplayer, PCB, and the Gimp are the GTK-based programs I most commonly use. Mplayer doesn't have any apparent way to get to hidden directories unless it starts in them, and neither Gimp nor PCB will just let me type my filename in. And why are they all different?
3) A sound-recording application that starts up and will record my line-in or mic when I hit "record." Making me jump through hoops and Google searches trying to find out which block device and stream to point it at is ridiculous; 99.5% of users have at most three inputs: Line-in, mic, and maybe a webcam.
As for what the community should push, I believe that we should push Linux as the OS (And let Apple push Macs and MS push Windows). More important than the OS, we should fight to the death for open standards. Look at image formats: Windows, Mac and Linux have about zero programs in common for viewing images. Yet that doesn't matter a bit for image formats that are open (bmp, png, gif, jpg, tiff, tga) because everyone can implement them the same way. Moreover, Linux for example has implemented them in one library (libpng, libtiff, etc) rather than having every app write it's own decoder. Possibly the best example we have of this is the Internet itself: But for Microsoft's almost successful attempt to fuck it up, any browser would get it's data from any server with zero OS-dependance. And why? Because we have an open standard, HTML, that everyone can implement.
"Microsoft has stated XP will be technically supported until 2014."
I've always thought that somewhat misses the point.
The fact is, solely to make more money, Microsoft has claimed that its earlier product will die. The death is completely independent of customer demand.
Who would want to partner with such a company? Because that's what you are doing when you buy an operating system, you are partnering with the OS supplier. You are betting that the supplier will be a true partner and will care about your needs, and not choose to be adversarial.
Even though Vista is just Windows XP with new features, Microsoft expects to be paid as though it is an entirely new product, with no relevance to the earlier version.
It seems to me that Microsoft is the Chief of Grief, software's Dr. Death. Other deaths:
Declared dead: FoxPro database programming language
Dead soon: PlaysForSure was corporate-speak for "we will kill it and destroy access to your music any time we want". Apparently the reason Microsoft executives wanted to reassure buyers by saying "Plays for Sure" is that they knew it was not sure.
This is connected with the rise of 3-year-old thinking: "I can do anything I want. You have no power."
The U.S. government is worse: "We can take your money and give it to weapons and war suppliers. You have no power. All laws we don't like are invalid."
Yep.
People think that Office is the ultimate lock in tool. They are so clueless.
VisualBasic is the best lock in tool ever. Just about every company on the face of the earth has some silly but vital piece of software written in VisualBasic.
If FOSS just created the perfect VB clone you might see many companies migrate to Linux.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Look, I'm not a Microsoft fanboi, and don't introduce me to one unless you're prepared to deal with intense gamma radiation.
That being said, let's look at it from a business point of view.
I don't know how much of a large business's revenue goes to computers and related things; does 5% sound reasonable? It doesn't really matter if it's way off, so let's use it. Heck, go with 10%.
Now, how much is going to be saved by leaving Microsoft products and going open source? Licenses aren't the only IT cost; there's also hardware, people, networking, and so on. Suppose that half the computer cost goes to Microsoft and other proprietary software companies. Suppose, then, that converting to free software will cut the computer-related costs in half.
That's a maximum of 5% savings on the upside, and I think I'm being optimistic here. That's a good chunk of money, and most businesses would like a chance to save money like that. It isn't enough to force a change; businesses that aren't in particularly competitive fields often have worse inefficiencies than that.
The downside, of course, is that the free software doesn't work for some reason, and revenues drop off the cliff until the old Microsoft stuff can be re-installed. It may not be likely, but managers will worry about it. Or it may not work well enough for an organization's needs, and introduce inefficiencies that overcome the savings.
Therefore, Microsoft is insurance. For a stream of money the organization can afford, Microsoft provides more or less reliable business functionality. The opinion that Microsoft somehow stands behind their software, or will take responsibility for it, is naive, but the opinion that Microsoft software will usually work well enough is justified. Microsoft cannot do otherwise and stay in business for long. Microsoft is the safe choice, at an acceptable price. As far as internal business politics goes, a CIO who goes with Microsoft is unlikely to lose his job for it, while one who introduces free software on a large scale is endangering his or her career. If something goes wrong, the CIO going with "best industry practices" (i.e., mediocrity) will be largely immune from blame, whereas one going with something innovative is going to be out on his or her ear.
Yes, this is stodgy, unimaginative thinking that likely costs the enterprise a good chunk of change. That's the way large businesses work. They don't want to change a support function that works well enough. It's far better to put creativity and energy into a business's core functionality, the stuff that sets the business apart from the competition. Innovative product design, marketing, and sales will pay off more, and aren't as risky. It makes sense to pay insurance to Microsoft.
This doesn't mean that businesses will use Microsoft forever. It does mean that Microsoft is firmly entrenched, and is not likely to be dislodged by people who don't realize why. It will be dislodged by people who are able to explain to suits why what they've got is better in terms the suits will understand, and with assurances the suits feel they can rely on, and who have software with capabilities the suits like.
As a geek, I don't have to like this situation, and I don't. I do have to live in this world, though, and pretending it's something it isn't is not going to help me in the long run.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
1. Microsoft gets to "sell" a Vista license with all of these new computers.
2. Dell gets a bundled Windows XP "downgrade" license and just installs XP on the computer instead of Vista.
3. Microsoft gets to brag about how many millions of people have bought Vista and how successful it is.
4. Profit?
This is all a shell game for Microsoft. They can't polish the turd that is Vista so they'll just continue to sell XP but make it look like Vista on the books, so that Wall Street is none the wiser.
And before you think I'm an anti-Microsoft, I just bought a copy of Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit so I can run a few games in DX10. It runs slower and crashes more often (even with nothing installed I get regular MS error reports) than XP on the same hardware. Right now I find I'd rather boot back into XP SP2 and run most of my games, even though I can only use 3.2GB of memory, than reboot into Vista and endure slower framerates and random shit popping up and crashing all the time...
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I'd say actions like this from vendors like Dell will simplify the issue for Microsoft. Dell can't sell XP. Dell sells Vista and gives away XP. Microsoft tallies another Vista sale, Dell sells a new computer, and the buyer gets XP. If the hardware vendors will pick up the slack, Microsoft has no reason to extend sales of XP.
It's a benefit for Dell, because it means that Dell is still selling XP-based computers to consumers who want it. When word gets out that Dell are the only ones selling computers with XP on them, and that not only is it pre-installed, it's going to be supported by phone-in tech. support....
You're right. MS gets to book it as a Vista sale. Because technically, it *is* a Vista sale. But the end user isn't going to care that they have actually bought a copy of Vista, they're going to care that their nice, shiny, brand new computer still has XP on it. It's going to mean more sales for Dell.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
And so it shall be, paid for with your "redundant" karma it would appear ;-)
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
In answer to 1, handholding every step of the way is a big deal. I learned a bit about Windows server administration a while back, when it seemed like I'd want to be in IT (turns out I don't), and it's pretty easy. If you wanted to change anything, you'd click on Start, then either Control Panels or Programs> Admin Tools, pick the most obvious choice, and then do fairly obvious stuff.[1] Just about anything that couldn't be done that way could be done by right-clicking on the proper place.
Linux could do this, but what I've seen of Linux GUI conf tools is that they are rarely so organized. Someone comes up with a tool to manage or monitor feature XYZ, but it is first not integrated in with all the other tools, and secondly its name rarely describes what it does. Compare: "Network Monitor" to "Ethereal". Which would you expect to use to capture IP packets going through your machine?
To answer 2, I think the best choice is to come up with either a name-trademarked suite (like SuperConf) or a certification standard a la the Unix Specification or Linux Standards Base that distros would adhere to, and then recommend people choose a system that does that, e.g. "Any Linux or BSD distro which includes SuperConf by default will meet the IT department's needs," or "There are a variety of options that conform to the Linux Administration Guidelines [maybe have a version number like 1.1 to excite the PHBs]... RedHat provides enterprise support for a fee, Ubuntu is good for new users, Linspire looks and acts a lot like Windows..." This keeps the distro flamewars to a minimum, but still makes the necessary changes to make Free Software appealing.
[1]: Yes, there's plenty of stuff that's hard to find, but for a clueless computer babysitter like your average MCSE, it's everything you'd need.
The main reason is that there is zero business case to upgrade. Nobody at Microsoft has been able to explain in concrete terms how Vista will increase my revenue or reduce my expenses.
Even if there was such a case then benefits of it would need to outweigh the costs of the "upgrade". Both the immediate downtime required to do the change and coping with everything which either failed or worked in a different way.