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Windows XP Still Outselling Windows Vista
nandemoari writes with an excerpt from an InfoPackets article that says "While Microsoft excitedly tries to sway public opinion by touting that Windows Vista License sales top 180 Million units, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was busy smacking Microsoft down — reportedly shipping PCs with a Vista Business license but with Windows XP pre-loaded in the majority of business computers sold since the June 30 Windows XP execution date established by Microsoft — casting a lot of doubt over how many copies of Vista have actually been sold."
'cause Microsoft still gets the $$$, no matter what OS sells more...
[insert lame sig here]
I wonder what Microsoft's thinking. Vista does have _some_ nice features, but a very long list of things to worry about. Every one of my IT peers I've talked to (I'm a desktop systems guy) has said their large company is putting off Vista migrations and waiting for Windows 7. We are too, not because we hate it, but because it's just not necessary yet.
It's been a pretty bad combination of factors:
- Features cut from the original Vista release that might have made it worth the pain
- IT departments who just spent 6 years getting XP stable enough
- Bad economy means that IT departments are cutting back, so it's not feasable to implement Vista even if you're a volume license customer. No one has time to research it properly with a reduced staff.
- XP SP3 is out, and is looking really good.
- Just a general "Oh no, here we go with a new OS again" malaise across IT departments in general.
Small businesses, on the other hand, are perfect Vista candidates. 3-user companies who don't run anything more complex than QuickBooks are Vista's target market right now. And now that it's on every computer you buy at any retail store, there's no reason for a small business to switch back. Large companies are basically not affected by June 30th because we can just buy Vista licenses and downgrade, which explains the inflated sales numbers.
On the "big company" side, I have lots of fun stuff to deal with. Internal web-based apps that were written when ActiveX was king. Business critical software last updated in 1996 and sometimes even before that. A constant mix of brand-new and 8-year-old hardware. Plus a user population that's not necessarily the earliest adopters.
I really hope Microsoft has something big planned for the next release. Swithing to Linux or Mac is totally not feasable for us (again, when you don't have 20 years of legacy Windows code to deal with, it's definitely a consideration.) It would take another major flop on their part to even think about migrating some of our business apps away from Windows.
The quote in the summary misunderstands the slight-of-hand going on in an illustrative way. The controversy IN NO WAY casts doubt on how many copies of Vista have been SOLD. It casts doubt on how many copies of Vista are INSTALLED and being USED.
All the HP sales involve the sale of a Vista license. They're just installing XP instead of Vista (something the Vista license expressly allows). The customer's paying for a Vista license.
The clever marketing trick is MS would like you to believe the 2 numbers are similar, desipte significant evidence to the contrary. They want you to look at the big "sold Vista licenses" number and think "Wow, a lot of people are USING Vista".
I'm confused--how is using ubuntu an alternative to using Linux?
Linux is the OS that propeller heads use. If a noob tries to install it, encounters a problem and asks for help, they get the standard "RTFM" response, or perhaps a lecture on why something that doesn't work for them or is difficult to use is actually what they want. Ubuntu is the free alternative to windows which is heaps easier to use and has community support which is friendly, welcoming and extremely helpful.
Yeah, yeah, I know Ubuntu uses a Linux kernel and gnu tools, but it has established a brand which is seen as friendlier to non technical users than the Linux brand. The fact that one is an essential part of the other doesn't matter to people who don't no any better or care.
I don't therefore I'm not.
I'm the AC you replied to above.
No, the learning curve is NOT harder. Most people just completely discount the thousands of hours they have spent learning Windows, but keep track of the time they spend learning Linux. Thus it's "harder" to learn Linux.
I've spent approximately the same amount of time in using both OS's, and it doesn't take any longer to learn one than it does the other.
In many ways Linux is actually easier to learn because nothing is hidden from you. You're not locked out of anything. The only reason some people have a "hard time" learning Linux is because they go into the process thinking the only way anything can be accomplished on a computer is the way MS does things. As a result they "think" Linux is "harder" because it's different.
I don't see how anyone can say it's a "difficult" to see a blinking icon, put your mouse over it and read that you have updates available, click on the icon. then click on a button in the window that pops up that tells the system to update itself. That's easier than Windows update.
And, if you're not allegic to a bash prompt/command prompt entering two very easily memorized commands is not difficult. I prefer the text-based ways to update a system myself. The text based tools will always be more powerful and flexible than any gui.
And installing software? I don't have to go downtown to the big box store or hunt around on the web for software. I open up a gui, search a wizard for software packages sorted into different sections of usage such as "Games and Amusement", "Editors", "Graphics", "Email", "World Wide Web", and so on. I get to choose from 18,000+ packages in one application, in one window. Then just click the checkbox and tell the Synaptic to Apply my choices. That's it. All dependencies are downloaded in installed as well as the choices I made. The packages are all given basic user settings, and there is some documentation for those packages installed at the same time.
Windows has nothing like in function or ease of use.