Maine To Skip Vista, Go Directly To Windows 7

Preedit writes "The State of Maine is the latest organization to skip Windows Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft. An internal state document (dated September 15) uncovered by Infoweek reveals that Maine will not be upgrading its more than 11,000 personal computing devices from XP to Vista — ever. Instead, it's going to wait until Windows 7 ships in 2010 and hope for the best. The news is in line with a survey that shows only 4% of businesses in the UK have upgraded to Vista, the story notes. So much for that $300 million Seinfeld campaign." A commenter on the article makes the point that Maine's signing an enterprise software license with Microsoft means that Redmond doesn't really lose out on this deal; it simply allows the state to upgrade its equipment and software on its own time.

Comments

Vista- It can't be given away

[Naughty Bob]

A commenter on the article makes the point....

Wait- Microsoft can't get people to install their flagship product, even though they've already paid for it, and the commenter's point is that this isn't bad for Microsoft?

Hilarious.

Re:Vista- It can't be given away

[maugle]

Microsoft may still be getting the same amount of money from Maine, but "They don't want to install Vista even though they already paid for it" is the sort of PR that'll keep others from buying it.

Re:Go MAINE!!!

[KGIII]

Err... You're not telling me anything? This isn't a stance against Vista. It is "not upgrading at this time." It isn't a stance against Microsoft. It is "not upgrading at this time." This is, in effect, waiting for SP2 (or SP3 I suspect in this case) to push the expense down the road when people are more prepared for it and the regularly scheduled hardware upgrades are already complete. Someone opted to spin the story without regard of the facts. This is *not* an anti-Vista ploy. Microsoft is still getting the same amount of money they got yesterday from us. This is NOT a pro Linux, Mac, Free/Open Source Software anything. This is JUST delaying upgrading until the hardware is available to run it and we can (hopefully) afford to run a few extra support staff to enable the transition to go more smoothly than it would at this point.

In other words, this is a Good Thing® for Maine. We've looked at alternatives (though not for a while) and stuck with Microsoft in the government area and Mac in the scholastic system. We've tossed up a pile of Linux servers (no Unix any more though as far as I know) and even have the internal DOJ running on Solaris (last I knew -- though I'm betting it is still running on Sun hardware). This is not a question of the OS for us, this is a question of keeping it simple so that we don't have to pay for retraining at this time and, if Windows 7 is close to Vista in looks/function then we save even more because the average user will have upgraded and been familiar with Vista by then.

Maine was almost immediately upgraded to Office 2007. The hardware supported it and their licenses allowed it with no additional costing to Microsoft. As contrary as it is to say on /. the help desk instances went up a little (according to first hand reports) and didn't overwhelm them to the point of even needing overtime. This is NOT an anti-Microsoft thing. This is not a potential for changing thing. This is JUST a choice to delay upgrading to ensure that we upgrade at a time when we're also moving the majority to new hardware and that hardware should support the new OS as well as the existing hardware and OS last just fine until that time.