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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.
Maine has been pretty interesting in the tech field lately. Recently we told RIAA to go pound sand in their ass. Now the State is making a choice to make the best choices (as they see) concerning their upgrade cycle.
This won't actually harm Microsoft in any way but it will save Maine some money in that they won't need to work on re-training people for Vista while they wait for the upgrade to Windows 7.
As the State is currently using Windows XP (and some old Win2k servers still) they should be able to continue some level of support for the remainder of this period assuming that there aren't any major delays with Windows 7. It will be interesting to see what happens.
As a side note, I just was up and across the mountain tops in the Height of the Land checking out the foliage. Once the Sun came out it was pretty vibrant. We cheated and cut across through Byron to Weld and then took 142 back down into Phillips getting out of the tourist areas. It was a nice trip, if you're in Maine and want to see the foliage than today might have been your best shot for this area.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
'nuff said
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.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Wrong State. Maine isn't pro-anything really. We do have some Linux servers but the office workers use Windows, Office, etc... Maine isn't pro-FOSS so don't bother trying to come here with that sort of message, thanks. We're doing this to save money on training and looking ahead to Windows 7. Vista has its bugs. We're saving money by not re-training and skipping an upgrade. We're not saving the money because of skipping the OS, we're saving it by not having to re-train people for a interim OS and not having to invest in more help desk at a time when we're so strapped for cash that we have to actually avoid paving roads because of the increase in the price of asphalt.
You might want to pick another area of the country for that. Many of the politicians and IT staffers are actually decent friends of mine. While you may have some moral reason to want a State to use a FOSS solution the reality is that we're comfortable with what we have and haven't any reason to change at this time. The point is that they do not want to re-train at this time, they don't want to invest in the newer hardware (though DOJ recently got some new hardware along with DOC) that was downgraded to Windows XP Professional instead of the Vista Business that came on it originally.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I do think its great that states are turning down the pointless upgrade and saving some money, but they make it sound like there was no other choice. Seriously is Windows really the only OS out there? If Windows is posing such a problem that you cant even upgrade it cause its so bad why not upgrade AWAY from Windows... I just dont get it.
... and that point is when Microsoft has successfully convinced hardware makers to not create Windows XP device drivers for their new hardware. This is already starting to happen. Soon, you may not have a Windows XP option of any kind when buying new hardware.
I work for an organization which decided several years ago not to upgrade its windows 2000 PCs
to XP. because the win 2000 worked and the IT staff new it well and the upgrade was expensive, show we thought we would just wait a bit for longhorn.
Now in 2008 we are still with win 2000 on many thousnds of PCs and are basiclly forced to "upgrade" to Vista.
Vista is a crummy system, but you never know what comes next?
not that its going to happen in my workplace, but I am all for moving to Linux desktop for at least most workers.
Me.
Microsoft has truly lost its tracks during last 5 years.
Most of their new operating systems have been home-customer-directed teletubby-like interfaces for home-users.
Yet, 90% of Microsoft customers are corporate. Corporate customers don't care about aero or some fancy gui transparency.
Corporate customers want OS that looks and performs like windows 2000, is as secure as XP and doesn't cause excess load on their IT departments.
Vista and Office 2007 both failed miserabely with these requirements.
Office 2007 is being adopted since openoffice isn't ready just yet, but vista can be skipped since XP is good enough for 90% purposes.
Next 5 years, we'll see microsoft plummetting and losing its track even more, while linux and apple keeps gaining it's lost market share.
Once they realize they've truly lost it and try to regain monopoly, they come up with some system which is advanced enough to fulfill needs of customers for next 5 years.
Sadly, vista nor windows 7 will be that system and we corporate windows sysadmins are screw'd.
F* you microsoft for destroying my liver, since alcohol seems to be the only proper way to deal with your shit on daily basis.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
We went from NT to XP, skipping 2000, and we're gonna go from XP to 7, skipping Vista.
Servers have also done the same jump, from NT to 2003 and from 2003 to Win 7 Server edition.
We do make money out of it, though, unlike Maine.
Is Maine known particulary for it's foliage? It seems a rather odd thing to comment on. (By foliage you mean the leaves on the trees turning autumnal?)
Little do they know that Windows 7 will be based on Windows Vista, in contradiction to all the nice ("completely new codebase") promises made...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
When will slashdot editors start skipping them?
As soon as they're not true anymore.
Of all major operating systems, UNIX is the only one originally meant for gaming.
Here's a hint: If you look at Spock, you might notice he doesn't have a beard.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why believe that Windows 7 will be better? Wasn't that the promise of Vista?
MS has not delivered its promised features so many times that it makes no sense to believe that Windows 7 will be any different.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Unless it is evil-twin Spock.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
...we're comfortable with what we have and haven't any reason to change at this time.
Money. Less spent on MS licenses means more for useful projects.
Hell yeah. People come from across the globe to see it. Giant buses go through, people drive, people fly in and rent. Maine has potatoes, trees, lobster, fish, and tourists. Most of our income (it would appear) is from tourism and the foliage season is one of the better ones as they come in, rent a hotel, drive around without consuming many of the natural resources, and then leave having deposited their dollars to visit what would have been there anyhow.
http://mainefoliage.com/ (I think but you can search for "Maine Foliage" if you want.)
The area I was in today is "peak" though it isn't as good as it should have been in my opinion. My wife, from California, hasn't seen it before and it was a bit dreary for my taste. We head to places (for the most part) that aren't laden with tourists though the route we were on today (for a portion of it) is quite famous for the foliage.
I'll be grabbing some pics off the camera later. If you're actually *really* interested then spam_here *at* whathostingshould *dot* be and I'll send you the link to see them. I'll most likely be tossing them up at http://maine.kgiii.info/ but that's likely to be a while before I get to that latter stage as I have a busy night tonight while I handle the help desk as Tom is sick.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I understand users wanting the newest and greatest, I am like that a lot. I own a Mac Pro which is totally overboard for what I do, but I do it because I can. Home users will always want the newest stuff.
However, when you are talking about a large organization. Upgrading has to be for a reason. Hardware becomes faster, that's a good reason to upgrade. Application x gives new features that our users actually need, then its a good reason to upgrade.
But seriously, what does Vista provide that XP doesn't ? I can't think of a single thing that would justify the cost of upgrading all their hardware to upgrade to a newer OS that doesn't provide anything more for them. I think they made the right call.
I think Microsoft needs to wake up and realize that companies will upgrade when there is a reason to upgrade. Just releasing a new version isn't enough, it needs some major benefit.
Side note: It is starting to seem like Windows 7 is just going to be Vista "rebranded".
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Wouldn't it be more cost effective for the State of Maine, and similar organizations to put half of the money that they put into Microsoft into building, by way of contractors, a shared, possibly open, solution on a less expensive platform over which they may have more control? This seems especially likely as I doubt that these organizations are actively competing against each other, at least not in a way where sharing an IT solution to be of negative impact to them.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
We're already spending it for support. This isn't your average single user license, it is a giant license. It is more cost effective (I forget the name of the program that we're using) to have this than it is to get just out of band support for a variety of licenses. It includes the ability to upgrade at any time. Contrary to popular opinion we've looked at (non-Microsoft funded) the evidence and it would appear to cost more to migrate to a different OS at this time with the support contracts, the effort involved, and the additional toll on the help desk. I'm not seeing any public documentation showing the reasoning but (and I *am* a fan of Linux in many areas) hopefully you can find something if you look hard enough.
We, as a State, do use some CentOS but at the time we were looking at RHEL and Fedora desktops. Driver issues was one of the things that abounded as the existing hardware wasn't supported entirely. As some of the departments are using older Citrix based thin clients from Wyse there were additional concerns though I don't actually recall what those concerns were.
It isn't that it couldn't be done, it is that it was cost-prohibitive to do so. It isn't that it wasn't looked at, it was, it was that it was considered more economical and a wiser choice to remain with their current choice of operating systems. Though some of the servers did migrate to CentOS and, I believe, RHEL in the case of some of the mail servers.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Sounds like we have our next candidate for the Mojave Experiment!
Oh, a little over 10 years ago.
This is why I think single source is bad for business, and why *nix is a good option for worker drone machines that do not require specific applications. It is not like support persons cannot learn basic *nix, and users cannot learn OO.org instead of MS Office. I know there are some MS Exchange issues, but those are going away. What does the average lose when they move to *nix? The ability to change a background on the desktop with one click? The ability to download and play games? Sure flash may not work perfectly, but that is not a long term detterent.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Maine not upgrading to Vista. Well, there goes 5 licenses down the drain. Call me when California or New York make this decision. Going back to sleep...
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
I work for a Very Large Telecom. Nobody is running Vista. It would be too expensive in hardware, training and support. We can do our jobs just fine with XP on cheaper hardware.
Like most, we are 100% Microsoft on the desktop and there are no alternative we can switch to quickly. Exchange and AD are too entrenched. I have a feeling CTO's at some companies see this risk and are evaluating "other options." The problem is the propriety enterprise packages are tried and true on Windows, and it's too expensive to replace all that infrastructure.
Microsoft might force consumers to buy Vista, but I doubt it'll happen for large companies. It would make a lot of people very angry and force large companies to pressure the Enterprise software vendors to write Mac or Linux clients.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Microsoft force their hand, but it could be their undoing if they did.
Yeah because those security updates really made it so viruses were impossible to write for XP it was still receiving active support.
In Maine the cycle has been a lot like you describe.
94 386/486 mix with 3.1 and 95 in the middle (this was an odd one)
-- Same era -- DEC stuff still and our start of a love affair with Cisco as I recall
98 (year) to 98 (and then to 98se.)
2002 Win2k and XP
-- Same era -- Cisco prices for support kicked our ass
-- Same era -- Wyse and Citrix moved *back* in
2006 XP/Server 2k3
-- Same era -- Juniper shows up with a beautiful price (I think we run Juniper gear almost entirely in some areas now)
Here's where Microsoft screwed up... XP/2k3 is Good Enough® and for us that is a Good Thing©.
If we can still support XP we're fine until 2012 for the most part. Windows XP lasted too long. This isn't costing Microsoft any money, we're paying the same regardless. Licenses, support, and even custom hot patches are covered. We can upgrade when we want.
Our history says, 2010 and we're some staunch bastards here. We'll change when we're good and effin' ready, ayuh! We're too broke to actually afford new hardware. In the middle of these 4 year periods we've ALWAYS upgraded hardware for some departments. So, in 2008, we upgraded some. DOJ and DOC got some new hardware but it runs XP. DHHS (used to be DHS) also gets some very couple of years as they're a forward facing department.
It is my opinion that we're doing fine and that we made the right choice for this. I do believe that FOSS has a place (which is to answer the people saying that this is time to look at Vista) but that's more expensive in the short term for us. Right now we aren't able to afford a damned thing. We are one broke-ass state and the taxation is already a bit too high for some people.
There are old people in this state who are actually going to FREEZE to death this year. It will likely be under a handful of people. But we don't have the money, we aren't going to raise taxes if we can help it because that probably won't help a whole lot unless we tax the rich and we don't have a lot of those, so we can't afford a lot. The lack of income from the depreciated tourism industry is going to hurt us this winter. Oddly our gasoline is just $3.35/gallon at my local store but has still been to high to allow people to chance to come here and spend their hard earned money on our tourism and there aren't many other things left in Maine that people pay for other than lobster.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This isn't your average single user license, it is a giant license. It is more cost effective (I forget the name of the program that we're using) to have this than it is to get just out of band support for a variety of licenses.
A friend of mine has one of those (apparently he knows someone that works at MS). He refers to it as a "Corporate License".
Contrary to popular opinion we've looked at (non-Microsoft funded) the evidence and it would appear to cost more to migrate to a different OS at this time with the support contracts, the effort involved, and the additional toll on the help desk.
Two (or three) words: Vendor Lock-In. Maybe a slow phase-in among the more tech-savvy?
Start pushing FOSS apps (if you haven't already) such as Firefox, OOo, Thunderbird, etc.
I'm not seeing any public documentation showing the reasoning but (and I *am* a fan of Linux in many areas) hopefully you can find something if you look hard enough.
I'll look around.
Driver issues was one of the things that abounded as the existing hardware wasn't supported entirely.
What about now?
And I assume you were looking at Fedora/RHEL because of the compatibility with the CentOS servers? Presumably, SLED/SUSE/openSUSE would work together equally well. Maybe their hardware support is better?
Somehow, I am not very sure MS will keep the deadline.
OTOH, they have announced they are slimming it down to a bare minimum and pushing their downloadable stuff instead.
It's fun to watch how buzzword-compliant they are. "Multi-touch" and "Cloud" are terms they constantly associate with their future product line. It's textbook vaporware tactics at work.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Junior, I guarantee that's something you're not going to be hearing.
When Win2k came out, did you hear a lot of people saying that WinME was the "best OS Microsoft has ever released"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Now that MS is stalled Apple could probably pick up substantial numbers of enterprise customers if they put out a mid sized desktop spedced similar to a mini but upgradable and with heavier duty components and priced aggressively for big orders. They also ought to buy parallels outright and bundle it with 10.6, a BSD based stable desktop that will run commercial apps like Photoshop and XP at near native speeds to run MS office and IE should it be needed, what's not to like?
my state of new hampshire does its fair share of the "autumnal display" as well. however, we think of maine mostly for its beautiful rocky shoreline (and lobsters!)...
as i'm north of the Notches (closer to Canada actually) our foliage has gone past. Matter of fact, at this moment there is 2ft of snow not more than 40 miles from my house on the Rockpile.
the significance of a signature is insignificant
Effective drivers for NICs and Wireless as well as some missing keyboard functionality on the laptops that they were going to buy. I don't have all of the specifics as it's not my job (I'm just a citizen and happen to be involved in a lot of the community programs as a civilian as well as know a bunch of the techs who work for the State having worked for them, gone to school with them, or in one case actually been his old boss) but it was not an option with the current hardware.
Later in the thread I go into details in the upgrade cycle a bit, it isn't exact but it is pretty accurate. That would be a bit revealing if you want to see it. It was Fedora/RHEL because of their support at the time. This was *probably* about 4 years ago with the conclusion being 3 years ago or so. (It would have happened, if it was going to happen, starting in 2008.)
I do enjoy the fruits of FOSS. I even contribute in a variety of ways though most of my code contributions have gone to things other than Linux directly and are usually just bug reports with the solutions I have found. I also contribute financially. It isn't that I'm a *hater* or the likes. I'm just aware that they cycle, support, benefits, and cost have made this the best choice for the state and this is a choice I agree with entirely. If, in between now and then, we look towards more Linux than we may skip Windows 7 entirely but I doubt that very much. Our citizens typically are older and have Windows computers, our staffers are already versed in Windows use, our documentation is still valid, and our documents are available (usually) in PDF format for public consumption as well as Word formats internally.
They do use Firefox but not OpenOffice though I suspect that some may actually use Thunderbird and maybe some OpenOffice products. Their work machine came with Microsoft Office and given the small size of the users they don't seem to (I'll check) mind the use of any of those products for business/state use.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
main() { skip_vista(); } skip_vista() { windows7() }
Ah it is beautiful there. I was out through Grafton Notch recently, headed into the "Rock" area and down through Conway, across towards the Castle in the Clouds, and back through Rt. 2 out of Vermont. Is the road up Mt. Washington closed yet? Given that the wind was upwards of 30 MPH gusts here in the Heights I'd have to guess that if they aren't closed with snow that they soon will be. If not then *maybe* next weekend I'll head over and grab some fireworks and make a trip up to see how it looks.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Window Vista is such a huge disaster for Microsoft, considering that since it's release, it has consistently sold more than Windows XP in the same timeframe since it's release (ie. amount of sales after 1 year of being on the market for both XP and Vista, after 2 years, etc etc). Truly a horrible mistake one would never want to repeat. Oh wait, nevermind.
better hurry! according to the site:
http://www.mountwashingtonautoroad.com/Page-213.html
you have 9 days to do it....
October 6 - 13 8:00 AM-4:30 PM
October 14 - Closing 8:00 AM-4:00 PM
and if you went to Vermont via Rt 2, you went right by my apartment. I live at the southern junction of Rt's 2 & 3 in Lancaster NH (across the Connecticut River at Lunenburg/Guildhall VT [Rt2])...
the significance of a signature is insignificant
Sweet! I do like the autumn season, with all the colour. Only I have to enjoy it on a much smaller scale, here in Scotland. Here are some pictures I could find http://www.rampantscotland.com/flowers/autumn_a.htm
This just further proves that XP is still a completely viable OS. The biggest threat to Windows dominance is Vista too, imho. They tried to shove the OS down the throats of the consumer. Both choked. the only people I ever see endorsing Vista are hardcore fans or gurus. Everyone else I speak too says its still buggy, still overuses resources, and still--frankly, and from every face to face source I have met and discussed--blows. It'll go the way of ME: not with a bang, not with a whisper, but with a curious expression on people's faces when you mention it followed by the question "Vista? What's that?" Whether or not its replaced by a Windows OS is entirely up to them.
Yes.
2GB of RAM is less than 40.00 in 2 unit quantities.
Let me get this straight...
1) Maine doesn't like Vista.
2) Maine can't know much about Windows 7 because it doesn't exist yet.
3) ?????
4) Maine decides it will switch to Windows 7.
5) Profit! (for Microsoft)
So, step 3 may entail:
a) Someone getting a bribe.
b) Someone realizing how happy Microsoft products have made them in the past, and assuming the Vista problems must have been a one-time fluke.
c) Someone thinking that "operating system" means "Windows".
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.
And Maine is the story here?
How about the tying under license terms, service conditions, and through undocumented APIs and document formats that this implies? Would Maine have an enterprise license for Vista, an operating system they will never install, if there was not tying abuse going on?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So Maine have already paid for a it but won't actually be installing (hence no support calls etc.)? Elsewhere, the vast majority of new PCs are sold with it "installed" (even if an XP image is then slapped on either by the vendor or the organisation that bought it).
That's a "disaster" that many businesses would be happy with.
is the fact that it ships with IE7 and not IE6.
Vista took too long to develop, but during that period too many software vendors wrote bad web interface code for business applications that would only work with IE6 and not IE7, Firefox, Oprah or any other browser. Let us face it, IE6 has known compatibility problems. This problem is compounded by the fact that Microsoft chose not to support IE7 on Windows 2000. Therefore, it did not make sense to repair this bad code if it meant that older machines would immediately become obsolete unless with XP or Vista was installed, especially as XP was made available as an alternative to Vista Business Edition allowing the burying of heads in sand.
If the bad code was rewritten to support any suitable browser, then most business would try and use a different operating system other than windows. That is probably why Microsoft have released their mistake and backtracked allowing business to continue to use XP. But this solution has a double edged sword that they need to be wary of; when Windows 7 arrives, will be be even less compatible with business software than Vista? With the way the economic downturn is going, by the problem software developers waiting and not planning to resolve the problems presented by Vista, how will these businesses survive much beyond 2010? and what impact will that have on Microsoft as a result?
As for home use, I have been using Vista for 12 months. Don't find many problems, but then I'm using the 32 bit edition and don't need to using web browser based business applications.
With regard to complaints about minimum specification, Vista 32 is ironically holding back the specification of home PCs due to its inability to address more than 4GB of RAM. It sounds like everybody will have to adopt a 64 bit Windows pretty soon.
Your bias is showing. People smarter than you or I have already looked at it though it was a few years ago. I'm not a huge fan of any particular OS or anything nor am I a fan of any sort of closed vs. open mentality. I just think that people should use what works best for them and there is no right nor is there a wrong. In this case the elected officials (and I can personally vouch that there wasn't any vendor influence that I'm aware of and feel that I'd have likely been aware of it given my ties to the system) have staff that have been hired who looked at the alternatives including the Mac OS. The end result was that the continued contract with Microsoft was less expensive but that Linux fit in some areas and, in those areas, we're actually using Linux.
I'm not positive but if you look at any of the public facing maine.gov sites you *should* find quite a bit of open source there. There's no prohibition against end-users installing Thunderbird, OpenOffice, or Firefox or the likes. I'm afraid you don't have access to the intranet but those files are mirrored there for users who want to use them and they've been there for a while.
I'm not entirely positive but for a while the idea of a Maine branded FireFox was bandied about. It was meant to provide some specifics, as for add-ons and default home page, and it was actually the copyright restrictions and the overhead that would have had to have been made for it that the conversation pretty much lost steam. In order to release it to the staffers and to distribute it to the citizens it would have also required maintaining it, making the code available, and being able to verify the add-ons. The overhead made that impossible.
In the real world it is not always cost effective to change. Ideals don't matter when the importance is the immediate effect on the economy, you might not care but I suspect that's because you don't live here and don't see that we couldn't even afford to pave our roads this year because of the increased price of asphalt.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It should be noted that this is not dedazo, but a name troll (one of many) created by twitter for that user.
twitter has name trolls and lists for people who don't hink like him.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
my state of new hampshire does its fair share of the "autumnal display" as well...... as i'm north of the Notches (closer to Canada actually)
So do people still gather at the general store to use the internet?
Keep it please.
Seriously, I was just in my favorite state of NH just on Friday on business. Only got as far as the Lakes region, but the colors were looking good there. Still one of the greatest places on this earth.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
Yup. Will this make you happy? Hell. I *live* in Maine. I know MANY of the politicians, most of the IT staff, many of the State workers, and have done a great deal of work for MANY of the branches of government and have worked for many departments. I don't consider my opinion or observations to be the only valid ones but would you rather I spoke about something I know about or someone who has no idea what is going on? Would you rather I spoke about something I know nothing about instead?
Yes, yes this *is* a subject I'm probably the most authoritative source on here on slashdot. It isn't often that I am but that has never stopped me from offering my opinion. So, to answer your troll, I'll go ahead and post more. And you'll like it. Or not... If it takes 1000 posts to ensure that I have clearly expressed the opinions I have, the opinions of my fellow citizens as I know them, and to reference the facts then I'll do so. That is, after all, what this forum is for.
If you have a complaint concerning a singular comment then feel free to post it. If you have a complaint vs. the quantity of my posts then I'm afraid you'll have to suffer until I have shared what little I know. Information wants to be free and, for now, I have some information and I'm offering it to you freely. If you wish to dispute a point then do so, if you wish to dispute quantity then I don't see your point so long as I'm maintaining quality with the quantity and, frankly, I could care less about post count.
So, well, sorry for responding to your troll but someone had to.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It's business too. I just started working for a startup company and guess what, all the machines are XP Pro, even though they have Vista license keys on the bottom of them.
Ayuh. Unless, of course, you wanted the responses posted from someone who can't even find Maine on the map and has a love for one type of software and ignores the value of another?
So, well, you get me. 50%? I'm aiming to look for any questions and assist where I can in answering them if no one else has. My bad for being a constructive person and offering to help where there was something that I'm familiar with. I'm not good enough but there are only a few people from Maine on here and only a few people who actually don't care what OS goes onto the system so long as it accomplishes the goals.
Ah well... You can troll if you wanna. I don't mind. It gives me something to do while I sit here and I have to sit here for about another 45 minutes anyhow.
If you think you're a more open, honest, and aware source of information you can take off your cowardice badge and post. I'll even respond to you in kind. I am not the *only* source of information, I just happen to be here at this time and this is an important subject to me. Maybe I can hit 75% perhaps?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"Sufferin' succotash."
If my memory serves, since Windows 95, Microsoft has had a tendency to release new major versions of Windows somewhat later than originally scheduled. The delay was the most pronounced with the late release of Windows Vista, even with major features dropped to speed up release. Does the state of Maine have an alternative plan in the event that Windows 7 is delayed long enough that their 11,000 machines begin to break with no replacement capable of running the "obsolete" Windows XP (due to lack of XP drivers for new hardware) available? Perhaps instead of planning a move to Windows 7, which may not be released for some time, the state of Maine should at least investigate other possibilities, such as adopting F/OSS software or Apple machines.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Of course customers and shareholders might disagree, but MS has been blowing them off for ages.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
why would Microsoft put another desktop OS out there and totally mess up the migration off of XP and on top of that, give them another black eye like Windows ME. Granted, ME was a subset market since Win98 held it's own and Windows 2000 carried the main business user sector so the WinME flop was a consumer issue at best.
From what I see, Windows 7 is going to be the rent-a-Windows kit more to the likes of gOS where it's tied to online services or rental apps. You know, Ozzy's plan now that Gates is out of the way.
But I did get a laugh when it was said that Maine will "hope for the best" with regards to what comes out of Microsoft next. I do think they'll be unpleasantly surprised at what Windows 7 is and probably give GNU/Linux a good look-see as that time approaches. Just my guess. ;-)
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Near Disaster? Really? In spite of popular perception, Vista has made millions for Microsoft.
Windows 7 is still going to be based off of the Vista kernel. It's still going to be a standard desktop OS.
Everyone I work with uses it. Oh wait I forgot - I work at Microsoft.
> "The State of Maine is the latest organization to skip Windows
> Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft.
While I agree that Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate/whatever is a hideous iteration of MS Windows, I can't agree that it has been all that disastrous for Microsoft.
Each copy costs _considerably_ more than MS Windows XP Pro, and almost all retailed versions of MS windows today are OEM installed copies of MS Windows Vista Ultimate/whatever.
Microsoft is still making a fortune from MS Windows Vista.
My own personal view is that MS Windows Vista is an unfinished POS and I certainly won't be using it. But it *is* a financial winner for MS.
Matter of fact, at this moment there is 2ft of snow not more than 40 miles from my house on the Rockpile.
Hah. I'm still getting mid-80's
State government is a *prime* candidate for thin client computing. They need to spend some time in Largo, FL so they can see this kind of technology in action. Desktop computing is a waste of money in any environment, but in a taxpayer-funded environment it's just obscene. It wasn't all that long ago that most states had a mainframe or two running the state government, and there were just terminals all over the state. Support was easy and the technology was reliable. Most of those terminals never had a single site visit from the time they were first deployed until the time they were replaced with the first PC in a long line of treadmill upgrades.
State governments need to return to those days, and the technology is available, and it works. *That* would be a true benefit to taxpayers.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This story strikes me as a bit strange. Maine announces they won't be migrating to Vista, supposedly because it's bad. So far, so good. But then they announce that they _will_ be migrating to Windows 7, which isn't out yet. So there is the possibility that Windows 7 will be even worse (for whatever value matters to Maine) than Vista, but they will migrate to it anyway?
I think what they should have done is compare existing software. If they gain by migrating now, they migrate now, to whatever provides the best result. If they don't gain by migrating now, they don't migrate. Maybe they will migrate to Windows 7 once it's out, but that's a consideration to make once it's actually out.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I think the real problem areas are businesses that went from NT to 2000 (its a big improvement) and are still running it. They wanted to skip XP but now they're left with an 2000, which is starting to show its age or Vista, which isn't an option for many businesses for various reasons. Vista sucks and upgrading to XP, an OS nearing the end of its lifetime too, doesn't make a huge amount of sense either.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Colby College area?
More like Bowdoin country.
Actually, wasn't it the USM School of Law students dope-slapping the RIAA with better research, better logic, and pure unabashed righteousness?
Or something like that...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I guess everyone who bought into Software Assurance is pretty pissed off right now...
Twinstiq, game news
Red Hat Directory server functions as well in AD, has no per user license, and is LDAP standards based so you can migrate off of it will little effort. The free version is available in the Fedora tree if you want to try it out. It has been scaled into the millions of users. Zimbra is functionally as good as mail for collaboration and it scales better. Because it is based on open standards, any DBA can do many things with the data that requires extra software purchases with Exchange.
Is Maine known particulary for it's foliage? It seems a rather odd thing to comment on. (By foliage you mean the leaves on the trees turning autumnal?)
"Can't this wait till after my scooter club's fall foliage trip to Maine?"
-Scrubs
having the same base kernel does not mean it will be the same distribution. What you said is like saying the because Ubuntu and the Android are based off the 2.6 kernel, they are the same.
Microsoft can base Windows 7 on the Vista kernel yet still make the OS a service oriented distribution. Think of it like Vista Home vs Vista Ultimate vs Vista MediaCenter. They are all based on the same kernel but different distributions( packaging ).
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
talk about a lunatic, I only said that they would likely look at GNU/Linux and nothing more. I do understand migrations cost but so does having your business based on an unsupported OS. It is not like the state of Maine can hire anyone to patch Windows XP outside of Microsoft and you know they won't. They want everyone on Vista.
And hey, there's the Mac too and there is ofcourse that high performance Windows Vista. It'll probably be with SP3 by then so who knows, it might only take 2 CPUs and 2GB of memory to run acceptably.
another freak AC can bite me.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I can't be the only one thinking that Ubuntu is a better, FREE, available NOW technology that would do everything they want. I really can't understand how government offices haven't completely fallen in step with Open Office..... Whatever it is they don't like about it they could just code themselves, and for MUCH cheaper than 11,000 windows licenses....
Please, stop throwing tax payer money away on outdated, obsolete, proprietary virus infested crap, and switch to a real OS.
k thnx.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
[quote]...So do people still gather at the general store to use the internet?...[/quote]
when i came to Lancaster in 1999, there was 33k dial-up! In 2002, I opened a computer repair shop downtown and we were the first in town to have 1/368 ADSL.!! Today I enjoy 15/1 cable, and rumour is FiOS is headed here soon (5yrs?)! and yes, people still use CB radio's here, we just got cell-phones last year....in Franconia (down the road a ways) people ACTUALLY DO congregate to the General Store for Internet!
the significance of a signature is insignificant
Windows Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft.
Yes, if you consider selling 180 million copies a disaster.
2000 still is the probably the best OS Microsoft brought out, light weight and generally compatible with most windows software, the perfect guest undemanding of the host.
XP would run pretty much the same software but demand more resources.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
so you think what you see in the beta is what they must and will ship? That is just too funny and very naive.
Seeing what Microsoft does is like looking for rain on a dark night. You see it only if you look slightly to the side of what you would think is something that'll expose it to you. For rain, it is a bright light. For Microsoft, it's blogs, press releases, public statements and other things.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
LOL :-)
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
A source for your assertions would be nice.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Please make sure any games you develop on Vista work just as well under XP, because I'm not buying it if it doesn't. I'm not upgrading to an operating system that has no significant benefits, a lot of negatives and enables a continuing monopoly. At this point I'm much more likely to try to get some weird game running under Linux than XP. There's no way in heck I'm installing Vista, even as a dual-boot, but I'd be very happy to give some new flavor of the week of Linux a try.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.