Vista's biggest problem is Windows XP
Computerworld reports on a recent survey of nearly 600 U.S. and European companies that have more than 1,000 employees; the study says 84 percent of all those companies' PCs now run Windows XP, up from 67 percent the year before."
That sounds pretty good for the Windows monopoly, right? So, one could assume that Vista should start to creep into those numbers.
Nearly a third of the polled businesses--32 percent to be exact--said they would begin deploying Vista by the end of 2008, while another 17 percent said they would start in 2009 or 2010.
Still good, right?
But more than half of all companies remain skittish about Vista, according to Forrester's data.
What's interesting is that many open-source companies find their biggest competition to be themselves--that is, the free version of their products. What Microsoft is competing with is the absorbed-cost version of Windows XP that customers already have. But XP wasn't actually free. Customers were bonked on the head to move from W2K (and I would say it was a good upgrade) and now are being strong-armed to upgrade to Vista, which has minimal upside.
Vista simply isn't compelling enough to upgrade.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
isn't any real reason not to upgrade from 2k to XP, I'm just saying it
isn't a hugely compelling upgrade. Vista meanwhile is downright frightening
with all the things it breaks along with all the useless new features.
Microsoft has some of the most talented programmers in the world, no doubt, but this is probably the worst performing OS I've seen to come out of Redmond. I've run XP since '01 and had little complaints about it, or Windows 2000, or Windows 98SE.
Boot times of 2-6 minutes are NOT acceptable!
VISTA seems to be more of a 'computer support' feature update to help IT people - it does NOTHING to help the end user do their work faster and better (faster does not always equal better!) A person is still only going to use 15% of what MS Word has in it on any regular basis. The rest is useless to them.
Search? If people could think and organize they would never HAVE to search to find what they created. By abstracting the file system and saying it does not matter where people throw stuff it FORCES people to search to find what they created - and actually wastes more time (money) in the long run.
I've been through all the upgrades since DOS 2.0 - and VISTA is the first one I never even bothered to beta-test at work or at home. Look at MS 100 best things about Vista on their web site - 80 of them are security related. Anyone who has old hardware, old games are automatically blocked from upgrading EVER - the security blocks people from installing the device drivers and most games completely.
Business is in the same boat for devices - 5 year old scanners, printers, ZIP drives that are working fine now have to be THROWN AWAY and new ones purchased - just to get the AERO visuals look and feel? That does NOT help get the job done. Add that 1/3 to 2/3 of the existing systems have to be scrapped also (cannot handle the REAL effective operating minimums) - and VISTA becomes very expensive.
Tom Philo
http://www.taphilo.com
Typically, most users won't waste their time paying for an OS. They don't see it as paying for a OS when they buy a new computer, they feel it's "free" with the computer.
I feel the adoption rate will likely only take off after approx 3 years, when old computers burn out, and new ones are required.
That's why "free" Linux also has the same struggles - it's free - but technically in the view of many users, so is XP.
release party at midnight at a few stores and barely anyone showed up.
Granted, there were a few lines at a few stores in big cities, but considering
their market share, the turnout should have been much more impressive.
Leopard, on the other hand... Something like 8% of the computer using
population uses Macs. A pretty miniscule amount, all things considering.
Despite that, there was still a fairly strong turnout at the larger Apple stores
when Leopard was released. I can't remember the numbers, but more than
the people who showed up for Vista.
In short... Nobody was excited about Vista. And unlike most products, it's
actually became less attractive in the year since it's release. Leopard, on the
other hand, has been a dream right out of the box. The new features actually
add a great deal of functionality to the operating system. It's not just a pretty
little bit of window dressing.
By the time the reports of incompatibility started to poor in, one of the laptops broke and had to be replaced... and you only can get that with Vista (yes, I asked for XP). Since our equipment is pretty modern, I didn't really think the compatibility was going to be a huge issue, as that would only apply to people with very old stuff, right? Wrong! What a pain. The security, that doesn't let you do the regular stuff, even if you are an administrator, the new HP laserprinter we bought a week later (about 11 months after Vista's release), that needed another yet another driver, and now requires fixed IP settings on all other PCs as well, due to that one Vista machine. Or the preloaded software that takes over settings, and cannot be changed due to inappropriate security settings.
The old XP laptop got repaired, and the new Vista machine is standing in a corner. Hasta la Vista !!! This is not a product that is ready for the public. It requires the average user to become more system aware all in the name of making things 'easier'. The fact that you have to work around issues is kinda like Linux users, who have to know more about their systems in order to work. Like others said: there is a similarity in pain with Windows Misserable Edition from a few years back.
- by bbossin January 22, 2009 5:49 PM PST
- Vista glitches standard audio playback. period. It stutters all the time. XP doen't, MAc doesn't. They had a technology that worked and they screwed it up. Now XP is no longer supported I guess I will have to buy a mac if the fix does not come in Win 7. Vista has set back audio production on the PC by years. The mac crowd is just laughing at us. Microsoft acting like its not true is stupid.
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