Gartner: Ignore Vista until 2008

Companies shouldn't rush to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Vista, according to analysts at Gartner, who believe most could safely hold back until 2008.

The majority of improvements in Vista, the update scheduled to arrive in 2006, will be security-related and most of this functionality "is available via third-party products today," Gartner analysts said in a research note published on Friday.

While Vista will "offer incremental, evolutionary improvements" over its predecessors, Windows XP users should "pursue a strategy of managed diversity," the analysts recommended. That means they should only bring in Vista on new machines and that not until 2008.

In its research note titled "Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista client," Gartner highlighted some of the weaknesses in Microsoft's platform strategy.

Internet Explorer 7 will have many security improvements "to stem defections from IE to Firefox" and "has been accelerated" to be delivered in early 2006. But the "important ability to restrict some browser activities to a lower privileged process" will not be available because it requires Vista functionality," Gartner cautioned.

The analysts acknowledged that companies that use IE 7 and Vista will have fewer points of weakness.

Also on the security issue, the Windows Vista personal firewall is better than the one included in XP Service Pack 2, Gartner said, and will, crucially, improve security on inbound and outbound traffic--a particular issue with laptops. But, the analysts said, people should already have "a more than capable" firewall on their laptops anyway.

Another Vista feature that Microsoft is emphasizing is its search capabilities. "Search is slow in Windows XP, and files, e-mail and calendar objects cannot be found with a single search," according to the research paper. Though Microsoft has tried to remedy this in Vista, "competent third-party desktop tools are already available" from companies like Google, Gartner pointed out.

[PcsAreRealComputes]

Vista for ME!

I don't see any reason not to accept Vista. XP was a major improvement over 2000/98/ME at the start and there should be no reson why Vista should not be as good or better than XP. Corporate level users tend to be slower, but that can be as bad as it is good.

XP will be around for many years, but so will old cars.

I prefer to drive a new one when possible.

Vista for me.

[Bytesmiths]

Ya, sure

I really like all the new features of Vista 2006. That's why I chose
MacOS X in 2001!

Apple: if you need today what Microsoft promises down the road...

[digitallysick]

as long as you dont care about security

then give vista a shot, the rest of us will dodge that bullet

[dona83]

I know this has been said over and over

I'm using Mac OSX and just have had no problems, Tiger has all the
features that Vista will have, and yea it's just an OS but it's an OS
with way less problems.

[Bobman]

way less problems eh?

Yeah, you sure know that. Because, you know, you somehow magically acquired and extensively tested the final version of Vista already.
Oh, and theres already tons of things that I can do in Windows XP that I could never do in OSX, and Vista will only expand what I can do.

[balooh]

Why use Vista? Get an Intel Mac and run OSX Leopard

So, Gartner recommends to consider Vista only for new
machines.

By the time Vista hits the street, there will be Intel based Macs
available so you may as well make that new machine a Mac and
run OSX. By that time OSX Leopard (v10.5) will have been
released which is to say OSX will be even further ahead of
Windows than today. You can always run Windows on the Intel
Mac too, Apple said they won't prevent it. In fact, it is
conceivable that some company like Crossover Office will offer a
commercial version of WINE for OSX, so you could run many
Windows apps directly on OSX. This will only be a matter of
when, not if, that such a product will show up.

So, if Gartner says "wait with Vista", I say "wait for Intel Macs and
switch to OSX".

[R. U. Sirius]

It's going to be interesting

I think that Apple does have a window of opportunity. Their advantage is going to be that they provide both the hardware and the software, whereas the MS model has always been software only.

If Apple comes out with Intel based Macs which perform as well or better than WinPC's, are able to run multiple OS's on Intel (OSX, Win, Linux, Solaris), and if they price their hardware competitively, that could force others (like Dell) to adopt a similar hardware/software model like Apple. That then would tend to favor Linux and Solaris as a future model for Dell and other PC makers.

The question then becomes, what does MS do? My guess is that they buy a PC maker and go full tilt into the hardware business.

It's going to be interesting.

[richto]

And downgrade to a Legacy UNIX based OS?, no thanks.

What a joke. You even have to install Windows as multiboot under it to do anything useful anyway. Screw buying overpriced Apple hardware to do that. Not to mention its based on UNIX so it will have more security holes than Swiss Cheese - just like Linux does. Hence why less than 2% of computers are MACs. (And most of them are in schools because they get them dirt cheap.)

[macrhino]

I have to agree with the others

I am the CEO of a techinical company that uses Windows, Linux,
and Macs. While the Macs outnumber the Dells about 5 to 1, the
amount of support is 7 times greater (money wise) for the Dells.
Downtime ratio is infinite since we have no downtime on the
Macs in four years.

Mac OS X Tiger already provides more than Vista promises.
When the Intel Macs are released, one will have access to
Windows when one is forced to drop into it, but the user will live
in Mac OS X, a reliable, easy to use OS that is more powerful now
than Vista will be when released.

I recently had the company migrate our Internet server
processes to Mac OS X server from VERIO (NTT) using Windows
as a server. We now have no problems with Email, our website is
stable and we have local software updates, and Jabber.

Just change now, your life will be easier.

[macrhino]

I have to agree with the others

I am the CEO of a technical company that uses Windows, Linux,
and Macs. While the Macs outnumber the Dells about 5 to 1, the
amount of support is 7 times greater (money wise) for the Dells.
Downtime ratio is infinite since we have no downtime on the
Macs in four years.

Mac OS X Tiger already provides more than Vista promises.
When the Intel Macs are released, one will have access to
Windows when one is forced to drop into it, but the user will live
in Mac OS X, a reliable, easy to use OS that is more powerful now
than Vista will be when released.

I recently had the company migrate our Internet server
processes to Mac OS X server from VERIO (NTT) using Windows
as a server. We now have no problems with Email, our website is
stable and we have local software updates, and Jabber.

Just change now, your life will be easier.

[rcrusoe]

Gartner is preaching to the choir

Anyone that has supported MS products for very long knows that
Gartner is dead on target. Only the very foolish are first in line to
adopt a new MS product.

The fact that the bulk of corporations never upgraded to XP is
witness to that.

[corelogik]

I predict...

that within the next 5-10 years Windows will return to it's roots
and become what it started out as. A GUI app run ontop of another
OS, like back in the DOS days with win 3.1x....

"This will end your Windows session..."

Any takers?

[Mendz]

I think...

... what will happen is a separation of the OS base from the UI base so that you can have the text and graphics mode just like in Linux.

Windows Longhorn Server is planned to be componetized to allow admins to install only the things they need, again just like in Linux.

Future Windows are becoming more like Linux in many ways (accounts, security, access). A lot of Vista is Linux flavored. So is the Windows Longhorn Server. Microsoft is actually learning from Linux...

[System Tyrant]

The new Windows.

I think Microsoft is working on a new OS to replace Windows. I only say this because of the report about Microsofts R&D team building a new OS as a test. I think Microsoft is at the very least thinking about a totally new OS to replace Windows.

[R. U. Sirius]

In ten years Windows is DOA

As hardware prices begin to decline, manufacturers will be forced to find cheaper methods of bringing PC's to market. When we reach that point of inflection, Windows becomes a dead product, unless MS is willing to give it away.

Here is an example:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+to+reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html?tag=nl" target="_newWindow">http://news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+to+reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html?tag=nl</a>

whether it is Linux or some other "open source" OS, the OS component is going to have to be free for hardware to turn a profit.

In short, the MS model of Windows + Office is unsustainable. As hardware prices decline, bundled software prices will also have to decline.