Some Businesses Are Still Saying NO To Vista

PC World Reports, "Microsoft Corp.'s biggest worry over Windows Vista shouldn't be rival operating systems from Apple Inc. or Red Hat Inc., but remains competition from its own Windows XP, an analyst said Wednesday."

In a Forrester Research survey, ONLY 32% of companies said they would be deploying Vista in their company within the year. "According to a survey of nearly 600 U.S. and European companies that have more than 1,000 employees, 84% of all their PCs now run Windows XP, up from 67% the year before. While XP may have peaked, Gray warned not to bet against the 6-year-old operating system. "There are plenty of companies looking forward to XP SP3," he said. That next hot-fix and patch rollup is to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2008, Microsoft has said, and it will reportedly be XP's last service pack."

I guess that I would have to agree with the enamored XP users out there. I have played with Vista and it IS very cool. However it is a memory hog and I have heard a lot of issues about software compatibility. The study revealed that "...firms said applications incompatible with Vista made up between 10% and 40% of their software portfolios. That's causing a lot of XP shops to take a wait-and-see approach to Vista."

I'm thinking whether the horror stories are true or not, I am not willing to risk it. Computer problems are the most frustrating for me. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" right? IMHO XP is the best thing that Microsoft has ever put out. Well may not quite as good as the XBox 360.

More than half of the companies in the poll "...remain skittish about Vista, according to Forrester's data. A year after Microsoft released Vista to duplicators, 38% of companies claimed they had no plans at this stage to deploy the operating system. Another 14% said they just didn't know."

I am going to use XP as long as they continue to release service pack and support it. With XP Service Pack 3 scheduled to come out in early 2008, and Microsoft extending their mainstream support past its current April 2009 expiration date, I don't see any reason to GO V.

Let me know what you have to say on the subject.

 

Microsoft Decides to Play Nice

Several days ago I wrote about Microsoft's Vista not allowing any other desktop search to function in the environment. After a brief battle in the legal arena, Microsoft's shields were down to 10% so they decided to surrender.

According to the DOJ Microsoft caved and decided to play nice. They opened the big V up to other desktop search applications. This allowance will take place in the release of of Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista, which is scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2007.

 

Microsoft's Vista Doesn't Play Well With Others

Apparently there is an issue with Microsoft's new OS. It does not allow you to search with anything other than their own search tool. Google, having a similar tool, began complaining about this feature last year.

According to Google spokesman, Ricardo Reyes as reported on seattlepi.com, "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index."

Some prosecutors believe that this violates the Microsoft anti-trust decision 5 years ago. The crew at Google obviously agrees.

Microsoft spokesman was quoted saying, "Although we don't believe we're obliged to make these changes under the consent decree, we certainly are willing to make an effort to address these issues and make additional changes to Vista."

I may be ignorant and not know the entire story behind Microsoft and the anti-trust settlements, but part of me says, just leave Microsoft alone. If you want to build a business that eventually transforms into a huge empire and have a product that everyone wants, I say fine. But what do I know. Your thoughts?