Comments on: Forrester’s 5 reasons to upgrade to Windows Vista now

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:11:19 +0000

Gordon, the question is not whether Vista is a good OS or not. The only thing that counts is if there are better options. Since Microsoft doesn’t have any serious competitors on the desktop and since XP will sooner or later be the more problematic choice, Vista will be left as the only reasonable option.
I agree that there are many organizations who try to stick with an OS for as long as possible. There are certainly cases where this makes sense. However, I think that Vista adoption is advancing faster than many think. Microsoft is certainly exaggerating when say that they sold 100 million Vista licenses, but our web statistics show that the number of Vista machines is growing steadily and at fast rate. Most of them might be privately owned computers. But the bigger the general market share of Vista becomes, the more software and hardware vendors will focus on it. And this will bring the breakthrough for Vista in the corporate environment sooner or later.

We also should not forget that Windows 7 won’t be a completely new OS. It will just be Vista plus some more compatibility problems. The longer you stick with an old version the more difficult it will be to update to the latest version. This is true for the whole IT business.

Jarred, you reminded me of our users. Everyone I talked to about Vista was quite sure that Vista is a failure. None of them ever logged on to a Vista machine and most of them have not the slightest idea about operating systems in general. They believe that Vista is a failure because they read it in the newspaper. Those articles were written by journalists who don’t know more about operating systems than their readers. But they do know that nobody will really criticize them if they bash Vista because this is what everybody is doing, anyway. In my view, not Microsoft developers failed, but their marketing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to say that criticizing Vista is not justified. I have been doing this a lot on this blog. It is just interesting to note that so many who don’t know anything about Windows consider themselves to be Vista experts.

dibek, if there is no alternative from MS or a competitor why wouldn’t this be a reason to move to Vista? I think I didn’t get your argument.

By: dibek

dibek — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:27:47 +0000

Only 5. represents a viable reason, all other points are basically saying that there is no other alternative from MS.
It’s really sad that his is the best they could come up with, it tells you that there is something rotten here, it’s rotten from the core, it stinks, but everyone is trying to tell you otherwise.
Sorry MS, but you’ve outdone your self this time.
I’ve been using Vista for a while now, and if i wasnt in a development cycle with deadlines i’d migrate back to XP. Not even SP1 managed to make much of a difference.

By: Gordon Martin

Gordon Martin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:36:10 +0000

I’m not quite as optimistic as you about the value of Vista. Although Forrester’s arguments for moving on are valid, they seem rather weak. Should the five best reasons for picking an OS really include “the predecessor is no longer available” or “it’s too hard to switch to something else”? A good OS could inspire better reasons.

I don’t think people “waiting for Windows 7″ in your survey was just a commentary – that really is what they’re doing. I consult to the Canadian federal government. I can tell you that there is absolutely no movement here. I am convinced that my department is absolutely the only one considering Vista. Mind you, government is very slow moving and some just started installing XP a year or two ago…

I am sure there won’t be a problem for organizations to wait for Windows 7 – however long that might be. Drivers won’t be a problem until the market does finally shift to Vista. If the market stays parked on XP, the vendors will respond appropriately in order to maintain sales. I’m not convinced the market will make that shift to Vista – making a wait for Windows 7 viable.

By: Jarred Fehr

Jarred Fehr — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:03:50 +0000

Right on. I am almost finished migrating our company to Vista. It staggered how many of my end-users would say, “Are you sure this will work? I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff about Vista.” Of course it will (and has) work. I tested our apps. Granted, a few vendors (ADP and UPS I’m looking at you) won’t have Vista compatible apps until this summer. For those users we’ll just continue on XP. But for most of them Vista is fine.