The same arguments were made against XP for at least the first 4 years after launch in the business world.
It's not an argument against Vista.
Can i still get XP on a Dell?
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The same arguments were made against XP for at least the first 4 years after launch in the business world.
It's not an argument against Vista.
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Another couple of reasons that businesses haven't moved over are Hardware - most business PCs are, on average, 3 - 5 years old. So you're looking at replacing practically every bit of hardware to make sure that your helpdesk isn't innundated with calls about the PCs being slow.
Secondly - custom apps. A lot of businesses use strange custom apps that just don't work on Vista. Even worse, in some cases, there are critical apps where none of the original developers are still available. So migrating these things becomes expensive and difficult, if not a total WOMBAT.
And finally, users, and by extension, support staff, hate change. I have heard people complain about losing their GX1s because the Optiplex 755 it was replaced with ran XP rather than 2k.
Secondly - custom apps. A lot of businesses use strange custom apps that just don't work on Vista. Even worse, in some cases, there are critical apps where none of the original developers are still available. So migrating these things becomes expensive and difficult, if not a total WOMBAT.
And finally, users, and by extension, support staff, hate change. I have heard people complain about losing their GX1s because the Optiplex 755 it was replaced with ran XP rather than 2k.
Jeez, sore points ahoy!
Most sensible businesses will have an EA in place. Timed right, there would be no cost implications to rollout to Vista as it would be integral to the EA. In addition, most large companies using termed leases for IT equipment would receive new machines with Vista on anyway. It works in exactly the same way XP does. Turn on machine, join domain, job done. Only if you're changing your backend infrastructure is there going to be any real noticeable difference.
If, on the other hand, you're just looking after small business users who have no EA, then yes, I can see that justification for a Vista rollout may be questioned. But the change will have to come sooner or later, and it is wholly more stable than XP is when a programme dies or crashes.
We all hated XP when it came out, but the number of PC users then to now has increased exponentially, so the moans are louder and clearer than before.
Life experience?, get some.
Oh, and more for your record. I work for the largest IT and Support comany in the world. If I had a user mentaility as you point out, then surely I'd be on your side of the argument?
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^This, is a far greater understanding of the problem than the other posts in here, but there are workarounds to almost all of these situations. Hardware, i've addressed in the post above.
Apps, yes, problomatic but can be addressed in a number of ways (CITRIX portals for one).
Users, so what, I'm being honest when I say that if you present a user with a new laptop running Vista, all their emails and applications are on it, they wouldn't take a blind bit of notice. Most end users are totally locked out from their settings and policies anyway, so phone calls saying "OMG Control panel has changed" will be few and very far between.
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I beg to differ.
We're replacing PCs here, and I have people asking me nervously whether it comes with Vista or XP, and begging me not to put O2k7 on (and they look so relieved when I tell them it's XP and O2k3) because they have one if not both on their home machines and they don't like it.
They can't find anything - this makes them unhappy and unproductive.
Yes, training is an option, but that's yet another cost for the business to absorb even if they have an in-house training dept - they first have to send their trainers on the appropriate courses.
Madness. O2K7 is a gigantic improvement over O2K3 and things are easy enough to find. I will admit, I didn't like O2K7 when I first used it, but after a day I was flying around all the usual apps like Word and Excel.
I think a lot of user groups don't like Vista for one simple reason. They've bought a laptop or home PC recently from the likes of Dell or Toshiba and it's come with so much bloat on it that the laptop is stupidly slow.
Strip it out and give them plain old Vista SP1 with O2K7, Adobe Reader and MSN and watch them enjoy their new machines.
I think somehow, we are now so far off topic that the OP has left!!!!
For the record, just whack XP on when it arrives.
No, we did not.
Rolling out Vista over XP is a waste of time.
Also regardless of your opinion of Office 2k7, almost every person who has had it as an "upgrade" would have rather of had 2003. I have not come across a single person out of 100s and 100s of users who either ASKED for 2007 or said they prefered it over 2003. Have you seen the 2k7 implementation of a WIDELY used feature called AutoText? Do you know how much productivity is lost just by not having it in its 2k3 incarnation causes?
Your understanding seems rather limited to your support environment where big IT budgets can be thrown at "problems". Citrix portals is not a cost effective solution to a business who has no need for it and would only need to look at such solutions BECAUSE of Vista.
A change to Vista most certainly does not have to come sooner or later. A change is only made when justification arises or there is a distinct reason to do so.
XP is a very stable operating system, its far more mature than Vista and on well maintained/managed systems is not the crashing nightmare you may like to entertain as a justification for Vista is better.
If you think Vista SP1, Office, Adobe and MSN is the be all and end all of a users requirements then I dare say that is a rather simple operating environment.
Care to name this "biggest" company of yours, not that it means anything as time and time again these so called industry leaders are not purely based on quantity.
Agreements, contracts, Volume Licensing or whatever you want to deem as a reason to roll-out an OS into an environment there is always a cost. Be it manpower to do the roll-out, accommodate it, test it. Would be rather naive to believe there is _zero_ cost appended to such an 'upgrade'.
Show me any large business who will rollout Vista without extensive business application testing. Considering I was part of the local RBSI presence during their NT > XP transition I would say I have a fair degree of exposure to just how much testing occurs before even entertaining rolling it out.
My arguement is very simply that Vista alone does not justify a reason to upgrade. Which is what the OPs posts spurred argument towards. Take the business aspects out of the picture because quite frankly we could argue all day the pros and cons, and I reckon the Pro list in general is rather exhaustive compared to the cons. Vista, imo, is still not worth the upgrade and I can VERY easily see why many would rather stick with XP.
XP is legacy.
Get with the times.
All wreak of "Upgrade because you can". Empty words at the end of the day.
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Yes, we did. It had the same lack of driver support, same bugs and crashes, same security holes, same users complaining it was slow and bloated, same rush to SP1 and SP1a.
Maybe in your opinion. But the evidence of major corporate companies adopting Vista is staggeringly opposed to this view.
I said I hated it when I first used it. But with a small part of common sense it wasn't long before I was flying around. Yes, I too missed AutoText and thought that productivity would be lost. Then I found Quick Parts and realised what features AutoText was missing for so long were suddenly easily available.
This was one example. I am aware of the cost implications, but I have only ever witnessed a few apps that needed redesigning because of Vista. Most weren't able to run on XP because they came from main frame eras so were portalised through IE or similar.
I agree. Vista is also stable, moreso, on a properly maintained environment.
I was clearly referring to home users here.
Nope, but just know this. You've used at least 4 of our products today already, even turning on your mobile phone uses our technology.
Again, I agree, but as part of a natural cycle where leases expire or EA's are to be renewed, upgrading is a strong business case argument.
Again, noted. But it seems to me that you're the one person always sat in the corner of IT board meetings mumbling that if you go to Vista it will be over your dead body and have loads of media induced documents to support the 'failings' of vista. Thats how your posting is coming across.
Yes, it's legacy, as defined by MS themselves and almost any OS based whitepaper support document you read.
Why not. Better to show customers a company that is at the cutting edge of technology than saying "sorry, I can't open your word document because it has an x at the end of its extension".
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Not at all, I am very often praising benefits of upgrading and face palming at purchase decision makers who chose NOT to spend money on wise upgrade paths. I have to see a reason for it to be a good upgrade, as do they.
Agreements expiring refreshing is a reason, but that's an indirect upgrade justification, and its not Vista itself that is prompting that decision. You have to appreciate I am not saying Vista does not work, or is bad, or would be catastrophic to use, I am merely saying it does not justify, in-itself, a reason to upgrade.
Office compatibility pack.
Say and read what you want, but have been using Vista 64 for a few months now, and its miles snappier than xp ever was.
No, we did not.
Rolling out Vista over XP is a waste of time.
Also regardless of your opinion of Office 2k7, almost every person who has had it as an "upgrade" would have rather of had 2003. I have not come across a single person out of 100s and 100s of users who either ASKED for 2007 or said they prefered it over 2003. Have you seen the 2k7 implementation of a WIDELY used feature called AutoText? Do you know how much productivity is lost just by not having it in its 2k3 incarnation causes? Personally prefer 2007 to 2003, feels faster and looks better.
Your understanding seems rather limited to your support environment where big IT budgets can be thrown at "problems". Citrix portals is not a cost effective solution to a business who has no need for it and would only need to look at such solutions BECAUSE of Vista.
A change to Vista most certainly does not have to come sooner or later. A change is only made when justification arises or there is a distinct reason to do so.
XP is a very stable operating system, its far more mature than Vista and on well maintained/managed systems is not the crashing nightmare you may like to entertain as a justification for Vista is better. ofc is more mature than Vista - state the obvious
If you think Vista SP1, Office, Adobe and MSN is the be all and end all of a users requirements then I dare say that is a rather simple operating environment.
Care to name this "biggest" company of yours, not that it means anything as time and time again these so called industry leaders are not purely based on quantity.
Agreements, contracts, Volume Licensing or whatever you want to deem as a reason to roll-out an OS into an environment there is always a cost. Be it manpower to do the roll-out, accommodate it, test it. Would be rather naive to believe there is _zero_ cost appended to such an 'upgrade'.
Show me any large business who will rollout Vista without extensive business application testing. Considering I was part of the local RBSI presence during their NT > XP transition I would say I have a fair degree of exposure to just how much testing occurs before even entertaining rolling it out.
My arguement is very simply that Vista alone does not justify a reason to upgrade. Which is what the OPs posts spurred argument towards. Take the business aspects out of the picture because quite frankly we could argue all day the pros and cons, and I reckon the Pro list in general is rather exhaustive compared to the cons. Vista, imo, is still not worth the upgrade and I can VERY easily see why many would rather stick with XP.
XP is legacy.
Get with the times.
All wreak of "Upgrade because you can". Empty words at the end of the day.
Erm i seem to remember the whole "i'm not upgrading to XP it is poo blah de blah crap" For quite some time, just like it is with Vista now.
I also remember the whole bugs & holes in XP when it was released, Vista was no where near as bad for that on the release.
The only thing that made Vista bad was hardware/software companies didn't begin to roll out drivers/updated software till after the release date. They knew it was coming but did nothing to prepare for it.
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Short memories.. XP wasn't without it's early problems.
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Which is by no means perfect. Lots of of formatting is messed up when the OCP is used.
I agree, that many businesses don't see Vista as a econimical upgrade for all the reasons Sin_Chase has mentioned. XP was the same.
However, an upgrade to Vista is almost inevitable. Think about it. XP is almost end of life already. An upgrade to 7 will take time, say it's released at the end of '09, it'll take at least six moths or so for SP1 (before which most businesses won't touch it) and then another 6 months for application testing. That means 7 won't be viable until 2011 at the earliest, XP will will be dead and buried before then (bear in mind it'll be 10 years old by then). That means that businesses will most likely upgrade to Vista, if only for application support.
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Indeed, but you only get downgrade rights for Ultimate and Business (and enterprise).
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In what exactly? And please back it up with some hard evidence.
We looked at rolling out Vista in our company for security reasons, have to say I was surprised how little it would have cost to do.
The snag was that our newly bought £1.5m Warehouse Management System simply refuses to work in Vista and we would have to pay a further £0.5m to upgrade the WMS on top of the investment of the Vista rollout. This was simply not an option and this in my mind is another reason as to why a lot of companies have chosen to stick with XP.
The snag was that our newly bought £1.5m Warehouse Management System simply refuses to work in Vista and we would have to pay a further £0.5m to upgrade the WMS on top of the investment of the Vista rollout. This was simply not an option and this in my mind is another reason as to why a lot of companies have chosen to stick with XP.