Poor old Microsoft. In their defence, I sometimes think they get a raw deal – they’re like the first men on the moon, no-one has ever been in the position they’re in with Windows. Who can say how they should proceed? If they stagnate, people will condemn them. If they go too far and push Windows beyond the reach of the common man, people will condemn them. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Then consider this quote from Linux head-honcho Linus Torvalds…
“An operating system should be completely invisible”
Linus actually started off the discussion having a pop at Apple’s OS X Leopard – as the article says “he poured scorn on the modern trend to treat a new version or update of an operating system as a cause for major celebration and marketing.”
And I suppose he’s correct – an operating system is just plumbing, albeit complex and requiring careful handling. This started me looking for an analogy – you wouldn’t have the water pipes in your house on display and so richly decorated, they’re just doing a job and shouldn’t be noticed. Pete Hampton then chimed in with the prospect of Microsoft Pipes needing patching twice a month, and the fact that Apple iPipes would look great but would only connect to an iRadiator and an iTap. Most amusing.
With this in mind, it seems that the knives are still out for Vista (or Vaster as Pete calls it). Ten months ago Dell reconsidered it’s policy of Vista-only on new computers and re-instated XP as an option. All these months later things don’t seem to have changed much. Today it’s 143 days until Microsoft stop selling XP, and it comes to something when someone launches a petition to keep the operating system in the market. That’s what InfoWorld have done.
My only issue with Vista is how slow it is even on a fairly well spec’d machine. When I have an older machine with XP and it flies in comparison.
Funny how the people who have a pop at OSX and Windows are those that either don’t have an OS to sell anymore (OS2 anyone) or want to give away one for free.
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The answer is simple, get into the business of selling RAM.
However, I do have some empathy for Microsoft when it comes to Vista. Everyone says it’s just bloated and sucks up more CPU and video memory, and for no benefit. But there are benefits. I was talking to a customer who (because of the nature of their business) had lots of shared workstations that people were constantly logging into while keeping other sessions active. He said that the protection of memory in Vista in these situations addressed the security issues they had with XP. Okay, you could argue it’s putting right what XP failed on (very half empty glass attitude) but there’s an example of where Vista does address a customer need. So people shouldn’t be quite so quick to jump on the bandwagon and damn it.
However (again)… you can also see why some people want to maintain the XP option a bit longer. The desktop computer estates of some (many) companies just aren’t up to running Vista yet. And yes they do have the option of investigating Linux, and it’s a good idea to investigate the alternatives when you reach a fork in the road.
I’ve gathered some thoughts on why Microsoft should live Windows XP well alone. Feel free to use the article to help save Windows XP.
Link is: http://helium.com/items/940441-windows-legally-purchase-still