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"Acquired" a copy of Windows Vista

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Thought this was as good a place as any to put this commentary...

ZDNet

Vista at the tipping point


Commentary--What if they released an operating system and nobody cared?

Five years after the release of Windows XP and costing a staggering $9 billion to create, Windows Vista has been released to manufacturing by Microsoft. The mighty marketing machine has swung into action. "Microsoft's most important product launch ever" blare the headlines in the trade press. Yet the silence from businesses and customers is deafening. No one cares. Contrast this with what most people would consider Microsoft's most successful Windows launch ever: Windows 95. People actually queued outside stores to be the first to buy this exciting new product, the launch itself was covered as news; real news, actually covered by the mainstream press as a real media event; not just in the computer trade press.

No matter how much spin is put on this launch, it's a disaster. There's simply no excitement about it. Most quotes from businesses are about how much of a chore it will be to upgrade, with warnings about how much old software will be incompatible and how people will have to buy new machines just to run it. No one actually wants this new system, except Microsoft and some of the hardware vendors who are desperately hoping Vista will revitalize moribund computer sales... (continued)
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Even though this guy is blatantly pro-Unix and open-source (which is perfectly fine with me) he makes some very good points. Why should average Joe upgrade to Vista when XP will do everything he needs? The only implementers of Vista will be home users that buy new computers (OEMs like Dell will force Vista on them), tech-savvy, pro-Microsoft people who want to see what Vista is all about, and large businesses who have early implementation contracts with Microsoft... unfortunately my company is one of those, evidently we need to install 500 copies before March 1 and I'm not looking forward to the issues we are going to have as we have a bunch of legacy systems that cannot be upgraded (thank goodness I don't work at the help desk though!).
 
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Microsoft's real competitor isn't Linux or Apple, it's the hundreds of millions of old Windows systems already out there that they have to replace -- or watch their income stagnate.
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Interesting observation...

those who have used it, why will the traditional user on a tight budget be compelled to upgrade?
 
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jwinslow;722807; said:
Interesting observation...

those who have used it, why will the traditional user on a tight budget be compelled to upgrade?
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Not really good reasons, but these two reasons will probably sell the most copies.
- It's new (obviously)
- It looks cool (it really does)

Technical selling points (I did not test these and/or have them on the release I used to have)
- Better security (this is highly debatable)
- Tagging files (this *should* be very nice to be able to tag your images and documents for incredibly easy searching and organizing, like I said, didn't get to try this)

Those are obviously not all the selling points, but some of the bigger ones.

That being said, I won't be upgrading until I test the final release enough to feel comfortable with it. I actually may not ever upgrade to it...Windows XP works ok for now, and Ubuntu looks better and better every day.
 
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jwinslow;722807; said:
Interesting observation...

those who have used it, why will the traditional user on a tight budget be compelled to upgrade?
Click to expand...

I can't think of a true "killer" feature of Vista outside of eye candy. I hear the new Media Center in Vista is supposed to be awesome. Honestly that might be the only reason for me - upgrade my HTPC. Once I "acquire" the latest version I'll triple boot it on my macbook along w/ XP and OS X and see how they all stack up. I should really get Parallels...
 
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I won't be upgrading to VISTA.

I have a SAMBA server ready to go, built with FC 6 and eventually I'll convert my other Dell that is running XP to FC 6 as well.

I'm glad I just bought my wife a laptop for Christmas so it still has XP on it instead of Vista.
 
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