Does Windows Vista Deserve A Second Chance?
Too little too late? Or right on time? Microsoft has launched the Windows Vista Small Business Assurance program — which aims to help partners (and their customers) “Move to Windows Vista with Confidence.” Shockingly, The VAR Guy actually likes the idea. Here’s why.
For more than a year, Microsoft has claimed that Vista has exceeded customer expectations and sales expectations. Hogwash. At the same time, Apple has trampled Vista’s reputation with great marketing and generally solid products. And Linux has caught on with some frustrated Windows users.
Now, Microsoft is finally responding with the Windows Vista Small Business Assurance program and a tagline stating “Move to Windows Vista with Confidence.” According to Microsoft’s Web site, the assurance program includes the following offer:
“Through September 30, Microsoft will provide a phone hotline and an online resource center to address compatibility, usability, and deployment issues around Windows Vista for small business customers that buy a new PC with Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate.”
Let’s be clear here: The VAR Guy isn’t making the move to Vista. He’s super-happy with Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux. But for those partners and customers who see value in Vista (yes, those folks are out there), Microsoft is finally — FINALLY — stepping in with better support.
Still, Microsoft should drop the September 30 deadline for the phone hotline. Small businesses (and their VARs) often buy the bulk of their PCs during calendar Q4 (October through December), when they spend cash on IT to reduce their annual profits and tax burden.
Shame on Microsoft for the Sept. 30 deadline. Shame on Microsoft for a not-so-great operating system. Shame on Microsoft for moving so slowly to address Vista’s shortcomings.
But kudos, Microsoft, for finally waking up and realizing partners (and their customers) needed better Vista support.
The VAR Guy is happy — yes, happy — to see Microsoft getting aggressive on the desktop again. He was a big fan of Windows NT Workstation a decade ago. And he’s open to giving Microsoft another try when Windows 7.0 arrives.
In the meantime, let’s hope Microsoft is serious about improved Vista support.
M$ has had a lot of chances. They gave us Lose ’95, ’98, ME, malware and now Vista. That is five strikes. They are out, way out.
The trial documents for the browser wars revealed M$ was aware that a PIII or so was all the computing power anyone needed. They sought out “MIPS-eating” applications to provoke constant upgrades of hardware and software. Moore’s Law got so far ahead, M$ felt it was necessary to soak up huge resources in the OS itself: Vista. I learned my lesson from Lose ’95 and ’98. The whole world has seen Vista now, with eyes wide open. Hundreds of millions have seen GNU/Linux do its stuff. M$ cannot squeeze any more goodwill from our hearts. At some point, even the M$-lovers will awaken to their error. M$ deserves to crash and burn. They built the plane, stocked it with fuel, and even made the flight plan. We must choose a different means of computing. I chose GNU/Linux because it allows me to control my hardware and my software. No longer do I need anything from M$. I am free.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Microsoft is lining up the same product for a second run. Shame, shame.
No.
Am I missing something??? What business wants to replace all of their PC’s to upgrade to a much slower operating system?
Corpbob: I agree with you, and so does about 5 to 8 percent of the PC world. The rest of the world somehow marches forward with Windows.
@Joe P: My understanding is that 50% of businesses have given MacOS or GNU/Linux a close look on the desktop. I would expect many seats where a browser/office suite does the job will go to GNU/Linux rather than Vista or vapourware. The retail/pre-installed GNU/Linux boxes/notebooks are growing several times faster than the growth of PCs in many markets. The OEMs selling low-end notebooks were limited by supplies of parts for two quarters in a row. The next quarter will see what the market can really absorb but it could be several % of PCs. These shifts are starting small but there is a big upside and bottlenecks are being eliminated. If the use of GNU/Linux catches on in mid-range laptops M$ could lose major market share in the coming year. A lot of the volume are not the usual customers but new users in new markets so M$’s revenue may not plunge but the monopoly is about to end and with it the promise of easy money. At these market shares GNU/Linux will start to get all the attention it needs from retailers and manufacturers of hardware. We may even see serious campaigns to promote GNU/Linux to consumers.
@Robert: Here’s another key stat that furthers your theory. 80 percent of large multinational companies say they have Macs on their networks, according to Yankee Group.
I personally run Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux (just like our resident blogger on this site, The VAR Guy). But I do hope MSFT gets Vista right because I think Apple needs healthy competition, and an aggressive MSFT will also motivate the Linux world. A motivated Microsoft — that competes fairly — is good for everyone.
Sorry, but this seems a pretty weak offer. Less than two months of “phone support” to “address issues”? For the cost of a vista license, you can get a few YEARS of desktop phone support from some Linux vendors (Novell, for one… maybe Canonical or RH as well). And let’s be real: does anyone really get any use from those call center drones? What are you going to do when you POS or CRM software just flat refuses to work?
Helpdesk: “Vista hotline, how can I help you?”
Customer: “My point-of-sale app that runs my entire business doesn’t run since I upgraded to Vista”
Helpdesk: “Ok, is it a Microsoft product?”
Customer: “No, it’s from MSCompetitor Inc”
Helpdesk: “Ok, you need to contact them and get them to make it work in Vista. Or switch to Microsoft Dynamics.”
Customer: “Oh, ok”
Helpdesk: “Thank you, come again”
Wow, rock on Microsoft.
@Alan: I agree it’s not a fantastic offer. But I do believe the sleeping giant is waking up.
@Joe P: The VAR Guy would weigh in with some comments, but he’s on hold with MSFT support until Sept. 30… … …
@The VAR Guy: a decade ago, you liked NT? Desktop Linux was its superior then, and continues to be a more frugal and efficient option for your Desktop even today. In fact, you could probably still run today’s distros on the old hardware that ran NT a decade ago.
Microsoft is a money-hole. The only reason they still exist is because they are ubiquitous. Yes, their products have a nice and friendly “look and feel”, but that’s because they’ve bought out all the competitors or copied those that are best of breed. Vista is nothing but a bad reimplementation of features found in Linux, *BSD and OS X. It is too bloated, requires too much hardware for what it offers, and is still a malware-magnet.
Any product that requires you buy “bandaid” solutions just for basic use is not worth your time or money, at any price!
@Good Computing: Desktop Linux superior to NT a decade ago? Perhaps for very early adopters who truly understood how to look under Linux’s hood. But let’s be honest … the typical power user in 1998 wasn’t ready for Linux on the desktop. No way. No how.
Sure, Vista is bloated. And The VAR Guy loves the screaming performance of Ubuntu, and the polish of Mac OS X.
But our resident blogger believes NT did a LOT of good during the 1990s. Wall Street traders were LOCKED to expensive, proprietary, RISC Unix boxes. And application servers running UNIX/RISC cost a fortune. NT changed the game back then. And now, Linux is doing the exact same thing to Windows…
In short: The VAR Guy doesn’t see Microsoft as “all good” or “all evil.” The company has done a lot of good for the industry, but has also harmed/limited the industry in many ways.
The VAR Guy wrote: “the typical power user in 1998 wasn’t ready for Linux on the desktop. No way. No how.”
I was so ready… Unfortunately, I had a career change about that time (returning to teaching) and scrambled to keep DOS/Lose ’95 systems running in my classrooms. Finally, I made the move because the damn things refused to run through a whole class without re-re-rebooting. I regret not having had the foresight to install GNU/Linux on my personal 486. If I had had a big enough hint and had not been over-worked, I would have thrived on GNU/Linux desktops in 1998. My computing life has been joyful since 2000.
I remember moving into an IT position in 2003. I sat down to a Lose ’98 system and easily crashed it by opening a few windows in a browser with word-processor active. In most classes students would lose a file before it could be saved. I switched to booting to GNU/Linux via EtherBoot and had no crashes for most of a year. Students loved the speed and reliability.
In many years of use GNU/Linux has given me only a few problems all of which had simple work-arounds. That other OS was a series of problems interspersed with brief periods of productivity. My only regret in going to GNU/Linux is that I did not do it earlier. Low density of geeks in my neighborhood is my only weak excuse. I guess it is human nature to keep banging one’s head against the wall if that is what one is so accustomed. I had an opportunity to consider UNIX on home-brew back in 1985 but the advent of the ready-made PC sucked me away. Nothing prevented me from catching onto GNU/Linux in the early 1990s but it just did not happen. I was ready for it.
@Robert: I think Linux didn’t go mainstream earlier because the web had to happen — and go mainstream — first. Once everyone got linked up to the Web and started having open discussions about their frustrations with Windows and potential alternatives, the seeds were planted for Linux to move down from the server onto the desktop.
IMHO, f#ck Microsoft.
A nix power user and a Windows power user a different beings. Even a MS programmer must unravel their twisted minds to understand something as simple as shell programming.
Don’t talk about Linux going mainstream like it is some kind of pop band. You can say a distro went mainstream but not Linux.
My socks run FreeBSD and your business uses Windows. That’s why my socks are fresh and your business stinks.
The crowds of people using “Linux” like it’s some kind of software trend are highly annoying. When I find the lot of you scurrying on the retarded web, be sure I’ll leave flame bait.
Fools…
No Vista doesn’t deserve a second chance. How many second chances does Microsoft think it’s entitles to anyway?
Irrespective of what Microsoft does with Vista right now. Vista will soon be repackaged as Windows 7 and we’ll all be expected to “upgrade” again. Microsoft have already publicly stated Windows 7 will have the Vista kernel and driver model.
So Windows 7 will be Vista with a new name.
To add insult to injury Microsoft have also tried to scare businesses into upgrading to Vista by telling them they’ll encounter all the same incompatibility issues. Well it’s true they will. Because Windows 7 is Vista. So if you really want to use Windows, it still makes sense to wait.
Microsoft are not a progressive company taking us forward. Microsoft are a stagnant corporate giant who’s profits are generated from maintaining the status quo. Every new OS they produce is just a rehash of something older. There’s nothing new coming out of Redmond.
Time to move on and forget Microsoft ever existed I say.
@Aikiwolfie: You’ve become a most welcome voice on this site. The VAR Guy enjoys healthy debate with you. Our resident blogger will check out Windows 7 when it arrives. But he’s ultimately a Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux fan. At least for the foreseeable future.
Plus, operating systems matter less and less to him. The VAR Guy spends most of his day in online blogging software — rather than navigating traditional desktop software.
@The VAR Guy
I agree with you your point about not having to navigate traditional desktop software. I think that this is the way computing will go, in the sense that more and more applications will go online and having an open operating system like GNU/Linux that can run on many different devices with more or less the same programs will be the champ. I think this is true because GNU/Linux actually believes in open standards that will allow software and hardware to communicate across the vast array of devices that will be on internet in the coming years. This is something I don’t think MS is keen to. At least Mac has the OSX kernel that is running on all their devices (I think.) I can’t imagine a lean and fast MS program.