Microsoft Upset About 'Schizophrenic' Vista Research Report

[Guest]

Redmond (WA) - Here we go again.

Microsoft Upset About 'Schizophrenic' Vista Research Report : Read more

 

[bf2gameplaya]

Microsoft can't even fool themselves anymore it seems as Microsoft has been treating the XP+Vista bundle sales numbers as if they were for Vista sales alone.

Not only is that intellectually dishonest, but sidesteps the fact that people, for reasons real and imagined are continuing to adopt XP in spite of Vista being a readily available zero cost option.

In the marketplace of free ideas, the benefits of Vista do not sell.

 

[Guest]

I don't understand whats wrong with vista... sure at its release it blew... but now... its the same price as xp... and if you buy a system its silly to get xp... vista performs just as well as xp on modern... not top of the line hardware... so its pointless... I just don't understand

 

[Guest]

I think the important part that everyone is mising is that they are talking about sales of Vista to BUSINESSES!!!! Loads of regular consumers have bought vista or bought computers preloaded with it, but businesses are rightfully more hesitant to do mass upgrades because it costs lots of money and potentially leads to massive losses of productivity. Also, Vista just doesn't have anything to attract businesses. Its got DX10 and other features for gamers and video-centric software as well as a slicker/cuter interface -NONE of which has anything to do with business!

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

I agree thogrom, when I switched to Vista from XP, I was surprised how much I liked Vista BETTER! Many things about Vista just work so much better than they have ever, with some tweaking I am getting the same if not better performance than when I used XP on the SAME machine. The only real problems I have against Vista is the slow 64 bit support, which is to be expected and will be fixed rather quickly, as well as the data storage system. Vista uses twice the amount of hard drive space for the same file if it were on XP, but that merely means a hard drive upgrade and hard drives are dirt cheap today. All those who do not like Vista usually have absolutely no idea what they are doing, and to be quite honest, they are just unhappy because they do not want to spend the money on an upgrade. I will NEVER go back to XP, I love Vista and I think it is the first good move Microsoft has made in a long time, and if you do not like it then stop whining about it, your just being very arrogant because, believe it or not, your opinion is not a fact and neither is mine, or anyones.

Also, eraigames is absolutely correct the slow adoption of Vista is because they don't want to spend the money to buy Vista AND train their employees to use it to it's fullest. Maybe the reason that Vista is being adopted slower than XP was, is because XP was a VERY huge leap in stability and performance, and Vista is not. Also does a global recession mean anything to anyone?

 

[onearmedscissorb]

Does anyone read the articles before they're posted, including the person who actually wrote them?

"To us, the 180-million-story raises doubts at best and may put Microsoft’s PR team into deeper Vista trouble than it is already at worst."

lolwut

 

[Guest]

To be fair with the sales numbers one must not forget that a large number of Vista sales were bundled with new machines. New customers really had no choice unless they reinstalled XP later but why would anyone do that unless they were able to compare both operating systems on the same computer? I was fortunate to see the difference on a top of the line system. The XP was noticeably quicker with boot times, file transfers and games in general over Vista. I for one was dissapointed upgrading to Vista after all the hype because it still felt like XP with just flashier graphics and really no improvements that the average user would notice. And lets not forget the hardware driver fiasco sooo many people experienced upgrading to Vista. Shame on you Microsoft. Its not surprising Vista has such a bad reputation.

 

[aevm]

The hardware driver fiasco was demonstrated to be 28% nVidia's fault, IIRC, 17% Microsoft's fault, with Intel and AMD/ATI following.

Of course Microsoft is not blameless here either, because they gave certifications to nVidia's garbage drivers.

 

[fulle]

So, I'm an IT contractor/consultant, and I've yet to have had to support a single user who chose Vista since its release. NOT ONE.

I have tried to make myself familiar with Vista, since one day one of my customers might ask for help with the OS... but, honestly I'm not sure if that day will ever come. The only instances where I'm confronted with the OS, is when someone wants me to wipe it to put XP Pro SP2 on instead. People are outright afraid of the OS. I've heard numerous morons refer to Vista as if it was a computer virus "My new computer had the Vista at first, but don't worry we have XP now" or before major vendors started offering XP "I don't want a new laptop, they have the Vista, and my software I need for my job won't work".

Who am I to argue with my customers though? Especially, when many of their concerns are valid. The only benefit I can think of is the UAC, and I know they'll beg me to turn it off for them anyway.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

mello1, as I said before I have Vista configured, without any modifications to the software, so that it actually just runs faster than XP. Vista's biggest problem is that when you install it EVERY extra feature possible is enables which is why it becomes slow. Vista's main benefits are just a wider support of future content, business and entertainment related. Also it installs sooo much faster, a godsend for computer builders.

 

[invlem]

You can't take the 180 million too seriously. I'm sure many companies are like us, we have volume licensing where we pay a maintenance fee to keep our software up to date. All our vista licences are essentially Vista licenses, that doesn't mean we actually use them however.

Outside of me and one other in the company who are testing the OS, we still haven't actually switched any of the general users to Vista.

 

[invlem]

Sorry I meant all our XP licenses are essentially Vista licenses.

 

[Guest]

180 M? It is only because they don't sell anymore computers with XP. If they sell with XP or Vista, to be chosen, the Vista sales would be less than 50 M. Almost all Vista computers sold in Brazil was UPGRADED to XP, legaly or not, and got much faster and easier to use.

And about 50 M sold if the costumer could chose, most of then wold be changed to XP after few days or weeks.

So, the Vista "success" is fake, unreal.

 

[Darkk]

Why is Microsoft is upset about this??? If people want to buy a license of Windows XP then LET them!!! Who cares?!?! Long as Microsoft continues to make money off of WinXP sales then they should be happy. I know Microsoft wants to eventually phase out Windows XP but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. Honestly, I had a choice to purchase WinXP or Vista license I'd get WinXP period.

If I were an enterprise user I'd get Vista license and then simply use WinXP as "downgrade rights". The reason for this route is if the company decides to use Vista for all their dekstops the licenses are already in place.

 

[dragoncyber]

I can tell you guys this much, I work for a software development company that specializes in interactive software intergration for Powerpoint allowing Powerpoint slides to be used with various hardware in large group meetings and events allowing audience members to respond in realtime via interactive keypads.

We just recently released an update for VISTA compatibility, I mean within like the last 2 months. So yeah, my company waited for all this time before becoming VISTA compliant. They decided on this due to an overwhelming response from our corporate customers stating that they had no future plans to upgrade to Vista or Office 2007 anytime soon.

So basically having our software working with VISTA was put on the back burner all the way up until recently, because none of our clients was interested in it. It just wasn't viewed as that important.

 

[dragoncyber]

I can tell you guys this much, I work for a software development company that specializes in interactive software intergration for Powerpoint allowing Powerpoint slides to be used with various hardware in large group meetings and events allowing audience members to respond in realtime via interactive keypads.

We just recently released an update for VISTA compatibility, I mean within like the last 2 months. So yeah, my company waited for all this time before becoming VISTA compliant. They decided on this due to an overwhelming response from our corporate customers stating that they had no future plans to upgrade to Vista or Office 2007 anytime soon.

So basically having our software working with VISTA was put on the back burner all the way up until recently, because none of our clients was interested in it. It just wasn't viewed as that important.

 

[dragoncyber]

Sorry about the double post, there was a page load error.

 

[Guest]

Why would a business upgrade to Vista when Windows XP is running flawless. A business is not going to spend 10K + for computer technicians to come in and upgrade their computers to Vista, work through the bugs (happens in every OS upgrade regardless), buy business programs that work with vista, and possibly buy new computers so they can just upgrade to the latest. If it is not broken, and can live without the new features, then it is not worth while for any business to upgrade. It doesn't matter if it is an Apple O.S., Microsoft O.S., or even Linux. Your still half to pay for everything including the technicians and work through the bugs.

Vista works good now, the only reason businesses are not upgrading is because it costs money and time. I do not see many businesses or home users use Linux or Apples Leopard operating systems, I wonder why. I know, because they are junk!

 

[neodude007]

OK so businesses don't want to spend 90000 billion dollars going to Vista so it is a flop? Is that why any gamer / PC enthusiast will say so Vista x64 and rock 4-8GB of RAM and game on? Big wup.

 

[mdillenbeck]

Who is Vista for?

I'll state it again - Vista is the best choice if you want to run a tablet pc and do a lot of inking. Other than that, only high end gamers wanting DX10 would need the upgrade. No one else, business or consumer, truly needs to adopt Vista otherwise.

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Computer Lab Woes...

No one has mentioned how the "minor improvements" in Vista could break a computer lab.

To create the illusion of a roaming profile, redirecting folders to a network drive for personal settings along with streaming applications is by far the best solution. (This also helps keep lab workstations clean and conflict free.)

However, with Vista having more and slightly different folder structure and redirects, you cannot create a common set of redirects between the two OSes.

You have two choices when upgrading - a risky and expensive all-or-nothing changeover (which requires a lot of work hours to complete and a lot of planning ahead) OR break your roaming profiles in two, increase the amount of disk storage required for the same number of users, increase the maintenance complexity, and make your users remember two separate identities.

Considering the beefy hardware requirements of Vista, if you maintained several labs of 10 to 100 machines spread across several buildings (such as in a University environment), would you recommend to your superiors to upgrade to Vista?

(Note: I have not mentioned the changes in how Volume Licensing is monitored... which adds more system complexity and hardware overhead!)