Five reasons businesses need to get Vista --- now

Aint going to happen

I work for one of the largest health care providers in the country. I was just informed that my 5 year old laptop doesn't qualify for upgrade to XP SP2 until next year. My company has over 200,000 laptops. We aint going to be off of XP for years. And when I do qualify for a new XP SP2 laptop, it will be expected to last until 2014. For whatever reason Vista is NOT going to happen. And the only reason I was upgraded from Windows
2000 a few months ago was because my hard-drive crashed.
The only way companies are ever going to upgrade to Vista is if there are enough hardware failures to justify it. My company, has made it clear that there will will be nothing but XP for the next six years. Even if it crashes and burns, saving money is more important than providing healthcare. Not that they are
really saving money. They still pay for Vista even though though they don't allow for software or hardware upgrades. They just think it is cheaper to let people die and blame it on old software.
That is the sick mentality of our healthcare system.

Simply Put

This guy is a tool.

Why Microsoft at all?

For the past few years, I have been a strong MS supporter, particularly because of DotNet, which boosted my productivity enormously.

I found though that post XP, I have absolutely no interest in MS. Vista is, well, if you will tolerate the profanity: BS.

I have an HP tablet PC - almost top of the line. It runs Vista. Every now and then it slows down to a crawl, making it look like an old 286, because an ancient 550MHz machine running NT I have at home is a lot faster.

Actually, I am tired of XP too, though it is a good product, because, as I have learned, it is good by MS standards. Not when you benchmark it against the others.

It is Microsoft's choice to phase XP out. But it is mine to phase Microsoft out. It is about time I switched to Linux. Hello, Linux!

Like we are made of money or something

My company has in the neighborhood of 100,000 PCs. We contract through Dell and HP for a 3 year service life on most machines. Even the machines that are being cycled out today are not being replaced with anything that has enough horsepower and RAM to run Vista.

With the economy in the state that it is and the corporate budget belt tightening, I don't think the CFO is going to spring for it. Especially since we haven't been able to get our apps to work with Vista.

No business case if Vista doesn't work

"Business case..." fine. We are now in the process of downgrading ten Vista machines to XP because the combination of Vista, plus our webcam, plus our application software DOES NOT WORK. We've invested over a hundred hours installing and testing these machines. We were *dying* to have them work, but they don't, and we have exhausted ourselves trying different combinations of hardware and software. It amazes me that 18 months after Vista has been out, that these problems haven't been solved.

So Gartner and Forester and the rest can make a business case all they want. If the product doesn't work, prudent businesses WILL NOT BUY IT. Simple as that. This simply reinforces the lack of credibility of these forcasting firms.

I followed the link, and

I followed the link, and Forrester wants $279 for the report! I'm willing to be open minded and read all sides, but not for a couple of hundred bucks. I suppose the price is to convince people that the report was not subsidized by MicroSoft.
I suspect it's all part of Marketing Plan B: Since the original "Everyone Else is Doing It" stampede never materialized, they have decided to determine how much of the market can be cowed into going for VISTA by a sudden wave of Authoritative Warnings of a Vague but Menacing Character (AWVMC). Expect more of same. I bet the in-flight magazines are filled with it in the next couple of months.

Vista Is Good For The Economy

BG is not rich enough yet. PC sales are lagging, as old pc's are not wearing out quickly enough. So, if we all dump working pc's, and upgrade to Vista (and the hardware needed to not run) then we are doing our bit for the economy. And since Vista is such a sure and dependable OS, in bussiness we will have to hire more people to do the same amount of work.

I get it, MS is good for the economy, and you are a terrorist if you do not run out and upgrade!

How much did MS pay you to write this

What technical merit did you list for Vista? Maybe I no longer understand English, but I didn't read one compelling technical reason for upgrading other than they are going to remove support for XP and 2K. That makes them smell just like the monopoly they are, doing exactly the things that a monopoly would do.

You have pretty much identified yourself as a common street walker that for a few measly crumbs will do whatever dirty deed is demanded.

So lemme get this

So lemme get this straight:

1) MS is a monopoly.

2) MS is a monolpoly, and says "jump".

3) MS is a monopoly, says "jump", and the middlemen have already jumped.

4) MS is a monopoly, and can do what they want.

5) MS is a monopoly, and says "It's fun to jump".

Did I miss anything?

So, let me understand the

So, let me understand the reasons here…

1. Microsoft is a monopoly

2. Most IT departments would rather continue using their existing hardware (mostly P4s w/ 512 ram and decent video) and a proven technology (XP) rather than adopt Vista and the additional cost

3. Windows XP support has to end because of lagging Vista sales

4. Windows 7 actual release date is uncertain (thanks Bill!)

5. Many of the ‘new’ features in Vista were incorporated into XP extending its useful life and making the upgrade to Vista largely unnecessary

So, why do business need to get Vista again?