Dell Precision M2400 Mobile Workstation notebook 
RRP: $3251.20
RRP: $3251.20
Vista may still have its day -- just like XP (eventually) did
Think Windows Vista is a hopeless dog and XP was always the cat's meow among users? Think again.
Page:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- < previous
- next >
The Windows Vista desktop
Vista's challenges echo those of Windows XP
Early opinions of Windows XP were remarkably similar to those that many users offer about Windows Vista today.
For instance, a Computerworld survey of 200 IT managers conducted in the US autumn of 2001, just before XP was released, found that 53 percent of the respondents didn't plan to upgrade their PCs, while another 25 percent were undecided. And in an informal poll of 25 users a year later, only four said they had started deploying XP.
"We have not moved to XP, and we have no plans to," one CIO said in 2002. "This is an upgrade that offers nothing to a business customer."
Another IT manager said that the cost of upgrading to XP was "very high" and that there wasn't "a lot of perceived value" in moving up.
Many companies had just finished or were still rolling out Windows 2000 when XP came along just 20 months after its predecessor. Few could get excited at the prospect of another upgrade, especially when the economy turned sour after the dot-com bust.
And although XP may seem svelte compared with Vista, at the time, it was considered by many to be a bulky resource hog that likely would bog down applications on older PCs.
As of March 2005, Windows 2000 was still running on almost half of business PCs in the US and Canada, according to usage data compiled by asset-tracking vendor AssetMetrix prior to its acquisition by Microsoft.
"Vista really does parallel the situation with XP in a lot of ways," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.
Users loved Windows 2000, which was less than two years old when XP was released. And for many, XP didn't add enough to make them want to move up. "XP was really viewed as a glorified upgrade, not a new operating system in its own right," recalled Donnie Steward, CIO at ACH Foods Inc., a Memphis-based maker of processed foods.
Then there were all the security issues. XP now is considered to be highly secure, but that wasn't the case in 2002. That's when LifeTime Products upgraded to the operating system after Microsoft released Service Pack 1, its first bug-fix update. "We used to say XP was like Swiss cheese -- full of holes everywhere," said John Bowden, CIO at the Clearfield, US-based maker of recreational equipment.
To try to fix the security problems, Microsoft developed a second service pack, which it pushed customers to adopt. But there were two problems. First, not everyone was convinced that SP2 would be a security cure-all -- a view that was partly vindicated by later developments.
And second, SP2 was such a major change that it broke applications -- lots of them, especially enterprise ones.
Page:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- < previous
- next >
More about Linux, Forrester Research, Gartner, AssetMetrix, Cherry, Microsoft, Recreational Equipment
18%
14%
Comments
Post new comment