By Steve Ranger, 7 December 2007 12:13
NEWS
Planning to skip Windows Vista altogether and wait for Microsoft's next operating system instead?
For some companies it's a tempting option - but they need to consider it carefully or they could be end up feeling some pain down the line, according to analyst group Gartner.
It said companies have "significantly delayed" the start of their Windows Vista migrations, with most now planning to begin deployment in late-2008 or even 2009, making some think of skipping Vista altogether. And two-thirds of silicon.com readers in a recent poll said their organisations will never move onto XP's successor.
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3. Microsoft still bullish about Windows Vista
4. Poll: In a fight between Vista, OS X, Linux, XP...
5. One year on: XP still outshining Vista
6. Vista - businesses not convinced
7. Vista - when will business take the plunge?
8. Gates: Vista selling faster than XP
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10. CIO Jury: IT chiefs not yet planning for Windows Vista
But Gartner research VP Michael Silver warns the next version of Windows - codenamed Windows 7 - may also suffer from the delays that dogged Vista and be just as difficult to adopt.
The Gartner research warned: "Organisations that tried to skip Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP often had ISV support issues and a difficult and often-rushed or forced migration. Organisations that try to skip Windows Vista are likely to undergo the same perils."
For example, while Microsoft will support business versions of Windows for at least 10 years and Windows XP will be supported with security fixes into 2014, many software vendors won't support their products on Windows XP that long and won't support new versions of their software on older operating systems.
For Windows XP, software suppliers will probably start dropping support in early 2010, and by 2012 it will be common for software vendors not to support Windows XP for their new versions or applications.
Gartner also warned while Microsoft said it would deliver Windows 7 about three years after Vista shipped, "Microsoft's track record for shipping new versions of Windows is not good", pointing to delays with both Windows 2000 and Vista.
If the next version of Windows - likely to be a fairly major release - ships late then companies trying to skip Vista will end up running large numbers of Windows XP PCs longer than they would like, and are likely to be forced to adopt Windows 7 before their vendors all support it.
For companies struggling to build a business case for upgrading to Vista, the analyst house suggests bringing in the new operating system on new hardware only - whch means it could take a three or four-year hardware replacement cycle to eliminate an old OS and bring in a new one.
But it also said skipping Windows Vista might be the right decision for smaller organisations because they don't have the scale to support multiple OSs on an ongoing basis, making a wholescale 'forklift' migration project more efficient.
The advice is also that larger organisations with lots of in-house developed applications should consider forklift deployments, because their developers would be responsible for supporting all homegrown applications on multiple OSs, which would "greatly increase application development costs".
Comments
There are 13 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
so in short if you upgrade to vista you have
a major upgrade spend in hardware and software, plus applications that need bringing up to date plus retraining
if you don't upgrade to vista you may have support issues with windows 7
so damned if you do and damned if you don't, it's money in Microsofts pocket either way
on the other hand if your OS is doing what you need why not stick with it and just not upgrade
or dare I say it get over the aversion to open source that most businesses seem to have, I can fins open source equivalents for 90% of the software I use, which is about the same compatability as I have with vista and I'm not a couple of hunderd plus pounds per seat worse off going open source either
2. Ollie Clark
You say in your story that it's likely software companies will drop support for XP in 2011/12 but this will only happen if the majority of people upgraded. If two thirds of businesses aren't going to upgrade at all (and why should they?) then the software companies are going to have to carry on supporting it.
3. Peter Ochodo
XP is a pretty good OS. It's only reasonable for software vendors to continue support for XP past 2010.
If anything, vendors should me moving more toward multi-platform software.
4. Ken Knight
I have been using Vista since the Beta version and it needs so much memory and displays other faults such as shutting down that I have had to use older computers which still have XP on them.
I read that there is an SP due for Vista in early 2008. If this fails to put matters right then I shall have to return to XP. I very often find that software will not run on VISTA but does run on XP.
The one thing I shall miss is the new game of Solitaire as I can cheat on that and never lose a game.
5. Simon Curry
Because of poor backward compaibilty many companies have to keep machines running older operating systems - we even keep a DOS machine for some stuff we no longer connect it to the network but it still comes out once or twice a year. Many companies will shy away from Vista it has too many facilities for simple machines and is very slow to boot compared with XP or 2000 I can only find disadvantages in Vista. No I have not skipped it but like many will try and leapfrog it. Microsoft still think of the PC for the office they forget the many applications that PC cary out in all sorts of business sectors, now the idea of a cut down operating system is very appealing!
6. Tim Cogher
I haven't come across any benefits to recommending Vista to any of my clients. Gartner's report does mention that there is no benefit for a SME to 'upgrade'. As most of my clients are SME's and work with small IT budgets they tend to keep their systems for longer than the larger operations. If it works it doesn't need changing
7. Roger Ash
"the next version of Windows - codenamed Windows 7 - may also suffer from the delays that dogged Vista and be just as difficult to adopt."
In that case, I doubt if anyone will be rushing to adopt that, either, especially if it follows the same design philosophy - i.e. "YOU don't own your computer, MICROSOFT does"!
Vista has certainly provided the trigger for us, and many other companies, to re-evaluate or own assumptions regarding the operating system we will be using in 5 years time...
8. anonymous
I think the best solution is away from Microsoft. Industry in general is fed up with upgrade problems caused by continual changes in Microsoft operating systems and associated applications and the massive costs associated with the changes.
9. Finbar Dineen
Seems clear that for most businesses Windows is the problem and not the solution (at least the solution they would like).
This is just tiresome. Constantly the same debate about extra spend on an OS upgrade with implicit or explicit threats about security and maintenance costs if you don't play along.
Too much time an energy is spent on this site and others providing free marketing for Microsoft's products.
10. Andrew Lewis
Vista has caused the usual upgrade headaches with a new OS. Lack of drivers. My copy was free from Sony. The OS is very memory hungry.
I will not be deploying Vista on any other current pcs we have or any that we buy in the future. XP and 2000 work just fine.
11. Nick Cole
So nothing actually changes then for all the money we donate to Microsoft.
Where is there a lost of actually what has been improved against what customer wanted?
It is still a complete waste of time and money upgrading unless there is some other real factor such as new hardware being needed.
XP, 2000 and NT all work just as well as each other. I remember the NT marketing stating that nobody could attack it! I also remember a big MS presentation, when they stated it doesn't crash, promptly providing a blue screen and red faces! Nothing changes. We still get bugs, security flaws, new learning curves, new documentation, new Service Packs, and for what? To carry on browsing, word processing, emailing etc. Where is the real business benefit in writing off the investment of the last 2 or 3 years?
12. Andrew Witham
I agree with Ollie Clark.
Just because MSoft have done a brilliant marketting job so far isn't a guarantee of future performance.
Windows XP is pretty good. If nobody sees advantage in Vista, real or perceived, they won't buy it.
If that happens who will try selling apps that require it?
13. Karen Challinor
here is an open challenge to Microsoft if they are so damn confident that people actually want Vista
offer a free downgrade from Vista to XP for anyone who wants it, all they do is send you a Vista COA and you send them an XP Home (or Pro for Vista Business and Ultimate COA's), this should include OEM licenses too, you don't need to send the media we can get that if we need it
if you are right then no one will take you up and you lose nothing, but you'll create a lot of goodwill by making the offer
if you are wrong then you'll find out exactly how many people actually want vista and how many don't out of the units that you think have been sold
then you can make an informed decision about whether you need a new marketing department