By Mike Ricciuti, 5 June 2008 08:28
NEWS
After targeting consumers, Microsoft is now aiming its PR offensive at business customers.
The company on Wednesday released a whitepaper targeted at the many businesses that have chosen to stick with Windows XP instead of moving to Vista. Microsoft argues that Vista is more secure, reliable, and can save companies money when it comes to management and deployment.
Mike Nash, vice president of Windows Client Product Management at Microsoft, told silicon.com sister site CNET News.com: "We have tried to close gaps for consumers and we're doing the same for enterprises."
Why should businesses deploy now? Nash says the release of Vista Service Pack 1 has improved Windows security, improved driver support and minimised application compatibility issues, for starters.
Compared with Windows XP, Vista has had fewer vulnerabilities (45 for Vista versus 56 for XP); fewer critical vulnerabilities (17 as opposed to 35); and 60 per cent fewer malicious software infections than XP SP2, Nash said.
The big bonus for companies may come in cost savings versus XP when it comes to deployment and management of Vista across multiple machines, Nash said.
Tom Norton, the worldwide Microsoft services practice lead for HP, said that a majority of HP's top 500 customers globally "are looking at this [Vista] as a way to save money on support of client environments".
As for application compatibility, the move from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 was more traumatic than the Windows upgrade, said Norton.
Still, despite the statistics and reassurances, initial impressions tend to last. And the initial Vista experience for many people was less than stellar, a point which Microsoft concedes. Nash says that, yes, the company made a lot of changes with Vista that have taken time for customers to get used to, and initial driver and application support was lacking. But "there is a huge gap between what is possible with Vista and the perception that is out there", he said.
Nash said he has seen similar customer trepidation in the past when it comes to new Windows releases. He said: "There has always been a version of Windows that is new that people don't know what to do with; there has always been the incumbent version; and there is always a new version on the horizon. It's not a new phenomenon."
Comments
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1. Anthony Hunt
I'm running Vista Enterprise on my office PC and even with a higher power video card installed my 2GB PC with 64-bit 3000 CPU is frequently maxxed out at 100%
Just running Visual Studio development environment!
My productivity has dropped significantly since trying Vista. Under XP the the same PC could run three 512KB Virtual PC's with memory left over. Now it can hardly cope with two running.
I'm going back to XP this week. Good riddance to bad news.
2. George
Although it has some management features for large corporates, for the end user it has few if any obvious benefits and many drawbacks: it is generally slower, has an unfamilar and often inconsistent interface and appears to be less stable than the XP we know and love (relatively speaking).
3. anonymous
Vista Story
Friend rings me up, unable to connect to Internet, due to no ISP.
I say, come round and use my wireless network, all you do is plug in and away you go. (as happened with my XP laptop, plugged the wireless card in and away it went)
When She came round, I saw She had vista, but its an uprgade so should connect straight away
3 hours later, no connection (it was there, but blocked it and gave me no way of getting round it), She left, somewhat disappointed.
Started new job this week, my PC has been "DownGraded" to XP from Vista, "DowngradedW is used loosely.
4. W.S.Becket
Why should we upgrade almost every piece of software we have in order to run Vista. XP runs perfectly well - in fact it gives us the stability, etc, that MS promised us with Windows 95 - and we will replace it when we can do so without having to upgrade all our other software.
The fact that Vista is being pushed so hard by MS speaks volumes. We neither want nor need it.
5. Lionel A Smith
Any Vista green credentials MS tout should be compared against the increased resources that Vista require which need more power to drive. Also, all those computers and peripherals that should have had years of life left in them having to be junked and land-filled with all the environmental knock-ons from that. Then there are the carbon costs in the manufacture of the replacement systems. Also…, and…and…etc., etc., etc.
6. Karen Challinor
I've heard Microsoft have reprieved XP and are still going to allow XP sales until 2010, but only on the lower end machines, so you should still be able to get hold of OEM licenses for it
so if you are really dissatisfied with vista get hold of an OEM copy of XP and reinstall it just make sure you can find all the drivers first
your machine should then run like the supercomputer it probably is
the other advantage of that is you would lose all the manufacturers bloatware as well
7. Andrew Robb
Vista is SO different to XP with new hardware requirements and old program incompatibilities, it is worth considering alternative platforms as you are probably going to buy a new computer and software to run on it.
8. anonymous
The last friday before I take a month out of contracting before law exams I have to complete the elements of my units contribution to an SLA. 1 hour to complete the content, 5 hours battling to stabilise the layout of the document based on an earlier .dot template in the Vista compliant version of Office.
Consequence, when my own PC fails during my revision period I buy a Mac for my personal use. Someone can pay me to misuse my time and intellect learning Vista! If uncle Bill wants to mess with my head, fair enough! It is just unreasonable for him to expect me to pay my own hard earned cash for the privilege!
The Macbook is great. The only problem is that I use complex passwords. I wrote to my Italian friend in her native language. The Mac enables me to remap the keyboard in 2 clicks for spelling and grammar checking, a task I've never dreamed of in Windows. Problem I make myself a cup of coffee and my machine goes into sleep mode. oops! I've a stuffed machine. Solution - talk to my friendly Mac Gurus in Regent street the following day. Problem solved at no extra cost!!! No premium rate calls.
No pain other than my own stupidity from not extending the sleep mode period.
Whe...ey to go uncle Steve.
Th
9. AJS
Vista upgrade tester on my PC says that there are 17 pieces of my current software which will not run with Vista. And it is MY problem to fix it, not theirs. There are three pieces of software they advise me will never work with Vista, so tough! What a sales pitch - whatever became of backward compatability?
They can whistle as far as we are concerned as a company. And for the future, Yippee, IBM are releasing Lotus Symphony and its free! Bye Bye Office!
10. Peter
I started using a Mac nearly two years ago - I am sick of MS constantly grabbing every protocol and bending it.
Vista should make lots of businesses look at open source as a viable option.
11. anonymous
be sure to check out Gnu/Linux. it could save you lots more money.