HALF of American Business PCs Can't Run Microsoft VISTA

[Jerry Jones]

http://tinyurl.com/ynx79g

About half of the average business PCs in North America are unable to meet the minimum requirements for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, while 94 percent do not meet the system requirements for Vista Premium.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Dr Mordrid]

No suprise, and that situation won't change anytime soon either.

[Jessterw]

Then take into consideration that those that might have looked at Vista are still transitioning to previous versions (XP and 2000). Yes, that means many were and are still running Windows 9x.

[Brian Ellis]

More likely NT4 than 9x for corporate use. Personally, I would guess that 99% would be unable to run on Vista, mainly because their existing software may not be able to make the transition (accounting, cost accounting, CAD, graphics, databases and so on). My guess is that a medium-sized company with, say, 250 seats doing work which is more than Office, would have to invest much more than a cool million to do the transition, for hardware and software. This is why I think Vista will be a hard nut for Microsoft.

[Nowhere]

Probably why MS recently released this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...for_Legacy_PCs
(I feel like trying, it's supposedly more snappy )

[Jessterw]

More likely NT4 than 9x for corporate use...

Oh for sure, but you'd be surprised at how many were running 98 just a few years ago.

But yeah, for any corporation the mere thought of upgrading to Vista and/or Office has to have the accountants and IT staff cringing.

[agallag]

You'd be surprised how may are running 95 right now. Not 98... 95. Seriously.

[Technoid]

atm there is no need for vista.....

[Technoid]

Probably why MS recently released this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...for_Legacy_PCs
(I feel like trying, it's supposedly more snappy )

AAARGHHHHHH......

this would be perfect for a large chunk of my customers.....

damn MS for not selling it to anybody....

[Dr Mordrid]

Just the need for such a thing indicates how bloated retail Windows has become, especially in light of Linux's ability to run on everything from watches to supercomputers.

[Jessterw]

That's almost an unfair comparison Doc, given the limited amount of hardware most mainstream Linux distros that are designed to compete with Windows will actually run on. True it's a largely a driver issue, but it's still an issue that has be considered in any comparison.

All said though, you're right, retail Windows is bloated. At least with most Linux distros you receive a full compliment of software to use. Which is not really fair given people cry foul when MS does the same, but when you're talking about disk space required for what you get, it's fair enough.

What's sad is that Vista does have some nice feature additions/enhancements that are beneficial to corporate deployments, but would have been better added as a service pack to XP and 2003.

[Claymonkey]

The main problem with Vista is running Aero. Most business computers use onboard video. That is a HUGE problem with Aero implemented the way it is. Macs don't see to have the same requirements to do the same thing but they also haven't been shipping witih cruddy intel graphics and tend to have something a little more robust. I've always hated onboard video if for no other reason than shared memory. If this helps kill that a little I don't mind.

As for comparing Linux to Windows for Linux's sveltness... that seems a little unfair. I've seen MANY linux distros that seem rather bloated out of the box. True you can cut them down a lot but add a linux GUI to the mix and it often slows things down. Besides the fact that it often has a slapped on feel to it. I give props to Apple for taking a *nix variant and making the GUI feel integrated and necessary. As for MS they have shown that they can strip down one of their OS's to run on very minimum requirements... they often just get more happy to throw on extra doodads than most. At work we want Treo's or something similar versus a blackberry due to ease of use and low overhead from administration. If you doubt this ask anybody that oversees a blackberry server how annoying and expensive it is to maintain versus turning on Activesync in Exchange.

[Jessterw]

Just as a bit of correction, the new MacBooks (not Pro) and Mac minis use Intel GMA 950's with 64MB. Oddly enough, they run just as smoothly as the previous iBooks and minis that didn't (my iBook has an ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB).

Obviously from my previous post I agree about the Windows vs. Linux comparison. Of course, OS X compared against either would be, and that particular OS is definitely not as much of a disk space hog, but it is a memory hog.

[Claymonkey]

The newer Intel integrated graphics are much better than previous... this is all relative though. MS would have been amiss it they did not work with Intel and make sure the standard graphics that come with most computers would work with Vista. I don't know the percentages now but at one poi nt intel graphics was 70-90% of the market. Intel has also been hiring people up left and right to have a more capable presence in the graphics segment.

[Hulk]

Perhaps MS will get some real "push back" on the release of Vista. By that I mean that many people just won't upgrade. That would force them to:

1. Start really listening to what people want. i.e. make the OS more modular upon install so users need only install what they need.
2. Bring down the price.

I for one won't be thinking of upgrading to Vista for quite some time. And I won't recommend it to the many people that seek me out for computer advice. Anyone that needs Vista will know it anyway.

This is in stark contrast to previous OS upgrades. Windows 3.1 to 95 was a mandatory upgrade for the increased stability, 32 "bitness", and general coherence of 95 as compared to 3.1. I told my friends to move to 95 pretty quickly.

Same goes for 95/98/Millenium to XP upgrade. XP was even smoother, cleaner, and more stable than previous OS version.

In fact, dare I say XP SP2 may be a little too good for MS to be able to ram Vista, THEIR Vista, not the one most people want, down our throats at whatever price they want, with whatever activation scheme they want.

Yeah, I'm fine with XP.

I'm NOT moving to Vista until all my applications are available in 64 bit form and there are tangible performance and useability improvements to be seen.