Hey Joe;
Can you report on the Silverlight lawsuit.

Hey Joe;
You did a mashup job on those carts.
Here is your last chart __ http://tinyurl.com/5eblvx __ summarized.

Vista isn't the "victim" here. When Win-ME was released, EVERYONE could still buy Win-98 with a little bit of effort-- and it remained the preferred offering of small-scale "White Box Builders" for a long time.

This time, however, Microsoft inflicts Vista on it's customers like a 1960's Eastern Europe dictator (Stalin, Tito) ordering his populace to embrace a new "5 year plan" - OR ELSE.

Enterprise Licensed XP users will soon be the only ones who can buy a new computer with the OS they desire. (In the retail world, your only viable choice is online with Dell small business. And Dell's use of nonstandard, low quality parts isn't attractive.) Dell and Microsoft will financially claim that you bought a "Vista Computer", and the license is very expensive. But you at least get what you wanted, which is Windows XP Professional.

It's not "Malaise", it's a PRIVILEGE. I wish the rest of us still had this privilege, Vista Sucks.

I think the economy is starting impact software sales in general. Vista is no exception. Struggling companies typically start slashing IT and HR in order to keep costs down.

If your trusty old tool is serving your needs just fine why would you spend your money on a the new shiny tool that offers no additional value for you?

As far as being a victim of Enterprise Malaise its more the victim of overpricing. The bean counters wanted more money so they invented lots of new SKU's. What business value did the customer receive for the added cost?

I think a better word than "malaise" would be "disinterest." Microsoft's own TCO studies, see http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/its_another_vista_tco_study.html, show that switching to Vista likely costs more than you'll save. I'm in agreement with Phil, why spend money on a new tool that offers no return on your investment?

Vista sucks - 'nuff said.

What does it take to get WinXP?

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1496591483

People Are Looking For Unification And Simplicity, Why Not Having A Single Operating System Instead Of Four Confusing Versions, Stupid Idea

That's Why I Am Waiting For Gooos (Google Os)

And Vista Sucks, I Agree With Nuff And Boe

Aww come on

My company did not adopt vista because of application issues and hardware requirements - we can still run XP on lower cost and older laptops with 1 gig ram without issues - and this is a major pharma- but vista? not a chance. SP1 was just what MS said - not a good reason to wait for vista - not a good reason to upgrade either.

official decision - shelve vista idea entirely and wait for next version

as for my personal building - I can and do still get XP and build XP pro.

Our reason...money.

What exactly does Vista offer to a small business that is a must have?

Nothing.

Our budget dollars are currently being used for other projects that further benefit our company and not just put a prettier face on an OS.

We don't need BitLocker, we don't need NAC, we don't need...well, anything. XP works great for us.

being herded by Microsoft and their hardware vendors like Dell and HP etc. into decisions about software and hardware based on what they, in their royal pique, are going to force everyone into just by their size and momentum.

So we evaluated Sun, Apple and Linux etc. for an alternative and found one. It was really a nice feeling to have customer service again, people who wanted our business and didn't feel entitled to it.

Now, not to put to find a point on it "Microsoft and associates can go blow chunks" as far as we are concerned. They can take their product road map and shove it. We have moved on.

Long live Linux!

Any particular reason my earlier comment was deleted? It was just before Karl's comment and is actually referenced by him.

You just don't get it do you Joe? Please come from behind the propaganda, its too obvious. The fact that Service Pack 1 for Vista is out there is not an indicator of how well Vista will or is being adopted. Service Packs for Windows are routine processes in the development and betterment of Windows, its just expected. Microsoft has been doing patches for all their products for years. Service Packs are primarily a roll up of updates that can be deployed at one time depending on your setup, for instance, if you don't have a internet connection, or cannot bother to download all the updates since the RTM.

Microsoft resolved a lot of this though since they introduced Windows Update with Windows 98/2000. The need for Service Packs have decreased tremendously over the years with the pervasiveness of the Internet and tools such as WSUS, SMS which provide efficient ways of deploying updates for Windows. With Vista hitting the 180 million mark, 20 million copies being deployed per month, I know that Windows Vista is in healthy shape especially in these rough economic times. Everyday in class, I am seeing new notebooks pop up with Windows Vista, premium editions too.

Linux's dream of dominating in 2008 was only that - a dream. It seems the more negativity generated towards Vista, the better it does in the market. People are enjoying the richness of the OS, the simplicity, the ease of use, security, management and applications that are built into the OS that let you take advantage of all those cool devices like your digital camera, video camcorder, ad hoc communication, extenders, XBOX's, MP3 players and more. No compiling requiring.

Andre Wrote:

Linux's dream of dominating in 2008 was only that - a dream.

-----------------------------------------------------

Red Hat having about 72% of the server share on Wall Street. And Linux is about 85% of the Top 500 Supercomputing Sites is a pretty good dream....which came true. Add to the numerous government agencies, the military, schools, municipal governments and countries moving to open source programs to save money and to get off the "insanity upgrade money draining train".

Open source programs such as Open Office are freeing many from over bloated and WAY over priced locked in software. Many are finding out that one no longer needs to spend hundreds on software when open source can do the job in most cases. Just by moving to Linux and to open source one can save $300 to $700 per computer if you add in the cost of the operating system, the cost of antivirus, the cost of locked in "Office software". 1000 computers x $ 500 starts to add up in a enterprise setting.

While I am not a Mac fan, its great to see Mac at 8% now , with projections of it reaching 10% by next year....all on Vista's watch.

Ralph,

Please don't compare Redhat's server offering to Windows Vista which is a client operating system. If you were to compare Windows Server to Redhat Linux Advance server and Unix you would see how much Microsoft is beating the competition senselessly with its 70% plus market share.

And I am sorry to have to say this Andre Da Costa you don't think Redhat is not planing to hit back hard over this.

Look around. The war for the business desktop has not started yet. The pieces are already in play.

oiaohm, I don't understand what you mean the war for the business desktop has not started yet? It has been around for ages, Apple attempted it in the 80's with the Apple LISA and failed, MS-DOS prevailed. OS/2 tried to replace both DOS and Windows/NT in the consumer and business markets and failed miserably. Variants of UNIX have tried to compete against Windows over the years in both the client and server space but continue to predictably lose market share, not to mention Open Source software and Windows continue eat away at proprietary UNIX platforms such as Solaris, AIX and so on. Linux with the formation of commercial distributions like Redhat with its first release at 6.2E have been trying for years to compete against Windows. Year over year, Windows Server continues to accumulate a healthy market share, its Small Business Server continues to be well adopted. Linux has been trying, and its only gonna be another victim like many of past if it believes that the only way to garner share on the desktop is to 1 up Microsoft.

As per usual, the MS Shill Andre Da Costa has got it all wrong. Linux and Mac have shown consistent gains since the advent of Vista. Windows used to have a 95.3% market share on the desktop and now they are down to about 90.8% and still declining. No wonder all the BS and FUD from Andre, about how powerful MS is, they can't stand any competition when their products continue to steadily get worse.

Linux has done very well as a web server, even Google uses Linux. As far as Windows eating up Unix, that has mostly gone to Linux, again Andre gets it wrong.

Both OS/2 and Apple Lisa failed because they were too expensive for other reasons. But Linux can be free, at least some of the community distro can be. Open Source Free Linux for business or home desktop use, has gotta be scaring MS and its $hill Andre really bad, as example of all his factually incorrect BS writing.

Andre wrote:

"Linux has been trying, and its only gonna be another victim like many of past if it believes that the only way to garner share on the desktop is to 1 up Microsoft."
-----------------------------------------------

Linux will never "go out of business" or be "run off" by MSFT. Linux (and Apple) will continue to eat away at Microsoft. Remember what happened to Internet Explorer, seems that Firefox in just a few short years already garners about 20% of the browser share. Many have predicted that Mac will have a 10% share soon, maybe by the beginning of next year.

Linux will not cause the demise of overpriced proprietary software. It will be mandates by the growing number of governments, governmental agencies ( like school districts), and even the EU that will further perpetuate the ongoing shift from closed source to open source.

Did I mention that Russia has given the go ahead to expand the open source initiative beyond the three basic regions? This means all of Russian schools can start their migration to open source. Its not my doing or the people behind Linux. It is government mandates for open source that will ultimately change the OS landscape....something that is beyond Microsoft's or even Apple's control.

It will be people or companies who cannot afford to buy Office for several hundred dollars a pop. It will be people who need to economize and look to alternatives to save money...or better performance.

While Windows tries to hold on to the market share, companies are looking to save costs, and so are consumers. MSFT's biggest enemy is themselves,
with high prices on their software. Its just about pricing themselves out of the market.

Between Vista, antivirus and Word...we are talking $500 at least? Seriously, why can't MSFT sell a full install operating system for $49 ? Why can't MSFT sell a "family pack" of the latest OS say for $199...sort of what Apple does?

If MSFT is concerned about competition...then they should make good products for reasonable prices that consumers will run to...and not run from.

I use Vista Business on my work desktop (I am a server admin and PC support type in IT). I don't like the fact that Vista Business is the version we get on the agreement versus Ultimate with the virtual Desktops I would like to have.

However I don't think "Vista sucks" and will get home premium on my next home PC this fall. The security plusses override everything in my mind, although others *will* surely disagree. Did I mention I am the Information Security Officer too?

Phil wrote: "Any particular reason my earlier comment was deleted?"

No reason I can think of, Phil. I'm to blame, but it was accidental. I have to manually delete a hundred or so spam comments every few days--stuff that doesn't get filtered for some reason.

I just checked the Junk folder, which I hadn't cleaned out for a week, fortunately, and found your comment. It's restored.

I get a lot of comment spam from would-be anti-malware providers promoting new tools.

Your comment began: "If your trusty old tool is serving your needs just fine why would you spend your money on a the new shiny tool that offers no additional value for you?"

Some spam examples:

For a betting site, begins: "Here' s something you don' t see every day. Over the past couple of weeks, several college football players..."

Another: "If your looking for even more information on PC security then I would head over here as they have plenty of stuff..."

My apologies for the confusion and deletion. I don't intentionally censor legit comments like yours.

Joe

Thanks Joe,

I can definitely see where "If your trusty old tool ..." yells spam on initial glance.

Apology accepted.

I can give you one very good reason we aren't going to deploy Vista. Yes the hardware requirements are higher, yes the DRM is irritating, yes there are technical problems. My real frustrations is that retraining all my users is to expensive.
Why in the @#$@ would Microsoft move around basic features? I did deploy Vista as a test pilot to 10 users and the help desks piled up like leaves in fall. Simple things like screen resolution and normal control panel features have MOVED!! For no apparent reason, this is NOT a feature it is a pain in the nether regions!!
The thing that scares me is that they are saying that Windows 7 will be based on Vista...it needs to be based on XP! The amount of user whining one has to endure because things "don't work like they are supposed to" goes beyond the pale. Yes Linux on the desktop is not yet practical, but if Windows 7 is like Vista and everyone is going to have to be retrained anyway well we will look seriously at something like Ubuntu.

Thanks for reading..