Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Wednesday 24 October 2007, 12:07 PM
Vistification - a temporary drive to Linux?
Rupert's just said again what I've been hearing in various places:
Vista's awkwardness is going to drive people to Linux.
That's something I heard when Specavers moved to Linux. They'd been thinking about moving before, but there was always a barrier - the cost of retraining.
Vista is gratuitously different from Windows XP. So different that it will take as much retraining (Vistification?) to get a user started on Vista, as it would to get them shifted to Linux. On Rupert's experience, probably more.
Training costs are a wash, and any company thinking of a move from XP can make the judgement on the cost of software and support, and the availability of applications.
That's the theory at least - but let's not forget that home users now effectively cannot get Windows XP. They're pushed towards Vista Home Premium, and that means here's a generation who will go through the Vistification process at home on their own time, at their own expense.
My mother just bought a Dell - Vista was the only OS on offer (at least without her trying to find anything tricky through the business section of the site). She's moving from Windows 98, so we thought she might as well go straight to Vista.
With a horde of other people going the same way, Vistification will only work in favour of Linux for a year or two.
Vista's awkwardness is going to drive people to Linux.
That's something I heard when Specavers moved to Linux. They'd been thinking about moving before, but there was always a barrier - the cost of retraining.
Vista is gratuitously different from Windows XP. So different that it will take as much retraining (Vistification?) to get a user started on Vista, as it would to get them shifted to Linux. On Rupert's experience, probably more.
Training costs are a wash, and any company thinking of a move from XP can make the judgement on the cost of software and support, and the availability of applications.
That's the theory at least - but let's not forget that home users now effectively cannot get Windows XP. They're pushed towards Vista Home Premium, and that means here's a generation who will go through the Vistification process at home on their own time, at their own expense.
My mother just bought a Dell - Vista was the only OS on offer (at least without her trying to find anything tricky through the business section of the site). She's moving from Windows 98, so we thought she might as well go straight to Vista.
With a horde of other people going the same way, Vistification will only work in favour of Linux for a year or two.
PreviousComments on this post
Yes - and the scary thing is that those consumers without techie support (and an available licensed copy of XP) may not feel comfortable with doing what I did, which was try Vista then revert back to its predecessor when fed up.
Next stop for me, by the way, is partitioning then Gusty Gibbon...
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