Linux and open source, in general.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Wednesday 30 July 2008, 7:30 AM
Vista vs XP
Are vista sales really going as well as Microsoft reports say? I was curious so did a bit of research and found some useful polls and articles that blow their figures out of the water. It appears they are trying to convince themselves that they made the right move, or else they think the consumer is to stupid to know the difference.
Several vendors initiated a Vista to Xp crossgrade. Basically, if a customer ordered a computer and it came with Vista installed, the customer could get an Xp license instead.Microsoft does not count the crossgrade as a sale for Xp. Rather, they count it as a sale for Vista. Now, combine that data with public statements from vendors that Xp is outselling Vista on an average of 3 to 1. Now go take a look at Microsoft's sales statements for Vista and for Xp, and you'll note a startling difference. Microsoft's finance numbers do not add up if one accepts the numbers Microsoft has floated for sales. Care to guess how the numbers appear to be adding up? If you are thinking that Vista is selling worse than Windows ME, you'd probably be close to what appears to be reality. Now, Microsoft reported back in July, of 2007, that 60 million copies of Vista had been sold. Now start subtracting the crossgrades to Xp that are not counted as sales. Microsoft needs to take a hard look at the market and the feedback they’ve received and be honest with themselves. After a ton of time developing Vista, I can imagine that the last thing Microsoft wants to do is publicly admit that it’s not the product it was supposed to be and their sales figures seem to back them up. It’s important to note, though, that new PCs that are shipped with Vista and then downgraded to Windows XP, are counted as Vista sales. Westminster College, last year, purchased around 90 computers with Windows Vista. Every single one was upgraded to XP. Now, I know that 90 computers is a miniscule fraction of PC sales, but they are far from the only organization with a similar policy that purchased computers with Vista.
Change, for change's sake, is never a good idea. And while you can understand Microsoft's desire to refresh the Windows UI (all those Mac OS X screen shots look so much prettier than XP), Vista's designers seem to have cut off their nose to spite their face. Regardless, the usability "improvements" in Vista are unlikely to make IT's list of compelling reasons to move away from XP anytime soon. After all is said and done, I believe the number of people, and businesses running vista are far below the number of licenses sold. I think it accounts for a lot of MAC's moving up the ladder and the Linux uptake has to account for a few cases. I personally know of several individuals, and companies that switched and most went back to XP, some gave Linux a shot. The reasons I heard most often was, “our software won't run correctly on vista.” With windows seven due in 2009, or 2010, it appears Microsoft is starting to get a little concerned about vista.
A lot of this information came from InfoWorld, Tech Republic, and various forums, and windows techies.
- 5 comments |
- Post a comment |
- TrackBack |
- Clip Link
- | Viewed 974 times
PreviousComments on this post
Well, here's one more that bought a new computer with Vista Business preloaded, and XP Professional "cross-grade" license, and has chosen to run XP. In my case not only by preference, but because of problems with Vista on this laptop. It does get under my skin a bit when I think about the fact that Microsoft counts me as a "Vista sale".
I've been wondering about the cross-grade situation lately, and ator1940's post raised my curiosity further as we just took delivery of some cross-graded boxes.
So I called my Dell account manager and asked him what percentage of units shipped with the OEM Vista cross-graded to XP.
Officially he couldn't possibly say.
Fortunately, his best mate "Dave" who's an account manager with Dell was more forthcoming. "Dave" reckons that - on his patch - it's about 95% of Optiplex units leaving the factory with XP installed. "Dave" was quick to point out that this is just the personal experience of one account manager, and not a scientific assessment of the situation by any means.
Oh, and by the way, "Dave" mentioned that a Microsoft rep told him that the official XP cut off point is to be extended from Jan 09 to June 09. But of course, that's just hearsay...
DELL is ADVERTISING the XP "crossgrade" as a product, I saw the ads on satellite TV and a number of web sites. Considering what I know about DELL, it doesn't make sense to advertise a loser, so it must be making money for them. My best guess is that we have approximately 600 computers in the field, most of them DELL's. When they come in with Vista on them, they go out into the rental fleet with XP Pro. So the XP to Vista ratio is 100%.
Yes the deal we have allows us to "downgrade" to XP BUT we have to BUY Vista Business to do it. That used to be called "Bait and Switch" in the car business and its illegal.
My guess is that if somebody goes and asks DELL what the ratio of XP to Vista sales are, you won't get an answer since I'm sure Microsoft has shut them up. That's probably the only way DELL is being allowed to do what they are doing.
Our company is like most companies with a product built on a proprietary software application, it makes absolutely no sense to upgrade to Vista. We've tested our product on Vista and yes it craters. Does it mean we have to do a re-write of the software? No, and certainly not because somebody in Redmond says so. Microsoft needs to understand that for their customers to make money with ANY OS it needs to be stable and it needs to be around for a LONG time, not just until the stockholders say so.
These particular applications started their life working on Windows 95 and they've been upgraded to accommodate the changes in the underlying OS 5 or 6 times. WIth XP, the software is stable, runs better than it should (its written in MS C and VB6) and is reliable enough to be used by oilfield workers. It has taken 10 to 12 years to get to this point. We don't need Vista at all.
So now, because a vendor wants to make yet another big chunk of money they deliberately obsolete an operating system, their main product, just to force their entire customer base, 90% of the entire world's computers, to BUY and use something new? If there wasn't a definition of a belligerent, dictatorial monopoly before, there is now. If we tried that with our customers, we'd be out of business in a year.
Just ran across this article from HP:
HP's revelation, made at the launch of a new range of business notebooks, flies in the face of Microsoft's persistent PR claims that Vista has sold tens of millions of copies — and is selling at a faster rate than XP ever did.
However, HP explained how Microsoft is coming up with these "Vista" sales figures.
"From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence," said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia.
"However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today."
So, in other words, Microsoft counts a sale for Vista, even though the computer manufacturer has really sold XP.
Rob Kingston, Group Manager of Commercial Product Marketing for HP said, "Looking into the crystal ball, I don't think businesses will see much value in upgrading to Vista until late next year, and even so, Microsoft will probably have come out with something else by then."
HP's revelation casts doubt over Microsoft's claims about how many copies of Vista have been sold, as HP has made clear that although a sale may be counted as 'Vista', it may actually be XP.
Microsoft has told HP it will no longer be able to do this after January 2009, but HP's Jerel Chong, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks, said the number one PC maker was already in discussions with Microsoft about how it could push this deadline back.
He said it actually suited HP well only selling Vista licences but actually being able to ship either Vista or XP on the computer. "There's a lot of extra administration that goes with offering both XP and Vista on every computer, and it's all in one now," he said.
He said the feedback he was getting from customers was that they simply hadn't had the time to do full compatibility testing of all their business applications with Vista yet and that the high time and monetary cost of rebuilding system images wasn't worth it while the economy was down.
Hmmm. That one just escapes me, maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. The PCs are shipped with no XP license, but XP preloaded? Does that imply that they are in fact still shipped with the dual Vista Business / XP Professional license? What do they have for "recovery media" or whatever - do the purchasers have the ability to reload either XP or Vista from scratch at any point?
I think it is extremely sad that consumers and suppliers have been pushed into a corner which requires these kinds of antics just to sell someone what they want or need - or looked at from the other perspective, just to avoid selling them something that they don't want and don't need.
jw 12/8/2008
