Microsoft Windows Vista is on the shop shelves at last, but apparently that is where it’s staying. A report, from research firm NPD Group, claims that sales of Vista are 59% lower when compared to Windows XP at its launch. That has worried Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer so much, that he is claiming that sales’ forecasts for Vista may have been “overly aggressive.” He has also been taking aim at piracy, saying “Piracy reduction can be a source of Windows revenue growth…”
Along with this, Ballmer and Microsoft are spreading the usual FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about Linux, an alternative to Windows. They are claiming that “every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability”, because Linux is using some, as yet undisclosed, intellectual property belonging to, who else, but Microsoft.
There is probably more than one reason why Vista is slow to sell. In my opinion, the main reason is the general public do not upgrade their operating systems. They upgrade their computer. This means that they will only switch to Vista when they consider their PC running Windows XP is too old and tired. Think of your PC as a car. Would you rip out the engine of your car, and put in a new one that Toyota has on sale? I don’t think so!
Another reason for Vista staying on the shelves is probably the vast number of PCs that do not meet the minimum requirements for running the operating system. If you have less than a 1 GHz processor, 1GB of memory, and 40GB of hard disk space, you may want to think twice before purchasing Vista.
Vista also raises some very interesting usability issues. Peter Guttman a security researcher at the University of Auckland, and self described “Professional Paranoid”, has written a critique of Vista. Briefly, he claims that if you are lucky enough to have a PC with high-end display, video card, and the other features, required to run Vista Aero Glass (one of the Vista packages), the benefits of these hardware devices will be lost, as Vista downgrades their performance in an effort to prevent piracy of the DVD, or audio that you are trying to enjoy. It does not stop there. Vista will “switch off” any hardware that it considers might allow piracy. If you “fiddle” with your hardware in any way this “safety feature” may be activated. Wouldn’t it be just peachy to have your PC stop working when Vista decides? (5, 6, 7, 8)
For those of you who want to consider the move to Vista, I recommend reading an archived eStuff article. It may help you make your decision. It was written about upgrading to Windows XP, but the six points it contains apply to upgrading to Vista, as they do to upgrading any software.
Some of you may think that it is just not worth it, and it is time to switch to Linux. eStuff recommends Ubuntu as an easy to install, and use, Linux distribution.
