The realities facing Vista
Now that the dust has settled, following the mania of last week's launch of Windows Vista, it's worth looking at some immediate and long term issues facing Microsoft's latest operating system.
For a start, it's quite expensive and does not address the main driving force propelling Linux and open source: the fact they are free. So, expect Linux to gain even more ground in the future, seeing as the same environment that existed along with Windows XP shall continue with Windows Vista. It is surprising that Microsoft have chosen to allow this.
On the one hand, it seems like they're making a business decision to milk the market. If everyone's going to buy it, why give it away for free. After all, if at some point in the future Linux does gain a more threatening position, that’s when Microsoft will resort to giving away its operating system.
In the meantime, it continues to be the money-grabbing, unpopular market leader.What would have been so difficult about giving away a cut-down free version of the home edition of Vista? I wonder!
Onto the next sobering fact, security or rather lack of. To begin with Windows Vista needs to first get 'made-for-Vista' updates by the anti-virus vendors. This week researchers have revealed that there is virtually no virus protection on Vista because Microsoft's Live One Care built-in anti virus solution is still lacking in features while the likes of Symantec and McAfee are yet to introduce Vista specific anti-virus updates.
Even when that gets sorted out, Vista may end up being no safer than XP. Simply, no leading operating system will ever be immune to the relentless attacks of hackers, phishers and virus writers. When you’re the biggest operating system, you’re also the biggest target.
Then, there’s the issue of users taking their time before upgrading to Vista. In spite of the massive publicity, and the wait for several years, it’s expected that only around 20 percent of current XP users will actually be early adopters of Vista- meaning if we are meant to live in a Vista world, that won’t happen for a couple of years. Maybe that’s a good thing, allowing Microsoft to sort out the security and functionality issues with the usual patches and updates, or a new revised version of the operating system every year.
The reality of the situation is this: Vista is not the answer to every problem we’ve experienced with XP, and Microsoft’s position today in 2007 is not the same as it was when XP launched back in 2001.
Today’s world has serious competitors in both operating systems and applications domains. Even the unlikeliest competitor, like Google, is now providing free web-based applications that challenge Microsoft Office, through a web platform that just needs a Firefox browser sitting on a Linux or Apple Mac operating system. It’s the anti-Microsoft collaborative and the pieces are now complete.
You sense that Vista can’t reverse that trend. Instead, Microsoft needs to play by the new rules, but will it?
posted by Zeid Nasser @ 11:57:00 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Not sure what you're saying is entirely accurate. Especially when companies like Symantic have announced Anti-virus tools since January 3rd. Same goes for CA, avast, and a bunch of other Anti Virus companies.
With regards to the services being offered by Google,those also are not even half baked and have serious privacy, performance and functionality issues. Let alone severe conceptualization problems.
I do agree with you the Vista is expensive though. It's far superior to XP in many areas.
One thing your article failed to mention. Vista is a monster. It's really hard on system resources and demands a lot of those. Luckily though they have a system performance number now that tells you where your system is at hardware wise
Another area that is lacking is hardware support. And this is due to the poor support and adoption from vendor manufacturers, so these might be an issue at present.
As for security, it doesn't seem to be an issue so far. If anything many people are complaining from the excessive security that is kind of reducing their efficiency.
But it's been only a week ;-)
Let it go easy...it takes six years for Microsoft to produce Vista, perhaps it will require another 6 years to spread over.
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