Channel Insider readers had a lot to say about our opinion column, "Ode to Broken Windows (Vista)." Check out their comments on the pros and cons of the beleaguered Windows Vista operating system.In the two years since Windows Vista became generally available, it has been
a target of critics and users alike. Microsoft has repeatedly tried bolstering
its beleaguered operating system, but it has failed to captured the glory of
previous releases.
Channel Insider readers had a lot to say about Larry Walsh's column, "Ode to Broken Windows (Vista),"
in which he says Vista may just mark the turning point
when Microsoft loses its grip on the desktop.
The following are some of the excerpts from their comments about the column
made on Channel Insider's Web page.
"Microsoft is the past. Google is the present. The future? Something
that brews in someone's garage today."
"With the intro of Vista, I had reached my
toleration for Microsoft operating systems. The list of things that turned me
off of Vista is too long bore people with here. Suffice
to say, I was looking for alternatives. I had played some with Linux, and had
tried to run it as my main OS, but it was not yet ready. It's great if I wanted
to play IT, but I work in IT during the day. Off work hours I just want my
computer to work. So I looked at Apple and their Mac's. One year later, I have
2 (an iMac and Macbook), and I wonder why I hadn't done this before. I use
Parallels to run a licensed copy of XP in a virtual machine, when I absolutely
require 'Windoze,' but that is not too often these days. Mac OS X isn't
perfect, but as a lifelong windoze user, I have found that Mac OS X is easier
to use, and as they say, it just works, which is what I wanted and MS could not
provide."
"Coca Cola was pretty quick to recognize the error and put New Coke to
bed. Microsoft, in the past, has listened to their users. Now they are really
doing what they have been accused off far too much in the past: attempting to
dictate to their users. For those who thought they were doing it before this is
what it really looks like. As a convert to Microsoft from the early 90's this
looks very much like when Novell's arrogance. Microsoft needs to stop trying to
convince us of something that is obvious to everyone is not true."
"I just received my new Dell laptop recently. It's
the beefiest machine that I've owned. It has four processors and even has a 64
GB SSD drive and Vista Ultimate. What a pig! Vista
consumes 32 GB of my hard drive just for the OS. It runs like a dog and is
constantly interrupting me to ask if I really, really want to access that file
or visit that Web page. And nothing works on it. Half of the vendors whose
software I use have indicated that they have no interest or intent to provide
Vista-compatible versions of their software. The other half have, but the
functionality is strictly the same 32-bit application that I had with XP."
"The pain of switching operating systems is intense for me. It costs me
weeks of lost productivity and months to reorganize. But I refuse to pay the
Microsoft penalty again. First NT, then XP (bad, but manageable) and now Vista.
So I'm off to Red Hat as the base OS with Mac/OS in one virtual machine and
Windows XP in another. I'll keep my XP for as long as it takes for me to
transition fully. Then I plan to jettison Microsoft one last time. Free at
last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last!"
"Herein lies the essential problem with mega-monopolies: they have the
power and market share to ignore their customers' wishes and proceed with their
own agendas. When you have to use force to coerce adoption of your products you
are no longing fulfilling the mandate of a market leader: you are simply trying
to rob people to make your financial projections. Isn't there anyone left in Redmond
with the moral and customer service courage to tell the emperor that he has no
clothes? Are you listening Microsoft? Can you hear us now?"
"If Vista is now a failure, it's a marketing
failure. Microsoft should have said explicitly that Vista
is designed for new add-ons. I use Vista and it is much
better than XP in every respect save one: compatibility. Third-party companies
haven't updated their drivers and software and this is the only issue I or
anyone I ever hear complain have."
"Vista was designed from the ground up to
promote new hardware sales. System requirements were made intentionally high,
to require users to upgrade their hardware, and drive new computer purchases.
They seriously misjudged the marketplace."
"I have every OS installed and Vista is by far
better than any Linux version and just as good as Mac for usability. These
editors at [Channel Insider] have gone so far to the left."
"I work for a business that is working to develop next-generation
software-as-a-service applications, so we're very much excited by the expanded
technical power that Vista can give us to deliver
exciting products to our customers. Unfortunately, that is also the problem
because those customers are staying away from Vista in
droves. Of course, given the current economic climate, that is expected because
deploying Vista means buying expensive beefier
hardware…So, Vista stinks for business use because no
business wants to adopt Vista due to the high cost of
providing hardware platforms to run Vista."
Click here to read
all of the unedited comments and add your thoughts to the discussion.
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Channel News and Analysis 
