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Maine To Skip Vista, Go Directly To Windows 7
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Oct 04, 2008 02:29 PM
from the should-have-hired-stephen-king dept.
from the should-have-hired-stephen-king dept.
Preedit writes "The State of Maine is the latest organization to skip Windows Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft. An internal state document (dated September 15) uncovered by Infoweek reveals that Maine will not be upgrading its more than 11,000 personal computing devices from XP to Vista — ever. Instead, it's going to wait until Windows 7 ships in 2010 and hope for the best. The news is in line with a survey that shows only 4% of businesses in the UK have upgraded to Vista, the story notes. So much for that $300 million Seinfeld campaign." A commenter on the article makes the point that Maine's signing an enterprise software license with Microsoft means that Redmond doesn't really lose out on this deal; it simply allows the state to upgrade its equipment and software on its own time.
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Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Maine has been pretty interesting in the tech field lately. Recently we told RIAA to go pound sand in their ass. Now the State is making a choice to make the best choices (as they see) concerning their upgrade cycle.
This won't actually harm Microsoft in any way but it will save Maine some money in that they won't need to work on re-training people for Vista while they wait for the upgrade to Windows 7.
As the State is currently using Windows XP (and some old Win2k servers still) they should be able to continue some level of support for the remainder of this period assuming that there aren't any major delays with Windows 7. It will be interesting to see what happens.
As a side note, I just was up and across the mountain tops in the Height of the Land checking out the foliage. Once the Sun came out it was pretty vibrant. We cheated and cut across through Byron to Weld and then took 142 back down into Phillips getting out of the tourist areas. It was a nice trip, if you're in Maine and want to see the foliage than today might have been your best shot for this area.
Re:Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Recently we told RIAA to go pound sand in their ass.
THAT'S all it took to get rid of them? Man, all that wasted money on lawyers, shoulda just bought some sand.
Parent
Re:Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Informative)
More accurately it took a judge down in the Colby College area. There was some info on /. about it as I recall. I think NYCL posted it.
*goes to look for it*
Here you go:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/29/2259238 [slashdot.org]
(In case you can't tell, I'm a happy Maine citizen.)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am quite content with that as their license includes out-of-band support, hot fixes, etc... Their license is not like a normal end-user license. it is a contract that includes support that your average person doesn't have available.
We have looked at alternatives and this has been considered the most cost effective at this time. For the part about not upgrading, it isn't about how crappy Vista is - it is a matter of timing. (Please see the article in question.) It is unrealistic for us to bother with it. L
Re:Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Funny)
You Mainers won't be so smug when you find out that Windows Mojave is really Vista!!!
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Hell yeah. People come from across the globe to see it. Giant buses go through, people drive, people fly in and rent. Maine has potatoes, trees, lobster, fish, and tourists. Most of our income (it would appear) is from tourism and the foliage season is one of the better ones as they come in, rent a hotel, drive around without consuming many of the natural resources, and then leave having deposited their dollars to visit what would have been there anyhow.
http://mainefoliage.com/ [mainefoliage.com] (I think but you can search f
Re:Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Funny)
We can hammered and argue the logic of our thinking in person.
Sounds like someone already did.
Parent
Re:Go MAINE!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Err... You're not telling me anything? This isn't a stance against Vista. It is "not upgrading at this time." It isn't a stance against Microsoft. It is "not upgrading at this time." This is, in effect, waiting for SP2 (or SP3 I suspect in this case) to push the expense down the road when people are more prepared for it and the regularly scheduled hardware upgrades are already complete. Someone opted to spin the story without regard of the facts. This is *not* an anti-Vista ploy. Microsoft is still getting the same amount of money they got yesterday from us. This is NOT a pro Linux, Mac, Free/Open Source Software anything. This is JUST delaying upgrading until the hardware is available to run it and we can (hopefully) afford to run a few extra support staff to enable the transition to go more smoothly than it would at this point.
In other words, this is a Good Thing® for Maine. We've looked at alternatives (though not for a while) and stuck with Microsoft in the government area and Mac in the scholastic system. We've tossed up a pile of Linux servers (no Unix any more though as far as I know) and even have the internal DOJ running on Solaris (last I knew -- though I'm betting it is still running on Sun hardware). This is not a question of the OS for us, this is a question of keeping it simple so that we don't have to pay for retraining at this time and, if Windows 7 is close to Vista in looks/function then we save even more because the average user will have upgraded and been familiar with Vista by then.
Maine was almost immediately upgraded to Office 2007. The hardware supported it and their licenses allowed it with no additional costing to Microsoft. As contrary as it is to say on /. the help desk instances went up a little (according to first hand reports) and didn't overwhelm them to the point of even needing overtime. This is NOT an anti-Microsoft thing. This is not a potential for changing thing. This is JUST a choice to delay upgrading to ensure that we upgrade at a time when we're also moving the majority to new hardware and that hardware should support the new OS as well as the existing hardware and OS last just fine until that time.
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Vista- It can't be given away (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait- Microsoft can't get people to install their flagship product, even though they've already paid for it, and the commenter's point is that this isn't bad for Microsoft?
Hilarious.
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Not in the sense from the State's contract with them. Maine is going to pay regardless. We're just not upgrading to Vista. Microsoft is going to get the same amount of money from us regardless of when we upgrade.
Re:Vista- It can't be given away (Score:5, Insightful)
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Probably not. Retail copies of Vista are dismally slow moving off the shelves it appears. People "in the know" aren't buying it. Those buying OEM are still getting Vista. Some of them even like it. I, personally, see no reason to upgrade the OS in my home at this time. I prefer Mandriva and XP Pro. I actually doubt that anyone will notice other than us here on /. but I'll keep watching my local news (and I live in Maine in case you hadn't gathered that) to see if I hear a single mention of it.
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How many people really buy an OS as a boxed copy? People still buy OEM Vista, and people don't care.
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Even WITH the name we skipped Windows ME too. *grins* In all honesty we didn't entirely. Back then our IT was pretty haphazard and I know it ended up on some of the stenographer's desktops and, surprising, they didn't have an issue with it. There were a few systems that worked really well with ME, this is sort of a case and point if you will, and they worked just fine. Maine was buying Acer hardware that was running the AMD K62 (450 MHz as I recall) as a direct from manufacturer product that came optimized
Umm... Good Choice? (Score:2, Insightful)
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This is all good to a point (Score:2)
... and that point is when Microsoft has successfully convinced hardware makers to not create Windows XP device drivers for their new hardware. This is already starting to happen. Soon, you may not have a Windows XP option of any kind when buying new hardware.
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We don't actually need to upgrade hardware until a few years from now so that won't really apply in this case I'm afraid. They *did* do some hardware upgrades for mobile DOJ/DOC workers this year but downgraded to XP Pro with them in-house. Most everything (probably everything) we have should easily last a couple more years and we have a pile of spare stock should we need it.
This is a dangerous gamble (Score:2)
I work for an organization which decided several years ago not to upgrade its windows 2000 PCs
to XP. because the win 2000 worked and the IT staff new it well and the upgrade was expensive, show we thought we would just wait a bit for longhorn.
Now in 2008 we are still with win 2000 on many thousnds of PCs and are basiclly forced to "upgrade" to Vista.
Vista is a crummy system, but you never know what comes next?
not that its going to happen in my workplace, but I am all for moving to Linux desktop for at least
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microsoft has lost its tracks (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of their new operating systems have been home-customer-directed teletubby-like interfaces for home-users.
Yet, 90% of Microsoft customers are corporate. Corporate customers don't care about aero or some fancy gui transparency.
Corporate customers want OS that looks and performs like windows 2000, is as secure as XP and doesn't cause excess load on their IT departments.
Vista and Office 2007 both failed miserabely with these requirements.
Office 2
Re:microsoft has lost its tracks (Score:5, Interesting)
Maine upgraded to Office 2k7 as soon as it was available and, even with the ribbon, the help desk managed pretty easily as I understand. (I know a lot of the IT workers, a bunch of the politicians, and even regularly consume alcohol with a few of them. I will be at my DA's house tomorrow night actually as I want to talk about a buddy of mine who's in a spot of trouble.)
This is more about saying that we have "good enough." It is more about saving the money that would be involved in upgrading systems at this time when we're one broke ass state and no one wants to raise taxes. It is more about saving that money from the hardware and additional training as well as the actual labor involved.
Because the State's IT department is so small they often will hire outside contractors (I have done this) to go into a facility and upgrade/swap out and we can't afford that right now.
From my own perspective, the scary thing is that I don't know if we will be in any better a position to afford this two years from now or not. Pardon my language but, as a State, we're fucked. Our tax burden is already quite high, the lack of people driving due to the gas prices killed a lot of businesses this year, and the lack of revenue has meant that a few important things have had to have been skipped to tighten our proverbial belt.
There are a few signs that things aren't too bad but for each of those there are signs that show a much worse case. We had to cancel our paving jobs (not town or city but State jobs from the DOT) because of the costs associated with them. At the same time our banks (actually a lot of credit unions here) are still loaning money and construction hasn't taken that much of a downswing from what I have seen over the past few years. I did spend a bunch of time driving randomly across the nations and seeing things like halted motel construction across the I-10 corridor in Florida doesn't seem to equate what I'm seeing here.
Parent
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Corporate customers want OS that looks and performs like windows 2000, is as secure as XP and doesn't cause excess load on their IT departments.
It's not that hard to make XP (or even Vista) look like 2000. And I think you can even toggle the relevant settings while slipstreaming service packs so you don't need to do 30 minutes worth of tweaking afterwards on each machine.
My organisation has been doing this for years.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Servers have also done the same jump, from NT to 2003 and from 2003 to Win 7 Server edition.
We do make money out of it, though, unlike Maine.
Re:My organisation has been doing this for years.. (Score:3, Informative)
In Maine the cycle has been a lot like you describe.
94 386/486 mix with 3.1 and 95 in the middle (this was an odd one)
-- Same era -- DEC stuff still and our start of a love affair with Cisco as I recall
98 (year) to 98 (and then to 98se.)
2002 Win2k and XP
-- Same era -- Cisco prices for support kicked our ass
-- Same era -- Wyse and Citrix moved *back* in
2006 XP/Server 2k3
-- Same era -- Juniper shows up with a beautiful price (I think we run Juniper gear almost entirely in some areas now)
Here's where Microsoft
Another "customer" believes the BS (Score:2)
Why believe that Windows 7 will be better? Wasn't that the promise of Vista?
MS has not delivered its promised features so many times that it makes no sense to believe that Windows 7 will be any different.
Give me a good reason they _need_ Vista (Score:2)
I understand users wanting the newest and greatest, I am like that a lot. I own a Mac Pro which is totally overboard for what I do, but I do it because I can. Home users will always want the newest stuff.
However, when you are talking about a large organization. Upgrading has to be for a reason. Hardware becomes faster, that's a good reason to upgrade. Application x gives new features that our users actually need, then its a good reason to upgrade.
But seriously, what does Vista provide that XP doesn't ?
Cost effectiveness (Score:2)
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Candidate for the Mojave Experiment? (Score:2)
Support personnel suffer (Score:2)
Vista is a disaster. (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for a Very Large Telecom. Nobody is running Vista. It would be too expensive in hardware, training and support. We can do our jobs just fine with XP on cheaper hardware.
Like most, we are 100% Microsoft on the desktop and there are no alternative we can switch to quickly. Exchange and AD are too entrenched. I have a feeling CTO's at some companies see this risk and are evaluating "other options." The problem is the propriety enterprise packages are tried and true on Windows, and it's too expensive to replace all that infrastructure.
Microsoft might force consumers to buy Vista, but I doubt it'll happen for large companies. It would make a lot of people very angry and force large companies to pressure the Enterprise software vendors to write Mac or Linux clients.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Microsoft force their hand, but it could be their undoing if they did.
Re:Vista is a disaster. (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for game developer (small by corporate standards, but big for a developer), with about 150 employees. Most of us are running 64-bit Vista. See, the trick is, though, this was part of a round of hardware updates as well. With our machines (quad core, 4 GB RAM, fast video card, etc), the performance impact of Vista is largely negligible.
Most companies are not running games that demand high-end systems. They're running office machines that calculate spreadsheets, write letters, create powerpoint presentations, track inventory, and play the occasional game of solitude or watch youtube videos with office mates. It's hard to justify upgrading to a new operating system with a lot more overhead when your basic computing requirements haven't changed much. In general, I expect that Vista is likely selling at just slightly over the rate of new Windows-based PCs being sold. There are probably more users that upgrade than downgrade, and most new PCs have Vista on them now.
I think this is mostly a case of unrealistic expectations - the idea that an operating system is so compelling that people will rush out to upgrade. I could have told them that most users with would not feel entirely compelled to upgrade their existing hardware. Users seem much more likely to upgrade their operating system at the same time they upgrade their hardware. And frankly, people are finding it harder to justify upgrading their computers when the only thing that a 4 year old computer can't handle is a) the latest, greatest PC games, or 2) the latest, greatest operating system.
The funny thing, if Microsoft had forecast realistic adoption rates of Vista (at just above the purchase rate of new Windows-based PCs), then they probably could have claimed success. But they all drank the kool-aid since it made their forecasts look so much better if large numbers of people suddenly said "Hey, let's give Microsoft a bunch of money to Microsoft for a new operating system, and I'll get a) better security (uh, shouldn't that be freely available as patches?), b) a slower machine (uh... wait a sec), and c) a shiney new desktop - unless your video card can't handle it, or unless you buy the wrong version of the OS." And from a corporate perspective, even if you're already paying for the software, it still doesn't negate the cost of migrating, retraining, and performance-related issues.
And now, rushing a new version of Windows out guarantees a fragmented Windows market of THREE operating systems (which we developers still have to support, even if you don't, thank you). It's not going to encourage adoption rates any more than Vista did. These guys just don't learn.
Parent
Such a huge disaster... OH WAIT (Score:4, Informative)
Window Vista is such a huge disaster for Microsoft, considering that since it's release, it has consistently sold more than Windows XP in the same timeframe since it's release (ie. amount of sales after 1 year of being on the market for both XP and Vista, after 2 years, etc etc). Truly a horrible mistake one would never want to repeat. Oh wait, nevermind.
Vista not that bad.. (Score:5, Funny)
Maine needs to spend some time in Largo, FL (Score:5, Interesting)
State governments need to return to those days, and the technology is available, and it works. *That* would be a true benefit to taxpayers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We use Wyse through Citrix in a number of areas actually. There are still some VERY ancient Dell thin clients out there. Most are Wyse though.
Strange (Score:3, Insightful)
This story strikes me as a bit strange. Maine announces they won't be migrating to Vista, supposedly because it's bad. So far, so good. But then they announce that they _will_ be migrating to Windows 7, which isn't out yet. So there is the possibility that Windows 7 will be even worse (for whatever value matters to Maine) than Vista, but they will migrate to it anyway?
I think what they should have done is compare existing software. If they gain by migrating now, they migrate now, to whatever provides the best result. If they don't gain by migrating now, they don't migrate. Maybe they will migrate to Windows 7 once it's out, but that's a consideration to make once it's actually out.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong State. Maine isn't pro-anything really. We do have some Linux servers but the office workers use Windows, Office, etc... Maine isn't pro-FOSS so don't bother trying to come here with that sort of message, thanks. We're doing this to save money on training and looking ahead to Windows 7. Vista has its bugs. We're saving money by not re-training and skipping an upgrade. We're not saving the money because of skipping the OS, we're saving it by not having to re-train people for a interim OS and not having
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...we're comfortable with what we have and haven't any reason to change at this time.
Money. Less spent on MS licenses means more for useful projects.
Re:Tipping Point (Score:5, Interesting)
We're already spending it for support. This isn't your average single user license, it is a giant license. It is more cost effective (I forget the name of the program that we're using) to have this than it is to get just out of band support for a variety of licenses. It includes the ability to upgrade at any time. Contrary to popular opinion we've looked at (non-Microsoft funded) the evidence and it would appear to cost more to migrate to a different OS at this time with the support contracts, the effort involved, and the additional toll on the help desk. I'm not seeing any public documentation showing the reasoning but (and I *am* a fan of Linux in many areas) hopefully you can find something if you look hard enough.
We, as a State, do use some CentOS but at the time we were looking at RHEL and Fedora desktops. Driver issues was one of the things that abounded as the existing hardware wasn't supported entirely. As some of the departments are using older Citrix based thin clients from Wyse there were additional concerns though I don't actually recall what those concerns were.
It isn't that it couldn't be done, it is that it was cost-prohibitive to do so. It isn't that it wasn't looked at, it was, it was that it was considered more economical and a wiser choice to remain with their current choice of operating systems. Though some of the servers did migrate to CentOS and, I believe, RHEL in the case of some of the mail servers.
Parent
Re:Since when did Slashdot get so anti-Microsoft? (Score:4, Funny)
Here's a hint: If you look at Spock, you might notice he doesn't have a beard.
Parent
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Unless it is evil-twin Spock [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Little do they know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you name a single reputable source that stated that Windows 7 will be based on a "completely new codebase"?
Every single source I've read, internal and external to Microsoft, has explicitly stated it is based on the Vista codebase and is a minor revision of the OS. In fact, there will be no fundamental changes to the low-level OS internals, kernel inclusive, to the point that they are aiming for Vista drivers to work just fine on Windows 7, which should alleviate the driver migration woes that plauged Vista.
I think you should get better news sources.
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