OT Interesting Note

Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his coworkers) are
really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of makes
you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales staff,
simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative commentary on
the current state of VISTA?

Kevin Childers wrote:
> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his coworkers) are
> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of makes
> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales staff,
> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative commentary on
> the current state of VISTA?
>
>

It's a reflection of the fact that most corporate networks are very
reluctant to migrate to Vista at this time. We just got 10 D520's and
they have XP. You can see on the Dell web site that many/most of the
business offerings have XP as well as Vista.

Like it or not, new OS's will always have problems with legacy hardware
and software. For consumers, this can be manageable In a corporate
environment, it's no small thing to have to upgrade even one
application. In many cases, it's just not possible. What is an
acceptable cost to a consumer is not to a corporation. Try multiplying
that $40 upgrade cost by 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000.... Add to that the
manpower/hardware costs to do the upgrades and it becomes *VERY*
expensive *VERY* fast...

I support a small Hospice in upstate NY. We have two critical
applications that the vendors will not support on Vista.

Bottom line is that corporate acceptance of Vista is glacial compared to
the consumer market....

--

Regards,
Hank Arnold
Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Directory Services

Hank Arnold (MVP) wrote:
> Kevin Childers wrote:
>> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
>> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his
>> coworkers) are
>> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
>> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
>> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of
>> makes
>> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales
>> staff,
>> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative
>> commentary on
>> the current state of VISTA?
>>
>>
>
> It's a reflection of the fact that most corporate networks are very
> reluctant to migrate to Vista at this time. We just got 10 D520's and
> they have XP. You can see on the Dell web site that many/most of the
> business offerings have XP as well as Vista.
>
> Like it or not, new OS's will always have problems with legacy hardware
> and software. For consumers, this can be manageable In a corporate
> environment, it's no small thing to have to upgrade even one
> application. In many cases, it's just not possible. What is an
> acceptable cost to a consumer is not to a corporation. Try multiplying
> that $40 upgrade cost by 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000.... Add to that the
> manpower/hardware costs to do the upgrades and it becomes *VERY*
> expensive *VERY* fast...
>
> I support a small Hospice in upstate NY. We have two critical
> applications that the vendors will not support on Vista.
>
> Bottom line is that corporate acceptance of Vista is glacial compared to
> the consumer market....
>
That's been my limited experience with a company I consult for. OS and
software several years behind. Imagine transition cost for a
corporation with thousands of pc's. Other clients pushed me into
upgrading because I would often get in documents, usually latest Word
versions, that I would have to tell producer to go back and save in
earlier version that I can open and read.
Frank

When I retired from the government in January 1998 they were just moving
from DOS to Windows.

Frank wrote:
| That's been my limited experience with a company I consult for. OS
| and software several years behind. Imagine transition cost for a
| corporation with thousands of pc's. Other clients pushed me into
| upgrading because I would often get in documents, usually latest Word
| versions, that I would have to tell producer to go back and save in
| earlier version that I can open and read.
| Frank

Joan F (MI) wrote:
> When I retired from the government in January 1998 they were just moving
> from DOS to Windows.

<snip>

The US Government living in the dark?

Please, say it isn't so!

--
Notan

"Hank Arnold (MVP)" <> wrote in message
news4Wui.359$...
> Kevin Childers wrote:
>> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
>> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his coworkers)
>> are
>> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
>> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
>> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of
>> makes
>> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales
>> staff,
>> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative commentary
>> on
>> the current state of VISTA?
>>
>>
>
> It's a reflection of the fact that most corporate networks are very
> reluctant to migrate to Vista at this time. We just got 10 D520's and they
> have XP. You can see on the Dell web site that many/most of the business
> offerings have XP as well as Vista.
>
> Like it or not, new OS's will always have problems with legacy hardware
> and software. For consumers, this can be manageable In a corporate
> environment, it's no small thing to have to upgrade even one application.
> In many cases, it's just not possible. What is an acceptable cost to a
> consumer is not to a corporation. Try multiplying that $40 upgrade cost by
> 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000.... Add to that the manpower/hardware costs to
> do the upgrades and it becomes *VERY* expensive *VERY* fast...
>
> I support a small Hospice in upstate NY. We have two critical applications
> that the vendors will not support on Vista.
>
> Bottom line is that corporate acceptance of Vista is glacial compared to
> the consumer market....
>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Hank Arnold
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Server - Directory Services

Also look at the options, many consumer machines only offer VISTA as an OS

"Notan" <notan@ddressthatcanbespammed> wrote in message
news: ...
> Joan F (MI) wrote:
>> When I retired from the government in January 1998 they were just moving
>> from DOS to Windows.
>
> <snip>
>
> The US Government living in the dark?
>
> Please, say it isn't so!
>
> --
> Notan


"It ain't so."

Why do you hate freedom?

-Stew

Corporate IT departments are not installing Vista at this time (which is
typical of ANY new operating system that has been out less than about a
year). The CORPORATE sales organizations of ALL of the OEMs (Dell, HP,
Gateway, even Toshiba) still offer XP. You won't find it at retail,
however, with the possible sole exception of CompUSA.

Kevin Childers wrote:
> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his coworkers) are
> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of makes
> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales staff,
> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative commentary on
> the current state of VISTA?
>
>

It's worth noting that while Hank's comments are entirely correct, they
do not reflect on Vista but rather on the nature of ANY new operating
system. XP was the same way.

Hank Arnold (MVP) wrote:
> Kevin Childers wrote:
>> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
>> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his
>> coworkers) are
>> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
>> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
>> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of
>> makes
>> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales
>> staff,
>> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative
>> commentary on
>> the current state of VISTA?
>>
>>
>
> It's a reflection of the fact that most corporate networks are very
> reluctant to migrate to Vista at this time. We just got 10 D520's and
> they have XP. You can see on the Dell web site that many/most of the
> business offerings have XP as well as Vista.
>
> Like it or not, new OS's will always have problems with legacy hardware
> and software. For consumers, this can be manageable In a corporate
> environment, it's no small thing to have to upgrade even one
> application. In many cases, it's just not possible. What is an
> acceptable cost to a consumer is not to a corporation. Try multiplying
> that $40 upgrade cost by 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000.... Add to that the
> manpower/hardware costs to do the upgrades and it becomes *VERY*
> expensive *VERY* fast...
>
> I support a small Hospice in upstate NY. We have two critical
> applications that the vendors will not support on Vista.
>
> Bottom line is that corporate acceptance of Vista is glacial compared to
> the consumer market....
>

On 8 Aug, 11:58, "Kevin Childers" <kchil...@mail.win.org> wrote:
> Spoke to one of HPs Road Warriors today. Helped him get set-up for some
> sales event on the road and what not. He (an reportedly his coworkers) are
> really happy with their brand new HP laptops. No surprise there, given
> every sales guy loves a new toy, but the when I asked about the OS, it
> wasn't VISTA. He said all of their new laptops are using XP. Sort of makes
> you wonder. Is it a commentary on the learning curve for the sales staff,
> simplicity and compatibility for the IT staff, or a negative commentary on
> the current state of VISTA?


My company laptop dual boots XP and Windows 2000 - because a lot of
the industrial software (Loader-monitors for older PLCs, diagnostic
tools for DC and AC drives) does not yet run on XP. 2000 is still
more reliable than XP, of course.

I would not be surprised if a lot of mission-critical software does
not run under vista, despite the Beta being available to developers
for half an ice age. They are not stupid. They knew that Vista SP1
would be radically different from the Beta they were being offered to
develop with.