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Story: The truth behind Vista's sales figures

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Vista, like in out in left field.

The EU did do one thing right. They sued Microsoft and they so far have made it stick.

I actually think the sales figures for Vista reflect, as the author indicated, most buyers don't have a realistic choice. Its Vista or Xp or nothing. Microsoft doesn't really care whether they sell XP at Vista prices or Vista at Vista prices. The sales figures are to keep the stockholders mollified.

Working in the business, I know that an IT department has an incredible task on its hands to get management to OK a move to Linux. Management wants to make safe, non-risky decisions. Going with Linux is still risky for most managers. You have to overwhelm them with financial benefits that can be refuted by a slick salesman who's got "90% market penetration safe/secure" Windows as a product.

Maybe Microsoft has made a more secure product but everybody I've talked to who's actually run Vista say they don't like it, or they only like parts of it. All of them though complain about how hard it is to use and the annoying security pop-ups. I tried the Beta and the RC release and they both drove me nuts. That was when I decided to drop my interest in Vista.

While all of this Linux rollout planning is going on, the Linux-leaning IT guy is still fighting the fires started by inept Windows users or the virus-infestations that occur after just a key-click! Because the Manager wouldn't pay for AV software licenses for all the desktops, "because it's too expensive"!

What most managers don't understand though is that Vista is enough different from XP and certainly Win2K that using a desktop Linux distro is as much of a change for the users as going to Linux. There is as much user training necessary because of all the little key-click sequences that the typical user has memorized are now all junked. A whole new sequence of strokes has to be learned for turning out the documents.

Open/Star Office is the biggest helper a Linux IT admin has, if he can train the typical office worker to use OO, then most of the work to train the user is done. Show them their "home" folder with their name on it and things will be a lot easier. Just don't tell them where it is physically and put it on the file server and then you've got your backup problems covered. Do worker at a time and you can transistion the entire office easily. Maybe get everybody used to the home folder idea even on the Windows boxes so its not an issue when they get Linux.

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