Only 2 out of 3 businesses use Vista
InfoWorld has some interesting statistics about how many businesses are using Vista now that Microsoft is no longer selling XP. According to their stats, Vista is dropped in favor of XP for 1 in 3 business PCs. What’s the reason? As John Gruber of Daring Fireball joked, “They just haven’t realized yet how awesome Vista really is.”
The real reason is a loophole in the Vista license that allows for downgrading to Windows XP. Granted, it still qualifies as a Vista license but at least users can downgrade if they wish.
The other reason is the hardware requirements needed to properly run Vista. Realistically, to run Vista right you really need about twice the RAM of what was acceptable with XP and a juicy processor to boot. Unless you’re running with a minimum of two gigs of RAM and at least a fairly current processor from the last few years or so, be prepared to watch Vista run like a dog. For businesses where performance is critical this simply isn’t acceptable.
Take the architectural industry for instance. There is a growing trend towards the use of BIM capable software like Revit and Bentley Architecture. These programs require a lot of juice to run due to large project files and on-the-fly 3D rendering. As such, available physical memory and processing is critical to ensure that these programs run smoothly. Any major hiccups and you run the risk of your workers sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Time is money so the more efficient they are able to work the better.
Current 32-bit operating systems can only handle a maximum of 4 gigs of RAM. Now, when you put that in perspective with the overhead taken up by an idle copy of Vista running compared to XP you can see the problem. My own personal copy of Vista takes up a little over 380 megs of physical memory, and that’s with it running nothing but antivirus software. What about Windows XP running the same antivirus software? A little over 190 megs. That may not seem like much but it is relative because a running program can take up not only the necessary memory needed to run itself but additional memory required by the operating system for additional resources and sub-system overhead (video, audio, etc.). As such, running something like Revit in Vista might be a completely different experience when running it in XP. The resources required in Vista could skyrocket due to the extra footprint of the video subsystems needed for 3D rendering alone.
So what’s the solution? For starters, a faster computer with more memory. Another step up would be 64-bit processing which would allow for up to 16 gigs of RAM and plenty of processing power. But this is an added expense, one that many companies aren’t willing to partake in just yet. It’s one thing if you’re an architectural firm and already have equated in the expense in your budget. But not every company is like this and thus the need to go to a 64-bit platform simply isn’t in the cards. So what do you do? You downgrade until such a time when it is in the cards.
For Microsoft, the reality of the situation just hasn’t quite hit them yet. If they had released a version of Windows that was more powerful than XP, more secure, but just as efficient things probably would have been different. More companies would have been more keen to upgrade. But as it stands, companies are taking the safer route and only upgrading on an as-needed basis. As such, it’s no surprise that only 2 out of 3 business PCs are running Vista.
Who knows. Maybe next year we’ll hear that 2 out of 5 business computers are running Leopard. ;)
