Steamd

I recently read an article that Wired did about how a Microsoft security expert claims that Vista has fewer security flaws that XP:

“Based on the number of known vulnerabilities announced and the number of patches released for the desktop OS in the past year, Vista gets higher ratings than Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Ubuntu 6.06.”

This claim is so subjective. You can throw up all the charts and graphs you want and it won’t prove a thing. Michael Calore of Wired seems to agree:

“This doesn’t mean that Vista is inherently more secure than these other OSes. All the study proves is that Vista had a better security track record than the other OSes over their first year of release.”

Microsoft spent five years developing Vista. You’d think it would be more secure that XP. So why would that be a surprise? But to claim that it’s more secure than the competition? How would you even measure something like that?

But I digress. Pundits of Vista (myself included) won’t argue that Vista is more secure (it is!) because that’s not the point. The real problem with Vista is that after five years of development, Microsoft delivered an operating system that offered no compelling new features over Windows XP. Not only that but there were a slew of compatibility issues with existing hardware and software, both new and old.

The point is that security is only one part of the equation. People do want a more secure environment on their computers. No one can deny that. But people also want a more productive environment on their computers. Performance gains with Vista are atrocious! As one blogger pointed out the combination of “Vista, Office, and Outlook 2007 is a nightmare“. Why would any business gamble on a loss of perfomance on the very applications they rely on day in and day out? A loss of performance is a loss in productivity, it’s as simple as that.

Doesn’t help either that Microsoft plans to stop selling OEM licenses at the end of June, 2008. Windows Vista isn’t even a year old (it was released on January 30th, 2007) and Microsoft is telling business customers that they have to purchase Vista with new computers only a year and a half after its debut? A lot of companies waited at least two years to start using XP and, even then, most companies didn’t actually widely adopt XP till SP2 came out. Why does Microsoft thing Vista is any different? June is just too soon. Microsoft would do well to give business customers the choice and let it ride for at least another year or so.

By nature, people tend to accept the default regardless of what problems exist. But people don’t have to accept it. Individuals and businesses alike need to learn that the default isn’t always the best. You don’t have to put up with the default choice. There are other choices. In this case the choice is simple: Either force Microsoft to give you the choice and make a better product…or switch to the competition. I have a stinking suspicion that a lot of people will be switching to the competition.

You’ve heard the phrase “The proof is in the pudding”, right? Well…I’m not sure if the pudding in Windows Vista is all that good. It’s the equivalent of ordering Tapioca pudding for dessert in a fine restaurant and getting served a Snack Pack. How would you react if that happened to you? That’s what I thought.

Make mine a Mac!

Don Reisinger, the CNet News journalist who said that Microsoft should abandon Vista, is back with another article about Vista called “Vista won’t be abandoned so here’s how to fix it“. I agree with about 90% of what he says…especially when he recommends that Microsoft go open-source with Windows.

I’m not so sure about the idea of bringing Windows online though. I think before Microsoft considers that, they really need to step back and consider reinventing themselves.

The architecture of Windows hasn’t really changed all that much in over 10 years. We still have the registry, drive letters, DLL hell, and other areas that simply don’t make sense anymore. With the need for more semantically structured systems and so much going online, Windows simply needs to change to reflect the times and pave a new path for the future.

An “open sauce” version of Windows would certainly be a step in the right direction, but I think Microsoft needs to go a step further and redo Windows from the ground up. They should consider following in the footsteps of Apple and base a new version of Windows on a Unix or Linux kernel. Open sourcing it after that would have effects of an immense proportion.

CNet recently posted an article saying that Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmark tests. So much so that in some tests Windows XP with a beta version of Service Pack 3 had twice the performance of Windows Vista on the same hardware. That’s staggering and, quite frankly, unacceptable by any measure. As an IT professional, I expect any new OS to have marginal improvements over the prior OS. In the case of Vista, I expected that it might not perform quite as well as XP due to the extra overhead. But a few percentage points is different than a whole bunch of percentage points…especially when it as much as a 50% drop in performance!

Now, with that mind, consider your average customer walking into a Best Buy to buy a cheap desktop or laptop. All they want is something that works and costs less than a $1,000. They don’t want your service plan, they don’t want any bells and whistles, they basically just want a cheap-ass computer. But is it worth buying a sub-$1,000 computer? What kind of hassles does the unsuspecting buyer have awaiting for them? One word: Vista!

“When you see a cheap laptop, you’re seeing one that almost certainly has a gigabyte or less RAM and some kind of embedded graphics chip like an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 8MB to 64MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory. Vista really requires 2GB before it becomes usable, and there’s no point in even trying to run Vista’s Aero interface with that low level of graphical horsepower, or perhaps I should say ponypower.” [Cheap Laptops Bad for Vista, Good for Linux]

Yep! It’s any wonder why anyone would want to use Vista on a cheap computer. When CNet UK puts Windows Vista on their top ten terrible tech products list you know you’ve got trouble. And CNet isn’t the only one…many other IT professionals have expressed their discontent for Windows Vista and recommend holding off as long as possible before adopting the OS.

So what other options do buyers have? Best advice is that if you must purchase a sub-$1,000 computer, consider installing a flavor of Linux like Ubuntu. Granted, you won’t be able to run a lot of the off-the-shelf software but you will get a very solid and capable OS. If you absolutely must have Windows then you’re only other option is to purchase a copy of Windows XP, which could likely set you back another $100 or so. Your other option is to spend a little more and get something like an Apple MacBook, which start at about a $1,000 and give you a lot more bang for the buck.

When you’re buying a computer, you’re not just buying a product…you’re buying a solution! Don’t settle for just good enough. Take time out to explore all your options. You’ll be much happier in the long run!

It was recently announced that Mac OS X Leopard has sold 2 million copies in the first weekend of its release. That’s just for the boxed copies and probably doesn’t include copies that come pre-installed on new Macs. 2 million is quite a bit. I’d say that’s a pretty darn good start for a new OS.

For comparisons sake, I tried to find out just how many boxed copies of Vista were sold in the first weekend of its release but could only find a post on ZDNet where Microsoft claims to have sold 20 million copies in the first month of Vista’s release. However, the problem is that the 20 million includes Vista licenses preloaded on new PCs, upgrades, copies sold through the Vista Express Upgrade program and full packaged product sold at retail between January 30 and February 28. Great…that doesn’t really tell me how many people actually went out and bought a copy of Vista within the first weekend of its release to take home and install on their existing PC. Could be half a million, a million, 2 million…who the hell knows!

One thing is for sure though…excitement for Leopard within the first weekend of its release seems to exceed the level of enthusiasm for Windows Vista when it was first released…and the numbers prove it.

Now, with any OS release there are likely be pundits who will try and knock it down a few pegs. There’s one report about a flaw in the Leopard firewall. And, as the Macalope pointed out, there are others who claim that lots of stuff gets broken with the upgrade and that you shouldn’t upgrade. Not only that but that Apple supposedly rushed Leopard out the door.

Look, Leopard is not perfect. Neither was Tiger or any of the other prior Mac OS releases. By comparison though, Leopard is a far more solid release than Windows Vista. Vista was riddled with driver issues and software incompatibilities galore. Six months later and Vista still have the same issues which in turn has caused many individuals and companies to reconsider upgrading to Vista or purchasing computers with Vista preinstalled. The same simply can not be said about Leopard.

There are things about Leopard that bug me…but when compared to Vista I think Leopard is a far better OS. I upgraded to Leopard the very day it came out and had only two software applications that gave me problems. Out of the some odd 30 applications I usually install that’s pretty damn good if you ask me. And the two apps that gave me problems were pretty minor: Plaxo and Growl. I can do without Growl for the time being and Plaxo still works even though it has a quirk or two. Aside from that, Leopard has been the smoothest upgrade of any OS I’ve ever used. Couldn’t be happier!

Why Vista sucks!