February 13, 2009, 12:28 PM — Various writers and bloggers are all atwitter about Microsoft's new “guidance on Windows deployments for business customers,” a blog from a member of the Windows Product Management team. Amazingly, after sympathizing with customers worried about budgets and upgrading PCs and software, the advice from this Microsoft blog is: send us more money NOW!
Here's the “logic” in the blog, as much as I can tell. Everyone wants to go to Windows 7 because we're sure Microsoft won't lay two OS eggs in a row (my interpretation, not the blogger's). But since Windows 7 is very much like Vista, go ahead and upgrade to Vista so it will be easier to get to Windows 7. That assumes Windows 7 actually improves upon Vista. I'm not taking that as a fact until I see it for myself.
That's the new blog message. Let me summarize: buy some of our new junk now! Buy Vista or early Windows 7, but hurry up and stop using XP, older computers, older peripherals, and older software.
Standard FUD statements are included, like “talk to your application vendors to find out how long they intend to provide support for their applications running in Windows XP...” The next phrase is the kicker. “...and when they plan to support their application running in Windows 7.”
Isn't that part of the problem with Vista? Software by the boatload that works great on XP died on Vista, and updates dribbled slowly. Vista got a black eye, and companies that trusted Microsoft and jumped right away to Vista got two black eyes: the hassle of upgrading and the cost of new equipment.
Fascinating that MSFT had to include a paragraph specifically for Windows 2000 users. What have those W2K users been thinking all this time by skipping XP and Vista? Maybe getting their work done rather than jumping through Microsoft hoops to no business advantage?
See if I'm crazy, but something seems very, very wrong. Microsoft has been telling us Windows 7 will run on all the hot little netbooks vendors are making as fast as possible. Now they're telling us Windows 7 is just like Vista in all manner of important ways. Since Vista can't run on netbooks, why does anyone believe the Microsoft hype that Windows 7 will run on those netbooks?
