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Fri, Apr 11, 2008 19:10 EDT
Gartner: Windows is "Collapsing"
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Posted by: Bernard Golden in Soapbox Topic: Enterprise Management Blog: The Open Source
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Next revelation from Gartner: "Sun to Rise in East Tomorrow."
At Gartner's all-singing, all-dancing IT/Expo conference, two analysts pronounced (see coverage in Computerworld and here on CIO.com) that Microsoft Windows is collapsing under its own weight: bloated, overly complex, and delivering so little new functionality that those users not forced to adopt Vista by OEM bundling have decided to stick with XP.
Of course, you could have learned all that 16 months ago from yours truly.
For all that Gartner has said, Microsoft's biggest problem is that the nature of hardware is changing, and its model of a heavyweight client residing on an expensive general-purpose computing device is the answer to yesterday's computing problems.
Thanks to Gordon Moore, hardware has gotten so cheap that it makes sense to have multiple, even numerous computing devices around, much as many people own a number of wristwatches, each worn at appropriate times. And when you own a bunch of computing devices, it makes sense to have the data reside in a central location so that all the devices have to access to it and to ensure none of them face data concurrency issues.
Furthermore, when you start buying computing devices for $25 to $200, Microsoft's licensing fee starts to represent a significant proportion of the price, which calls into question its overall contribution to the value of the device.
I think Microsoft is mired in the challenge of "The Innovator's Dilemma," where companies continue to focus on products well past their sell-by date. And in considering the Vista debacle, I'm reminded of a friend's comment about things at his company: "We've improved the product to the point where no one can use it."
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Thanks, we needed that. I went regrograde recently and set an old spare PC running an overstressed processor back to "windows classic" mode, and was amazed at how much easier it is to use. So much for the eye candy theory of value. Businesses have objectives, and PC's and IT are supposed to be a means to an end. When the tools start getting in the way of a job it is time to replace them.
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The answer here is Ubuntu. On a modern laptop or pc you can get all the eye-candy, plus the security of unix/linux. It's fast because it's not bloated. No trial software you don't want. Runs great on sub $1000 machines. Only has what most people need out the box(complete MSOffice compatible suite, graphics programs, etc) but all other applications to do absolutely anything you need are available via extremely easy download. And, it's free. Really, VISTA and XP are pretty much obsolete. No one seems to realize this yet, though.
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Unfortunately, Ubuntu [or most any Linux distro] is just not ready for the average home user. I run both WinXP and Fedora Core 5 at work, so I wanted to install Ubuntu on my Dell laptop [dual boot w/ Vista]. But the hurdles I had to jump through in order to get my Broadcom 1390 wifi to work would be more than the average home user would want to endure. Even though it is working now, about half the time when I power my laptop up I have to reboot immediately to get the wifi to be recognized by Ubuntu. I had similar issues on the same laptop with Fedora 7.
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Agreed that Ubuntu is not ready for prime time. However, Ubuntu on my two Dell inspiron laptop's worked great out of the box. The sound was a problem on one, so I fired up firefox, searched for this problem on Google, found the fix in about half an hour and fixed it.
I believe that as hardware gets more and more standardized, things will be much easier for Ubuntu. The Ubuntu user community is doing a great deal of work on getting Ubuntu to work well on Dell machines. I also imagine that ubuntu will be easier to accept in those households where there is a techie in the household, that can get Ubuntu running well on every machine.
That said, my wife tried Vista which came installed with her laptop. Vista stopped working in about 5 days after having an improper shutdown. Wouldn't even start. I installed ubuntu for her, she tried it but somehow there were too many workarounds for viewing online video, calling using a voip software (available only for windows and I ran it in a virtual machine) etc., that I installed windowsXP also on her machine. Now she only uses XP.
I would agree that Windows has became more complex over the years, however, there have been a number of improvements that allows businesses to further manage individual workstations with a higher security enforcement. Kerberos became available with Windows 2000 and creating VPN Connections with a Wizard in Windows XP. Now, Microsoft has made a few mistakes (Windows ME... and Vista) but overall their Operating System business is here to stay. I think they have more to worry about in their Search Engine and Office Suite Departments.
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Jon Unger
CEO at SmallCart Systems
Blogger at IT Service Week
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News, views and updates from the fast-growing world of enterprise open source software.
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