bobpeers -> blog

With all the rumours about when the next version of Windows, called Windows 7, might be released (sometime from 2009 to 2011 it seems) along with the announcement that Windows XP will still be available to manufacturers of selected systems (most notably small, cheap Laptops like the Asus Eee PC)until June 30th, 2010 it seems that Microsoft is feeling the pressure these days.

On one hand they’re having a hard time convincing businesses to make the switch to Vista while on the other hand there is a growing demand for cheap, portable laptops which just don’t have the power to run Vista. Many of these run Linux as a result, as it’s far better suited to low spec machines. Of course Microsoft had to react to stop this Linux creep into their market share.

On the corporate side in the company I work for there’s just no way we could move to Vista, most of our computers have 512MB of ram with 3GHz Pentium 4 processors that just won’t be up to the job. It would cost us a small fortune to upgrade these computers with no obvious return on investment for doing so.

One of the main complains with Vista seems to be that’s it’s just too resource hungry and slow. Run Vista and XP side by side and XP leaves Vista standing. It may well be more secure but trying to sell this to a consumer when they want something newer and faster is a tough sell.

One of Microsofts main problems is that Windows has just become too complex plus they’re always trying to be backwards compatible.

It seems that on one hand Microsoft hails Vista as a great success while on the other hand they intentionally start rumours about the next version. Exactly why a company would now shift to Vista with the rumours of a new version that’s smaller, faster and will make Vista obsolete is beyond me.

Even for a consumer like myself it makes me think twice about buying a new laptop with Vista installed. I have my issues with Vista and knowing that it may be replaced sooner rather than later certainly makes me think about waiting.