With XP quickly gaining in age as it’s desktop successor, Windows 7 is now drawing ever closer meaning more adventurous uses of XP can be sought out. Mobile ventures perhaps? One of the perks of being an older tried and true operating system is that most of the quirks have been worked out and the OS optimized to its fullest. Moving forward with XP, what is the next stage now that Windows 7 will start to take over? Smartphones of course. Brought to you by the makers of alphabet soup (not really): the ITG xpPhone will show its face next week at Computex featuring:
- 120GB/64GB solid state drive
I’m sure there’s more packed inside of this mobile powerhouse(?) in order to lure you in, but with XP not exactly the youngest in the mobile OS market with many other just as capable and much prettier looking options, I for one wouldn’t buy the ITG xpPhone. Would you?
Source: Mobile Crunch
One of the greatest things that has been announced as coming with Windows 7 is “XP Mode”. This mode will allow an individual to run older programs on new hardware that without XP Mode wouldn’t be able to run at all. While the consumer market generally upgrades their software as new updates to that software become available, the corporate IT world usually will stay with a tried and true set up no matter the age. It may come off as laziness on the IT workers’ part, and may be so in smaller companies. But what if you manage a company with thousands to tens of thousands of employees? You can see how quickly this could become a time and money issue. When something as major as a new operating system comes out, I’m sure you local IT guys (and gals) cringe with the though of all of the software packages and machines they’ll have to update as well as the countless hours spent adding patches and provding support for the new set up. But with Windows 7 they don’t have to worry about that. So, that begs the question, is XP Mode going to stifle the path to upgrading system software and hardware?
IT departments are long known for not being on top of and grasping the latest in technology. This fact is no surprise. They like to take the careful and more reserved approach, instead waiting months to years before upgrading hundreds of computers’ operating systems as the effects of incompatibilities can be extremely costly and time consuming to fix bring production to a standstill and even putting the company out of business as a result of the shut down. Now of course, a company shutting down because of an OS upgrade failure is an extreme failure. (Perhaps we would have seen more of this if Vista had been more widely adopted). So how long will big businesses wait to make the move to 7?
With Windows 7 coming out, one would think Microsoft would be all for the push to 7 as Vista was a unanimous flop. Windows 7 while not adding anything groundbreaking in terms of new features does have added reliability and speed on its side (or so they claim). It comes with great and utterly disappointing pain that I pass along this information: Microsoft has again extended Windows XP’s life. How far? Does it really matter? Should an 8 year old operating system even be an option (let alone a “paid” downgrade option that many computer manufacturers are charging)?
- February 12, 2009 2:02 pm
I know, that’s a good joke. But it’s a serious response from Microsoft. They want businesses, particularly the 71% that have neglected to upgrade to Vista from XP to upgrade to Vista while theres still time. Their reason? Because of the similarities between Vista and 7, any problems companies face in Vista and get ironed out now will save them time when upgrading to 7 thereby making their upgrade process that much happier. Also, an upgrade from XP to 7 is a big jump and problems are sure to pop up. And when you’re talking about a big coporation with thousands and possibly tens of thousands of machines those sometimes small problems can become giant headaches. Still, no corporation in this economoy is going to spend a big chunk of change to upgrade to a shoddy OS when in a few months a newer, faster, and more efficient OS is coming out, at which point they’ll have to drop another chunk of change for. All this is, is Microsoft trying to grab every dollar they can and maximize what little money they can still take in with Vista before sending it to its early grave. So if any coporate IT admins are reading, has your company upgraded to Vista? Are they planning to? What about 7? Let us know.
Source: Alley Insider
It’s no surprise that Vista hasn’t caught on in the enterprise world as a remarkable 71+% of computers in the UK still run XP. Worldwide, XP still has a 64% grasp on the OS market. A commanding lead. Everything from program incompatibilities to cost have kept companies from adopting the new operating system. At a recent interview between Computerworld UK and Cnet, Steve Ballmer kept stressing the point that the corporate world needs to “make their employees happy” and adopt Windows Vista as soon as possible. I don’t know if happiness and Vista can be used in the same sentence. You be the judge. This is a laughable and obvious response to a CEO defending a publicly condemmed OS trying to scrap every dollar he possibly can. Why would someone spend a couple hundred dollars on an unpopular OS in the current economic situation when Windows 7, (an acutal glimmer of hope from Microsoft) is right around the corner. *more or less…a slightly distant corner*. If I were you and hadn’t upgraded to Vista yet, wait! Wait until Windows 7 as it has been revealed that there will be an “upgrade“, complete wipe labeled an “upgrade” option from XP to 7. So corporate CFO, will you adopt Vista now, late in the game? Or, will you hold out just a little longer for 7?
Source: Cnet
- January 21, 2009 11:23 pm
When the founder of one of the worlds largest growing open source operating systems compliments Windows 7 and basically praises it, you know the world is soon coming to an end. Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and head MF of Ubuntu recently had many positive things to say about Redmond’s latest and greatest. Increased competition was one of the statements that was uttered from his mouth. With Windows 7 coming, Shuttleworth mentioned that Microsoft would be faced to raise the price OEM’s pay for 7 as opposed to their almost free giveaways of XP. Once the price goes up, will more defect to Ubuntu? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Source: Crunch Gear, The Register
