WHATS the big deal with Vista? Do you want it? Do you need it? Do you
care and more importantly, do you have a choice? What does it mean for the
quality of your working life? Will it make your old PC more efficient or will it
kill it stone dead? Will it be more secure than Microsoft Swiss Cheese, sorry, I
mean XP, or will it require lots of patches, lots of scare-mongering and the odd
massive Service Pack to help keep those mean old hackery types at bay and allow
you sleep safe at night? The bottom line is that Microsoft is working on a new
operating system. Its called Vista. Its big, fat, feature-packed, delayed and,
at the end of the day, most of us will have no choice about whether we use it or
not. So whats all the fuss?
I tend not to
worry about things I have no control over. Its not as easy as it sounds and,
generally, it takes decades of worrying over things I have no control over to
master it. I like to think I have moved beyond the Kung Fu ‘Grasshopper stage
of my training an onto the path that will eventually lead me to being fat, bald
and round like some wisdom-filled Buddha, with a really long white beard that I
can tuck into my abused belt. Now remember, I said most people will have no
choice, so those of you with a choice keep your hair on before flaming me about
Linux, XP, Mac etc. For the vast majority of working folk, the decision will be
made for them by the IT department, those shadowy figures who are either viewed
as:
A. Knights in shining armour, wielding tools imbued with immense, mystical
power and brains to match to solve your every little IT problem, faster than a
speeding bullet – OR…
B. Those sneering little gits in the basement, wielding screwdrivers of spite
and hoarding their knowledge so that its usually quicker and, less traumatic,
to take IT night-classes and solve the problem yourself than call them out.
There are probably more options but if Vista is chosen by the IT department
then you will be using it and thats that. Vista, like its predecessors will
take time to become the dominant OS in businesses. After all, why should any
business risk their business to a new OS that will require retraining of both IT
staff and regular folk, not to mention software integration issues, new usage
policies, lack of third-party software, investment in new, faster and more
expensive PCs with higher res monitors, and risking their business to a shiny
new OS the hacking and virus community have been waiting years to get a crack
at? No, far better to stay with the Band-Aid covered, MS Swiss Cheese and let
some other businesses test it out first. Regardless, it will become the mainstay
but only after a couple of years in the wild.
As for consumers? Come on, most consumers dont buy operating systems. They
buy PCs and unless they have a specific reason they take whatever OS is standard
and run with it. Its not condescending, its fact. If the PC or notebook can
perform the list of things they need it to do – digital photos/video, Internet,
wireless, DVD piracy etc – they will buy it, often irrespective of OS. PC
vendors have already given the thumbs up to Vista, and why not? After all, this
will be the first new MS OS in over five years when it arrives. Or is that six
years, or six and a half? It all depends on whether you believe Microsofts
launch schedule or that of the professional market watchers but, in the end,
Vista will be standard on the vast majority of consumer PCs very quickly. Why?
Because PC vendors need something new to boost sales and there is nothing wrong
with that, and frankly, because Microsoft will have told them so. As a result,
most normal people buying a new PC will end up with some version of Vista within
a year or so.
