PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY: Vista and XP square off for users' hearts, minds
No wild-eyed Linux hackers, these guys: Now, at a recent conference in Las Vegas, analysts from the respected Gartner group say Windows Vista is "untenable" and "collapsing."That's a radical position for a mainstream company to take. And indeed, corporate America seems to support the thesis. More than a year after its late introduction Vista has captured only about 6 percent of the enterprise market. XP is still going strong; its corporate market share hasn't budged. Vista is merely replacing older operating systems, according to Forrester Research.
Does this matter to home users? Microsoft can steamroll the individual customer (after all, virtually all retail systems come with Vista), but not the big guys. They're capable of dragging Microsoft in their direction. Will the big guys skip Vista altogether and hold out for the next release, known as Windows 7? That would put Vista in the Microsoft hall of shame along with Windows ME and the user-condescending "Microsoft Bob" interface.
The upcoming release of Service Packs for XP and Vista, expected in a month or so, makes XP look increasingly viable for the long term. Its service pack has good buzz: Besides combining and cleaning up three years worth of piecemeal online updates, some testers report, SP3 for XP will speed up the venerable OS. Vista, meanwhile, is getting negative reviews: Beta testers say that not all problems are being cleaned up. Overall, Vista's said to be half as fast as XP at running standard office programs. That may change as the code is finalized.
Once the dust from the service packs has settled, the next big Windows milestone is the prospective end of XP retail sales. First set for Jan. 1, XP's swan song has been postponed to June 30, the last day that major vendors like Dell will be allowed to install XP on new machines. Microsoft this month made a couple of exceptions, however: Small system builders who are doing custom work get a reprieve until Jan. 31, 2009, a potential loophole for those of us who just have to have our XP. In addition, XP will still be available for small, cheap laptops, since it is much less demanding of computer resources. Users have been organizing online petitions and protests demanding that the company continue XP. Chances of a late stay of execution are slim, however.
Moving along, XP will still be viable for a long time after Microsoft stops selling it, with updates through April 14, 2009. That will mean, in most cases, that XP will be compatible with much, if not most of new hardware and software released until then. Security updates should continue past that date.
The question is, will that be good enough to get you to Windows 7? Obviously, all these deadlines are artificial and can be pushed back. Most expect that 7 will be available in 2010 or later if development falters. There are some rumbles that it may get out the door in 2009, however, which would allow the majority of computer users to move directly from XP to 7.
Windows 7 promises to be a complete change of direction for Microsoft operating systems. For years, the company has bundled together many functions that could be optional, the biggest, of course, being the Internet Explorer browser that got the firm in hot water for antitrust violations. The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach has been a hallmark of a company that uses its operating system dominance to crush competitors and extend its reach into other markets.
The Gartner folks point out that this strategy has probably reached the end of its life with Vista, which suffers, among other problems, from ubiquitous digital rights management that was supposed to turn it into the center of the networked, multimedia home. The OS is too unwieldy for anything but a powerful PC to run it and has become so vast and interlinked that's its difficult to maintain.
The new look is a compact "kernel" comprised of a mere 400 or so files (vs. Vista's 5000) with command line interface. Modules, like a user interface, would sit on top of this, so that in theory you would have a "Windows construction kit" where you could only install the parts of the operating system that you need. Compatibility with older programs, for example, would be optional, and by leaving out a lot of baggage intended for home use, the OS could conceivably run on phones and palmtop PCs. The philosophy is similar to Linux, which is winning a lot of fans simply because it's compact and does not come with Microsoft's marketing baggage.