Reading blogs at the same time as actually being an IT person has been sort of like living a double life for the last few months.  On the blog end, you'd think Vista was finally catching on.  Every day there's a new Vista study or survey showing how its making inroads into the corporate market. 

But in my real life, no one has deployed Vista.  Not only that, everyone I know is actively pursuing ways to avoid deployment of Vista altogether.  Making plans instead to skip it entirely and hope for the best from Windows 7 (or in rare cases considering a large scale Mac deployment)

So I felt more than a little vindicated reading the new Forrester study (via Computerworld) that says...

Fewer than one in 11 of the PCs being used in large or very large enterprises runs Windows Vista, according to survey results released Wednesday by Forrester Research Inc.

Of the 50,000 enterprise users surveyed by the Cambridge, Mass., analyst firm, 87.1% were still running Windows XP at the end of June, compared to 8.8% for Vista. According to author Thomas Mendel, that implies that the majority of PCs upgraded to Vista were those running older versions of Windows, such as Windows 2000 or 98.

Exactly! 

The reality of Vista is that it would be almost irresponsible to deploy it at this point.  Though technically there are a few improvements I've found that there is no case that can be made for upgrading to Vista in a corporate environment.  There's simply no way to justify the cost of software, deployment, and retraining based on how little it offers.

Let's look at the supposedly compelling reasons to upgrade

Bitlocker: Bitlocker, which encrypts a user's hard drive, is nice but it's technology that falls into that gray area between theoretically useful and actually useful.  If you've ever asked yourself why all these Government or Financial laptops that get stolen aren't encrypted the reason is because any info that's valuable is too valuable to risk losing just because someone lost their password. So if those industries aren't willing to encrypt their entire hard drives what chance does Microsoft have of convincing anyone else? 

Enhanced Network Stack: Big Whoop!  When's the last time you  heard someone complaining about the inefficiencies of their network stack?

Sleep Mode that Actually Works: This I'll give it.  This might be the only real improvement from Vista to XP (though its more bug fix than actual improvement)

New GPO (Group Policy Objects): These basically allow you to customize more settings across groups of users but having looked at the list I didn't see anything that I either hadn't already done or couldn't do using VBScript.  So the question is, if I already have scripts to do the same tasks how much does Microsoft integrating those functions into the OS really do for me?

Direct X 10: Doesn't do anyone any good.  No software developer in their right mind is developing exclusively for Vista so having a version of DirectX that's exclusive just guarantees those features won't be used.

Image Based Install: Microsoft finally integrated a decent image based install system which makes installing the thing faster.  But everyone is already using a third party program to make disk images for their PCs so I don't see what IT professional this is going to appeal to.  Too little, too late on Microsoft's part.

Now lets look at the negatives

• The most compelling features are also available for XP (WPF, Windows Search, etc...)
• It's slow on everything but the very fastest PCs
• It still has compatibility problems (most of our software from custom vendors still doesn't work with it)
• They changed the UI just enough to be confusing
• Security is so obnoxious (with its constant pestering) that you are forced to let users turn it off
• The new driver model means your devices might not be supported or the new driver might still be unstable (Nvidia in particular has had a lot of problems with this)
• It's more expensive than XP was
• It has an even more limited license than XP (in Particular, you can only transfer it once as opposed to XP which allowed for three times)
• Built in DRM (I don't see this as a big issue but I have to give a shout out to the Freetards)
• Many versions have been stripped of features that were standard before.  The so called Premium version for example was stripped of Remote Desktop.

So what have we learned

Basically that Vista isn't worth it.  There are no advantages to point to, plenty of disadvantages and the cost to deploy it (according to my calculations) was around $197 per system.  So the question becomes: Why on earth would any company deploy it?

I honestly don't have an answer to that question

Gizmodo  has what has to be the saddest defense of Windows Vista that I personally have ever seen.  In an article entitled "Ten Reasons Why Vista Isn't That Bad" they give the following list of what I will generously call features...

1. It's more secure than Windows XP

2. It's the best looking Windows yet.

3. Games work just about as well as under XP.

4. Vista Media Center is a fantastic DVR.

5. The sleep mode works.

6. Built-in search is better and more useful.

7. User Account Control is useful for some people.

8. Drivers support isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

9. It's not any buggier than Windows XP.

10. Vista is not slow if you have enough RAM.

Now the thing to notice about this list is how little there actually is.  3,5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are all basically disproving an extreme negative (rather than listing a positive).  6 is available on XP and 1 isn't all that accurate (XP can be as secure as Vista if set up right).  4 is only available in the very expensive premium edition which leaves 2 (visual appearance) as the only real good thing that can be said about Vista. 

They then go on to list several negatives which I think are all fairly significant...

1. Things aren't where they used to be.

2. File transfers are slower than on XP

3. Wireless networking is a pain.

4. Lots of balloon notifications pop up on the taskbar.

5. Folder view in Windows Explorer doesn't remember your settings.

This, to me, is basically the issue with Vista.  It really isn't any better than XP and in some ways it's decidedly worse.  Which is why the discontinuation of Windows XP by Microsoft (now scheduled for Monday) has been weighing so heavily on my mind. 

At first I was really angry about it but now that most manufacturers have announced they will continue to offer a downgrade option it is less of an issue.  That said I still find that, on principle, it bothers me and I think that says a lot about my current relationship with Microsoft. 

I've seen a lot of articles that discuss Microsoft and the challenges they face in the future but from the standpoint of one of their corporate customers their biggest challenge is winning back my trust.  Because they don't have it now and I often find myself actively looking for ways to avoid the Microsoft solution these days. 

The reason for that is largely that the company has gotten to the point where they simply don't seem to care what I think anymore.

This XP decision is the perfect example of that.  They released a new OS which offered very little and which no one was interested in.  Then, rather than just accept that, they chose to force their customers into buying it.  The message is very clearly "you will do what we say whether you like it or not" and honestly that's not a message I'm comfortable with.

The true irony though is that it didn't even work.  The path they chose was so anti-customer that their own distributors chose to reverse it (albeit for a small handling fee).  So not only are they the bad guy but they're an incompetent bad guy at that. 

So I ask myself, if I weren't already locked into Microsoft products would I really be doing business with them?  If someone came up to me on the street and asked if I wanted to do business with an incompetent company that doesn't care what their customers think would I really say "Yes"? 

Of course not and that is something the people at Microsoft should think long an hard about. 

From CNet...

A recent report from Evans Data shows fewer than one in 10 software developers writing applications for Windows Vista this year. Eight percent. This is perhaps made even worse by the corresponding data that shows 49 percent of developers writing applications for Windows XP.

Such appreciation for history is not likely to warm the cockles of Microsoft's heart, especially when Linux is getting lots of love from developers (13 percent writing apps for it this year and 15.5 percent in 2009). The Mac? I don't have any equivalent data via Evans Data. But the Mac OS has rocketed by 380 percent as a targeted development platform, Evans Data told Computerworld.

The numbers don't get much better for Vista in 2009: 24 percent (compared with 29 percent for XP). That's a big step up from 8 percent, but is it a sign of momentum to come or just a temporary stopgap while developers wait until Windows 7?

Now to a certain extent this is disingenuous because people targeting XP are also targeting Vista.  One of Vista's biggest problems is that they made almost all of the significant improvements in Vista available to XP users making Vista a moot point.   Any Windows Forms or WPF application written for XP will run on Vista without modification.

(For those who don't know WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation and is the preferred way to develop Windows Applications now)

Yes WPF applications might look a little nicer on Vista because of the Aero Glass effect and the Anti-Aliasing but most users don't care about jagged edges or nifty see-through effects on their applications so its irrelevant. 

But it does illustrate a bigger problem which is that the Windows Desktop Application market is drying up in many ways.  Lets look at the different types of Apps out there and what has happened in the last few years...

Business/School Applications: To the extent that home users do use this kind of thing Microsoft dominates the market.  So there's really no point to developers even trying for a piece of it.

Education: This market more than any has been decimated by the Web.  A few cheap encyclopedias still remain but for the most part this market is dead.  You do still have educational games but those developers have to sell to schools with broken down PCs meaning they are probably targeting Windows 98 still.

Games: There are still die hard gamers out there but for the most part the era of PC Gaming is dead.  They might not be as powerful but consoles allow developers to have a set feature list to target which means console games almost always look better.  Now that the major consoles support HD there's just not much reason to stick with the PC anymore.

Financial: There are still a few Quicken/Money users out there but my impression after an informal poll of the people around me is that most just use their bank's web site at this point.  Plus with applications like Mint popping up the Desktop market for this type of thing will degrade even further.

Custom: There used to be a very robust market for custom applications used by small businesses and all of those were written for Windows.  But as someone who knows a lot of small business owners I can tell you more and more of those applications are becoming hosted web apps.  Small businesses usually don't have full time IT staff which means they've always relied heavily on the software manufacturer for support.   Hosted apps make supporting these applications much cheaper for that manufacturer so this is just a natural evolution of the market.

To me that's a pretty grim picture for Microsoft.  Add things like Adobe AIR into the mix (which allows developers to write applications that run on multiple platforms) and you have a dark road ahead for Windows desktop development. 

Addendum: The article quotes ITJungle.com as saying Vista's increased security is driving developers away.  They cite "Kernel-level access and User Access Control" as big issues.  To me, that doesn't hold much water.  Any Windows developer is going to be writing .Net applications by now and .Net applications are largely self contained.  I don't see a lot of people needing "kernel level access".  As for the new UAC restrictions I learned how to create a manifest after reading one article so I don't think that's such a biggie either (a Manifest is how you inform the system your application needs to run as elevated.  If the user approves your application to do so that's all there is to getting around UAC)

From a CNet article entitled "Poll: Businesses in U.S. warm to Vista"...

Just under half--48 percent--of IT decision makers in the U.S. are using or evaluating Vista, according to a poll by IT services firm CDW.

CDW's third Windows Vista tracking poll since October 2006, this survey shows a 19 percentage-point increase in adoption since February 2007.

Vista migration is also increasing, with 35 percent of those surveyed saying they are in the process of moving to Vista. Just 12 percent said this last February. Thirteen percent of these migrations are complete and another third are due to be finished by May 2008.

So here's my question: how many disagreeing Vista polls do we have to see before we just stop trusting the polls?  Because I honestly think I've seen every variation of Vista numbers at this point and none of them jive with each other. 

One of the New Years traditions I have is to check out predictions for the next  year from a man who I have affectionately dubbed "PBS-Cringe" (for an explanation of that name, see here) 

For those who don't know me personally you should know that I avoid predictions like the plague.  Not only do I think they are a waste of time but I think they're dangerous because they get people in the wrong mind set by framing the new year based on the perceptions of a person who may not know anything about what they are predicting. 

Anyway, I make one exception for PBS-Cringe because he's had a lot of influence with the engineering types in the past and that gives him a certain level of unique insight. 

This being the first year I've had a blog I wanted to take the opportunity to comment on a few of his predictions...

1) The personal computer will decline (or continue its decline) as our key IT platform, replaced slowly by Internet-centric devices of all kinds from phones to TVs to PDAs. Everything will BE a PC of course, but we won't call them that.

This is one of those things that should happen but more than likely won't. 

The problem with alternate devices is that everyone has a different preference.  So while everyone wants a more customized device they never seem to sell well because they never match the requirements of enough users (who all want something just a little bit different).

The PC form factor may stink but it is the form factor that everyone has grudgingly accepted and that is why they continue to get purchased even as all the other innovative computing devices fall by the way side.  That said, Apple clearly has designs on this area and if anyone could make it happen I'd put my money on them.

2) This one is really for 2009 but I know we'll see the effects in 2008. The DTV conversion, where U.S. analog broadcast television stations are turned off in February 2009 and we all have to switch to digital TVs or to cable or satellite or buy those DTV converter boxes, well this whole conversion thing is going to be an absolute disaster. I don't expect technical problems at all, but the public won't understand it, the government will blow it, and at the last moment some politicians will even try to cancel it. But it's still only TV, right?

I'm not sure that predicting government incompetence is that hard but an easy prediction isn't necessarily an incorrect one.  The only thing that makes me think this won't get pushed off to 2012 is the fact that its already been pushed off before (the original date was 2006 I believe).  At this point they almost have to get this done for fear that it will never happen. 

That said, while I think some people will have trouble with it I think anyone with an ounce of technical savvy will skate through this just fine.   This is shaping up to be a lot more like the Y2K fears than any serious problem.

5) Here's a risky one. Google will bid billions and win the upcoming 700-MHz wireless spectrum auction, which is an auction for frequencies that are actually much more useful for a voice network than for a data network. Then Google will impose its open access rules on the frequencies before either TRADING them to Sprint or simply ACQUIRING Sprint to get that company's WiMax licenses, which are what Google really wanted all along.

This, to me, is a great insight and much more likely than the comical idea that Google would actually acquire Sprint for its cellular assets.  I still don't think the Sprint part is going to happen but I do think Google is going to make a serious push for some kind of dominance in the mobile market. 

That said, far more savvy companies have tried that in the past and failed.  I'm not saying Google will fail I'm simply saying a lot of money and desire is not enough to secure victory on its own. 

7) Microsoft will indefinitely extend the life of Windows XP, acknowledging the failure of Windows Vista, which will require another generation of hardware (and another $5 billion in R&D) to finally look good three years from now.

Yeah, this is almost a certainty at this point.  I've honestly come to the point where I think Vista may take the crown from Windows ME as Windows' biggest disaster.  I can honestly say I've never seen Vista work either fast or well on any PC and any corporate person who is thinking of installing it is to be looked on with suspicion.  Even the consumers who usually eat up whatever is handed to them are starting to reject Vista.  It's a catastrophe.

That said, Microsoft can take some comfort in the fact that people still aren't jumping to the Mac en masse.  The problem with building a cult around your products is that it tends to repel people not wanting to be in a cult which is the only explanation I can think of for why consumers would opt for a PC with an OS from 2001 rather than a brand new Mac.

The big Techmeme story of the day is that 73% of Americans haven't even heard of online office alternatives.  To quote Duncan Riley of TechCrunch...

Google and others are working hard to change the way businesses use basic services such as wordprocessing with a continued marketing push into the enterprise sector. The challenge is to overcome over 25+ years of what people consider to be normal (desktop apps) by proving that the online alternative is ready and capable of being used. There’s little doubt today, at least based on OS X and Linux adoption figures that there is a very real and definite move away from Microsoft, accelerated by the disaster that is Vista. Whilst there are always desktop alternatives on both platforms, there will be a continuing number of users who question the need to buy Microsoft Office, be that as an upgrade for an existing OS, or brand new as they switch to Mac. It’s a slow switch, but given the online alternatives there is little doubt that the number making the switch to online apps will continue to grow.

I think there is a lot of truth to the above statement but the one thing I would add is that I think the real disaster Microsoft is going to face (in this arena) isn't Vista its Office 2007. 

Office 2007 is deceptive because its received fairly positive reviews from the type of people who review things for a living.  But as someone who has done usability testing with actual users I can say it was nothing short of a disaster.  The new UI essentially makes the suite a new program so what you get is either users digging through tabs trying desperately to find the command they need or users trying repeatedly to use shortcuts that no longer work.   All the time what they are really trying to do is unlearn over a decade worth of previously gained knowledge of Office.  It wasn't a pretty sight and when people go to upgrade I think they'll find they're essentially choosing from two all new solutions.  One of which is free.

Again, not good for Microsoft.

That said, until the online office crowd wises up and makes some kind of solution like Google's Search Appliance for these suites I don't think they'll get much traction in the enterprise.  No serious enterprise is going to put all their data on Google's servers given the lack of guarantees that Google offers up in regards to that data. 

Microsoft’s main message in its communications with press and bloggers this week is that they should take another look at Vista. The Softies acknowledge now that the product got off to a rough start, in terms of missing drivers, application compatibility and overall performance and reliability. But as a result of numerous Vista updates pushed out over Windows Update, as well as changes that ISVs and hardware makers have made to their products, Vista is now running a lot more smoothly and reliably than it did a year ago, Nash said.“A lot of the first imressions that enterprise users were having with Vista were at home,” Nash said. Initially, those experiences may not have been as solid as Microsoft and its users were hoping. “But now that experience is changing,” Nash said.

As has been the case with Vista for a while now, Microsoft misses the point here.  The real issue isn’t that Vista had problems out of the gate; every OS has problems out of the gate.  The issue with Vista is that to this day I can find no earthly reason to upgrade my companies’ PCs to it.

The advantages between it and XP Service Pack 2 are minimal at best and in many ways (such as with the new UI) it makes more sense to stay with XP.  I really don’t need fancy looking windows on my corporate computers particularly when they take up tons of processing power.   As far as security is concerned the reality is that I’m doing just fine.  The combination of XP SP2, a decent firewall and virus/malware protection has served me quite well.  It has been over 3 years since my last real security problem (though now that I’ve said that I’m sure I can expect one shortly) 

Microsoft needs to accept that Vista is a disaster and just move on.  Even putting aside my corporate needs as an IT manager Vista is the first Microsoft OS since ’95 that I didn’t rush to upgrade to (I was an OS/2 guy back then).  I just have no interest and I’m not the only one.  So Microsoft, if you have any sense, cut your losses here.  Split the upcoming Windows 7 into two releases and implement half the features by the end of 2008 rather than 2010.  Give yourself a fighting chance. 

Because honestly, I’m the head of a Windows IT shop that programs using .Net and I for the first time am considering a Mac for my next notebook.  That’s very bad for you (especially since the thing holding me back is the fact that I won’t have Visual Studio, a concern most of your users don’t share).